Special 26

One of the biggest cons in Indian history is the inspiration for this film. Couple that with the director, Neeraj Pandey, being of the A Wednesday pedigree the expectations were very high for this film. As the movie opens to a CBI raid at a politician's palace, you are riveted to the screen. Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpai square off as robber and cop, and the setup is complete. Then the ball is dropped as the long shots of the men doing the Reservoir Dog walk with melodramatic background music just grates on your nerves. However the con itself is interesting enough to keep you watching until the end highlighting a missed opportunity to make a good film.

Rating: * +
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Hollow

A woman jumps off a bridge and a young girl drowns in the same river. A week later the young girl's corpse is found and magically reanimated. She of course is possessed and things start going bump at night and even the day. The director tries to use the horror genre to show us the underbelly of prostitution and human trafficking in Vietnam and is all over the place. When you add people throwing up dirty river water, you are confused if there is a comedy element involved here too. A sad letdown from the director who gave us Journey from the Fall.

Rating: * +

Partners In Crime

The dead body of a school girl from a wealthy family is discovered by three of her school mates on a rainy evening. The boys with widely varying personalities find themselves bonding over the incident as they start hunting around for clues to her demise. Initially the it felt like a coming of age film turning in to detective noir, but you soon realize the director is taking us somewhere more dark and sinister. Schoolyard bullying and the loneliness of children are the actual topics examined here under the guise of a murder mystery.

Rating: * * +