Welcome Back signals a week of insipid releases
There's a new batch of releases hitting movie theatres, but it doesn't seem like an exciting week
New Delhi: There’s a new batch of releases hitting movie theatres, but it doesn’t seem like an exciting week.
As the name suggests, Anees Bazmee’s multi-starrer comedy Welcome Back is a sequel to his 2007 hit Welcome. Even veterans like Naseeruddin Shah, Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar and Dimple Kapadia aren’t able to save this utterly insensitive film that NDTV Movies calls “overcrowded and outstretched". The laughs are few and far between and most gags seem stale.
A Bollywood Life reviewer, in an open letter, tells the film makers that the prequel, despite its pointlessness, had not made him want to run out of the theatre. The current edition, with its shoddy editing, dull photography and irritating performances, manages to do that. The jokes are cringe-inducing and it’s sad to see seasoned actors like Shah reduced to something like this.
Releasing alongside is director Munnawar Bhagat’s Lakhon Hain Yahan Dilwale, a romantic drama starring Aditya Pancholi, Vije Bhatia and Krutika Gaekwad that also pays tribute to Hindi film music of the 1960s and 1970s by incorporating it into the narrative. The Times of India calls the film a ham-fest and says it is perfect for the popular Pretentious Movie Reviews with its unintentionally funny performances and plot.
Zee News agrees that it’s a poorly written and executed tale strung together with a medley of old songs. The production values are average and the performances even worse.
For Hollywood fans, director Carmille Delamarre’s action-thriller The Transporter Refueled comes to India this week. The fourth film of the Transporter franchise stars Ed Skrein, Ray Stevenson and Loan Chabanol. Hollywood Reporter is unimpressed with what the reviewer calls “a cinematic bumpy ride". While Skrein, as the lead, lacks the charisma of his predecessor Jason Statham, most fight sequences in the action flick are downright laughable.
Entertainment website ign.com too notes the “illogicality" of some sequences and a couple of mediocre performances but is positive about the action. The reviewer says the film makes sure this isn’t the last of the Transporter franchise.
For Marathi audiences, Sanjay Jadhav brings Tu Hi Re, a romantic film starring Swapnil Joshi, Sai Tamhankar and Tejaswini Pandit. The Maharashtra Times finds the film fairly enjoyable.
Some other releases haven’t inspired any reviews yet. These include Rohan Satghare’s Marathi film The Shadow, Ashok Pavade and Kritina Vartak; Surinder Rihal’s Pu featuring Manasi Naiknjabi comedy Myself Pendu starring Preet Harpal, Sayali Bhagat and Ather Habib; and Oorvazi Irani’s English film The Path of Zarathustra starring Tom Alter, Rushad Rana and Shishir Sharma and Irani.
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