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Ishita Sengupta
Tomatometer-approved critic
Hyperallergic
Ishita Sengupta is a critic, columnist, and podcaster based out of India. She writes on films and shows at the juncture of gender and pop culture.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Chandu Champion (2024) |
In Chandu Champion, Kabir Khan infuses the tested arc of an underdog emerging as a champion with affecting writing, compelling performances and technical bravado. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (2024) |
The problem with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is that it is a feature film when it could have just as well been a Reel — and not even the most engaging one out there
- OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Mr. & Mrs. Mahi (2024) |
Mr. & Mrs. Mahi is a marriage story in the cast of a sports film where the sport serves as a literal binding factor and a metaphor for partnership.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Amar Singh Chamkila (2024) |
Amar Singh Chamkila inherits the disruptive existentialism that has shaped Ali’s career but mostly beats with the restless heart of Rockstar (2011) and the messy pulse of Tamasha (2015). - OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Lost Ladies (2023) |
Laapataa Ladies is a fun, revisionist narrative where all the pointers of patriarchy are turned on their head, but at the same time, it treats feminism as a learned process and not a quick solution.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Do Aur Do Pyaar (2024) |
Shirsha Guha Thakurta's debut film Do Aur Do Pyaar walks the tightrope of love and habit, familiarity and newness, outlining a story about divorce in the cast of love.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Srikanth (2024) |
Hiranandani’s film is a relentless regurgitation of headlines for 134 minutes. Every moment exists to lend heroic subtext to Srikanth. Each scene follows just one arc: Srikanth does something which people were convinced he could not do. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jun 17, 2024
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Maidaan (2024) |
During its sluggish runtime of 181 minutes, Maidaan appears to be too caught up with the mythology of Indian football coach Syed Abdul Rahim to offer any real insights
- OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 10, 2024
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May December (2023) |
Nothing in May December is what it seems. The film unravels in the high-strung beats of a melodrama (Marcelo Zarvos’ music amping up the stakes) but embedded within are revelations fit for a slow-burn horror story.
- The Federal
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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To Kill a Tiger (2022) |
In the documentary, Canadian filmmaker Nisha Pahuja’s colonial gaze is bent on tailoring a narrative that would be more appealing to the West
- The Federal
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Yodha (2024) |
Yodha shares much with Salman Khan’s last release, Tiger 3 — the inflated heroism, the indefatigable bullishness of the central character and even his arc that ranges from being framed as a traitor to emerging as a national hero. - OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR (2023) |
The Eras Tour is a true-blue concert film which makes no allowance for backstage footage or space for backstage footage or space for interviews. There is no pause, let alone an interval. - The Federal
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Ae Watan Mere Watan (2024) |
The film throws a steep dare to the audience, one that tests the limits of their patience and bandwidth of their attention. Ae Watan Mere Watan challenges one to sit through it. - OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Swatantrya Veer Savarkar (2024) |
There is a sickening vanity to Hooda as a filmmaker and performer, matched only by the way he chooses to depict the man at the center. There are no questions asked or aspersions raised. - OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Madgaon Express (2024) |
To treat Madgaon Express as a senseless comedy (as impressive as it is) or a counter-narrative to other films of its genre (as effective as it is) will be doing it a disservice. - OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Crew (2024) |
Despite its casting coup, Crew commits the cardinal sin: it forgets to have fun.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Dukaan (2024) |
Dukaan centres on surrogacy, but unfolds as a cautionary tale on how not to make a film.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Apr 08, 2024
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Crakk: Jeetega... Toh Jiyegaa (2024) |
Crakk is what happens when a filmmaker colludes with his lead actor and decides he will bend every narrative rule to let the latter do what he does best.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Mar 01, 2024
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All India Rank (2023) |
Set during the 90s’, Varun Grover's debut directorial All India Rank unravels as a reassuring time capsule, a throwback to when youth was not held hostage by technology.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Mar 01, 2024
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Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (2024) |
TBMAUJ is what happens when one wants to watch a sanskaari Kabir Singh, the alpha male hero created by director Sandeep Reddy Vanga, who likes his coffee black and women mute. - OTTplay
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| Posted Feb 10, 2024
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Bhakshak (2024) |
The ethos of Bhakshak is similar to Shanker Raman’s Love Hostel which portrayed love jihad and honour killing. Both depict actualities that speak more of the realism of the times we are living in than the specific reality of an incident. - OTTplay
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| Posted Feb 09, 2024
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Agent of Happiness (2024) |
The Sundance-screened documentary follows two government-appointed happiness surveyors who are tasked with meeting people and gauging their happiness.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Feb 06, 2024
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Fighter (2024) |
Anand’s film is what unnamed trolls on X, formerly known as Twitter, often call anyone who does not agree with them: “pseudo secular”. The term is supposed to mean something but it is a vacant usage, signifying nothing. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 27, 2024
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Anyone But You (2023) |
Will Gluck, who has earlier helmed films like Easy A and Friends with Benefits, trades inventive charm for empty predictability in his latest work. - The Federal
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| Posted Jan 20, 2024
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Main Atal Hoon (2024) |
Granted the film focuses on Vajpayee but the gaze is perfunctory, an excuse really to outline a glossed over portrait of India pre and post Partition that villanises anyone and everyone who is not Vajpayee and from his party. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 20, 2024
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Apurva (2023) |
The film is so sluggish even at a runtime of 95 minutes that describing it using easy qualifiers like “bad” or “terrible” does not cut it. Bhat’s outing is unnecessary, and in an ideal world, we would not have to sit through it. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 15, 2024
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Fukrey 3 (2023) |
What has happened with Fukrey 3 is what happens with most successful franchises. Once the initial films are successful, the producers keep expanding the series to cater to an existing audience and milking it for money. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 15, 2024
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The Great Indian Family (2023) |
Vijay Krishna Acharya’s The Great Indian Family, an endlessly moving film that is suffused with good humour, trains its lens on such adults but speaks in the easy language of a child - OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 15, 2024
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Tejas (2023) |
Sarvesh Mewara’s Tejas is a woefully bad film that has the confidence to centre on a rescue mission when in reality it needs one itself.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 15, 2024
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The Archies (2023) |
The problem plaguing the film is similar to what affected Akhtar’s previous work, the expansive new season of Made in Heaven. The politics, albeit correct, constantly hangs on the narrative. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 15, 2024
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Merry Christmas (2024) |
20 years since familiarising us with his tailored gore, Sriram Raghavan plunges his hands inside his trove of tales, threatening us with more mayhem. But what comes out is a beating heart. He calls it Merry Christmas.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Jan 15, 2024
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Good Grief (2023) |
If Dan Levy's popular show Schitt's Creek made a compelling case of banking on goodness from the most improbable of sources, Good Grief extends that thought. At its heart, the film is a gentle exposition of the goodness of grief.
- The Federal
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| Posted Jan 07, 2024
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Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023) |
Arjun Varain Singh’s directorial debut is a film of our times that watches us watching it with phones in hand; it is a coming of age tale that reckons with the disillusionment of living in an age where being connected thrives on discontentment. - OTTplay
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| Posted Dec 28, 2023
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Dunki (2023) |
Dunki, with its laboured storytelling, long humourless stretches of action, and simplistic approach, culminates as an uninspiring collaboration between an actor and a director, both of whom prove to be woefully dated. - OTTplay
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| Posted Dec 22, 2023
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Joram (2023) |
Joram is a social tragedy masquerading as a survival thriller. And it unfolds as a clear-eyed commentary on the system that camouflages its devouring instinct as progress. It is a story of the many India(s) that reside in one India. - OTTplay
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| Posted Dec 09, 2023
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Sam Bahadur (2023) |
Sam Bahadur is a sprawling biopic on Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw that traverses four decades of his life (from the 1930s to the ‘70s, when he retired from the services) but can be distilled to an uncritical portrait of his persona. - OTTplay
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| Posted Dec 05, 2023
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Animal (2023) |
It is easy to dismiss Animal as an indulgent film, one that achieves none of what it sets out to. It is. It is repulsive, revolting, and one-and-a-half- hours too long. But it is also a film that unravels as retaliation. - OTTplay
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| Posted Dec 05, 2023
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Tiger 3 (2023) |
The third instalment, however, is the most ambivalent in the Tiger series so far. The film awkwardly straddles the thin line between mindless fan service and engaging entertainer, and concludes as a little bit of both and none at all. - OTTplay
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| Posted Nov 14, 2023
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Pippa (2022) |
Menon’s outing is an addition in the long list of Hindi films that use warfare as an excuse to make a case for malignant nationalism. - OTTplay
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| Posted Nov 10, 2023
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Khufiya (2023) |
Khufiya is that rare Bharadwaj film where the personal and social collapse into one another, leaving behind a limp political crisis. - OTTplay
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| Posted Oct 05, 2023
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Sukhee (2023) |
Sukhee joins an increasing list of outings that intends uncovering the feminist undertones of being a homemaker, something that traditionally has been looked down upon. But in doing so, it also sees it as a problem that needs solving. - OTTplay
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| Posted Sep 22, 2023
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Suspect X (2023) |
An accompanying predicament of watching Jaane Jaan is reckoning with this duality. The writing (Ghosh and Raj Vasant are credited) is patchy but the three actors on screen are so mesmerising that till the most part they make you take no notice of it.
- OTTplay
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| Posted Sep 22, 2023
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Jawan (2023) |
Jawan unfolds as a terrific star vehicle that never assumes the monstrosity of a vanity project. The reason being the director does not exalt Khan as much as revamps the way we are conditioned to look at him. - OTTplay
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| Posted Sep 07, 2023
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Friday Night Plan (2023) |
In more ways than one, the film is about fitting in. It is about rites of passage and youth. Hindi films generally have a way of going about the transition by imbuing the age with unlikeability. - OTTplay
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| Posted Sep 02, 2023
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Dream Girl 2 (2023) |
Dream Girl 2 unfolds as an episode straight out of the comedy shows except it has a budget, more actors and pretends to be a film. At all times, multiple characters enter and exit the frame. - OTTplay
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| Posted Aug 25, 2023
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Akelli (2023) |
In the filmmaker's intent of showcasing the protagonist's strength, the filmmaker confuses courage with bravery, instinctiveness with deliberation. - OTTplay
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| Posted Aug 25, 2023
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Ghoomer (2023) |
Ghoomer, R Balki’s latest outing, unfolds as a reiteration of this troubled, gifted male coach-meets-prodigy premise, blithely heedless about its datedness and problematic undertones. - OTTplay
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| Posted Aug 18, 2023
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Gadar 2 (2023) |
By the time the film concludes, it becomes amply clear that Sharma’s objective of making Gadar 2 is to encash on the current volatile climate of the country. It is to claim his share in a pie he was one of the firsts to make. - OTTplay
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| Posted Aug 11, 2023
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OMG 2 (2023) |
The intent of OMG 2 is not too hard to understand. At a time when the Hindu religion has come to be identified with regressive mandates, Rai seeks to step in and remind how progressive it has been since time immemorial. - OTTplay
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| Posted Aug 11, 2023
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Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) |
Karan Johar's latest film is a fascinating example of the filmmaker finally reckoning with the patriarchal undertones of tradition. Questions of gender and representation writ large in his oeuvre but they also lean on regressive caricatures. - OTTplay
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| Posted Jul 28, 2023
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