Shadow Assassins, Review: If ULFA cannot get you, SULFA will India’s north-eastern state of Assam has always been a hotbed of militancy. Here is an excerpt from a 27 January 2022 report published in Outlook, by Nitin A. Gokhale “In a major fratricidal attack, militants of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) killed 14 of their former comrades, known collectively as SULFA (for surrendered ULFA) in upper Assam's Dibrugarh district, on Thursday morning. Ten other SU...

Bachchan Paandey, Review: Gangsters are best played by real-life gangsters Why would you choose a name like Bachchan Pandey, unless you thought you could cash-in on the franchises called Amitabh Bachchan (name of a real life actor) and Chulbul Pandey (name of a reel-life character, played in several movies by Salman Khan)? Point is, does a superstar himself, like Akshay Kumar, who plays the title role, need these props? Leaving the Paandey behind, ‘Bachchan’ is made to speak some ...

Chhichhore, Review: Posers for losers, choosers and imposers Few ideas would be more contradictory than a parent’s attempt to revive his dying son by calling his college mates to the Intensive Care Unit of a posh hospital and collectively narrating to him, in some detail, their recollections of the hellcyon days they spent in a college hostel, as a bunch of slimy, gooey, swearing, cheating, boozing, smoking, rude, flippant, frivolous ‘losers’. All this is done in the hope th...

Photograph, Review: Ode dear If only vignettes and mosaics could add up to a good script, Photograph would look refreshingly different. If improvised dialogue and incomplete scenes could substitute for a coherent narrative, Photograph would find its place in the album of memorable cinema. Forlornly, though, Ritesh Batra’s Photograph unpeels itself like the layers of an onion, offering emptiness at the end of the exercise, instead of discovery and resonance. Arriving with a sumptuous tr...