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Member Reviews

No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough. Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

You can also browse reviews using our alphabetical index of films reviewed

Films reviewed on this Page

Citadel: Honey Bunny (3)
Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare (1)
Longlegs (1)
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (1)
Singham Again (1)
Nikosh Chhaya (1)
The Midwife's Confession (1)
Bandaa Singh Chaudhary (1)

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Citadel: Honey Bunny
Shubhra Gupta
The Indian Express
Samantha Ruth Prabhu explodes off the screen in Raj and DK’s clunky series

So, where does that leave Varun Dhawan? Why, readying for his Terminator avatar, which looks as if it is going to kick-start the next season. But in this one, it is Samantha Ruth Prabhu all the way.

First things first: all hail the arrival of Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cinema’s first real female action star who demands our attention from the get-go and never loses it through the six part series, Citadel: Honey Bunny. She’s coiled, ready for action, exploding off the screen whenever the script demands it of her, and the demand stays consistently high. As the family woman-cum-spry spy, who will do anything to protect her daughter, Samantha’s Honey is the best part of this enterprise, directed and written by Raj and DK (Sita Menon also gets writing and directing credit), and executive produced by the Russo Bros.

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All 10 reviews of Citadel: Honey Bunny here

Citadel: Honey Bunny
Rahul Desai
The Hollywood Reporter India
Will The Real Raj & DK Please Stand Up?

The Indian spy drama is shackled by the Hollywood franchise it expands

Citadel: Honey Bunny is a catchy title. In fact, you can almost hear it. “Honey Bunny” instantly evokes the viral Idea Cellular ad jingle from 2012: you’re my pumpkin pumpkin/hello honey bunny. But there’s more to the earworm than a Pulp Fiction tribute or a term of endearment. The commercial itself showed a traveler infecting different parts of the country with a tune; the cutesy lyrics, too, felt like the collective sound of couples staying connected across regions. It’s not a stretch to suggest that Citadel: Honey Bunny — whose pan-world premise features a pan-Indian adventure of a couple named Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) and Bunny (Varun Dhawan) — is a long-form descendent of the jingle. It’s totally on brand for director duo Raj & DK, who thrive on affectionate pop-cultural nods, cinephilia and retro references.

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All 10 reviews of Citadel: Honey Bunny here

Citadel: Honey Bunny
Priyanka Roy
The Telegraph
Citadel: Honey Bunny - Fails to soar.

A man, holding a gun, chases a woman through the nooks and crannies of Belgrade. Finding himself in a cul-de-sac of sorts, he sees her pointing a gun back at him. “Put your gun down,” she barks at him. He, a seasoned special agent, lets go of his gun and promptly gets shot. The law of probability points to the fact that if he had held on to the gun, there would be a 50 per cent chance of him being shot and a 50 per cent chance of him being able to shoot the woman in front of him. When he drops the gun, for no explainable reason, he makes that probability convert to a 100 per cent chance against him.

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All 10 reviews of Citadel: Honey Bunny here

Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare
Priyanka Roy
The Telegraph
Sweet Bobby exposes chilling catfish deception.

Even seasoned true-crime documentary aficionados will be left perplexed and very, very uncomfortable by what unfolds in this recently released watch on Netflix. A large part of that has to do with the fact that Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare feels both relatable and ridiculous at the same time and brings to the fore the dark abyss that is the Internet as well as exposes the shocking depths that human apathy can plunge to.

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Longlegs
Priyanka Roy
The Telegraph
Nicolas Cage builds dread and darkness in Longlegs.

As is the norm in promoting any product these days, in the run-up to its theatrical release, Longlegs fell back on social media influencers to market it as the ‘scariest film of the year’. A far more interesting promotional campaign, which quickly went viral, included cryptic ads in newspapers, billboards across Los Angeles comprising nothing but a phone number which, when called, had actor Nicolas Cage, who plays the titular character, whisper ‘threats’ to listeners. A true-crime website was specially designed to detail the antecedents of Longlegs’ long list of victims. A modestly budgeted horror film was turned into an event, which made everyone ask: is Longlegs the most terrifying film in recent times?

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Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3
Kshitij Rawat
Lifestyle Asia
Who is the real Manjulika?

It has been 17 years since Bhool Bhulaiyaa released and introduced to the world the unforgettable mystery of Manjulika, supposedly a vengeful spirit that wandered around the halls of an ancient palace. But the appeal of the movie lay not in the scares, but the twist at the end: that Avni was not possessed at all and, in fact, there was no ghost, just superstition masking the reality of mental illness. But in the sequel, and now Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, Manjulika is no longer a psychological manifestation but a genuine spirit.

In this horror comedy movie, Kartik Aaryan returns as Ruhaan or Rooh Baba, a self-proclaimed ghostbuster. We find him swindling people out of their money by claiming to get rid of evil spirits possessing their family members or haunting their houses. However, his pretty profitable career brings him to a new case in which he comes face to face with something he is not prepared to deal with an actual, honest-to-goodness ghost.

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All 12 reviews of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 here

Singham Again
Shilajit Mitra
The Hindu
Ajay Devgn returns in deathly dull franchise

Half a dozen cameos and a Ramayana-inspired plotline cannot mask the creative shortfall of Rohit Shetty’s latest cop universe film

There was a time, not long ago, when Hindi blockbuster cinema could stand on its own — distinguishable, say, from mythological soap operas and tacky non-fiction programming on satellite TV. But the laziness and opportunism of the last few years have all but vaporized that distinction. It leaves the theatre-going audience in two minds. Adipurush (2023) was laughably inept yet insistently pious and grim. The same applies to Singham Again, ostensibly an action potboiler and an Avengers-like ‘team-up’ movie but playing like an ad for the tourism ministry’s Ramayana trail.

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All 13 reviews of Singham Again here

Nikosh Chhaya
Shamayita Chakraborty
OTT Play
Kanchan Mullick shines in this creepy drama

Parambrata Chatterjee brings the second season of Bhaduri Moshai drama with Chiranjeet Chakraborty, Gaurab Chatterjee, Surangana Bandyopadhyay, Kanchan Mullick and others.

A couple of corpses disappear from a morgue. Police officer Amiya (Gaurab Chakrabarty) and his team start investigating. They learn about a little stinky monster, Genu, who reminds him of an old story. Amiya and Titas (Anindita Bose) remember that their old friend Sanjay (Anujoy Chatterjee) told them a story of a similar monster 10 years ago and both the descriptions match. That’s when Amiya seeks help from Bhaduri Moshai (Chiranjeet Chakraborty).

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The Midwife's Confession
Deepak Dua
Independent Film Journalist & Critic
चौंकाती, दहलाती ‘द मिडवाइफ्स कन्फैशन’

‘लड़की के मुंह में नमक डाल कर मुंह दबा देते थे, या फिर यूरिया खाद डाल देते थे, कई बार गर्दन पकड़ कर भी मरोड़ देते थे तो बच्ची मर जाती थी।’ बिहार के गांवों में दाई का काम करने वाली महिलाएं जब यह कहती हैं तो सुन कर दिल दहल जाता है। सच तो यह है कि बी.बी.सी. के यू-ट्यूब चैनल पर आई एक घंटे की डॉक्यूमैंट्री ‘द मिडवाइफ्स कन्फैशन’ (The Midwife’s Confession) देखते हुए दिल एक बार नहीं, कई बार दहलता है, बेचैन होता है, चौंकता है, उछलता है और डूबने भी लगता है।

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Bandaa Singh Chaudhary
Deepak Dua
Independent Film Journalist & Critic
हर ’बंदा’ सिनेमा का ‘चौधरी’ नहीं होता

अस्सी के दशक के पंजाब के बारे में मुमकिन है नई पीढ़ी के लोग खुल कर न जानते हों। उन्हें यह न पता हो कि सांझे चूल्हों और साझी विरासत वाली पंजाब की धरती पर उन दिनों फसलों की हरियाली से ज़्यादा बेकसूरों के खून की लाली दिखती थी। कुछ लोग थे जो परायों के बहकावे में आकर अपनों को ही मार रहे थे। जहां एक तरफ हिन्दुओं को चुन-चुन कर मारा जा रहा था और उन्हें पंजाब छोड़ने पर मजबूर किया जा रहता वहीं दूसरी तरफ सिक्ख भी पूरी तरह से सुरक्षित नहीं थे। लेकिन उस माहौल में बंदा सिंह चौधरी जैसे कुछ लोग थे जिन्होंने पलायन करने, डरने या मरने की बजाय मुकाबला करने का रास्ता चुना था। यह फिल्म ’बंदा सिंह चौधरी’ उस एक बंदे के बहाने से ऐसे लोगों के जुझारूपन की कहानी दिखाती है।

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