Anupama Chopra is the editor and founder of Film Companion.
Articles by Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Himmatwala
More than anything, Himmatwala is a reminder of why the ’80s are considered the worst decade in Hindi cinema. The film is an excruciating experience. It begins with a close-up of a disco ball, and it’s downhill from there. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Mar 30, 2013 10:30 AM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: Rangrezz
Rangrezz is an over-wrought melodrama that has stray moments of power but is ultimately too convoluted to be convincing. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Mar 23, 2013 11:26 AM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: Aatma
Early on in Aatma, a cop investigating the murder of a young boy says: 'I have a bad feeling about this'. He took the words right out of my mouth. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Mar 23, 2013 11:30 AM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: Jolly LLB
Jolly LLB is a feel-good satire in the best sense of the term. Writer-director Subhash Kapoor tells his story with conviction, skillfully creating a theatre of the absurd.
Updated on Mar 16, 2013 11:13 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster Returns
In Saheb Biwi aur Gangster Returns, writer-director Tigmanshu Dhulia takes us back to that deliciously decadent world of decaying, modern-day royalty in Uttar Pradesh that he created in Saheb Biwi aur Gangster, writes Anupama Chopra.
Updated on Mar 09, 2013 01:19 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: The Attacks of 26/11
The good news is that The Attacks of 26/11 is one of the better films Ram Gopal Varma has made in recent years. The bad news is that Varma's last few films were duds like Department and Bhoot Returns so the bar is set very low. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Mar 02, 2013 11:22 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra shares first-hand Oscars experience
It's the greatest awards show to honour films; we get a first-person account from the red carpet and behind-the-scenes moments you won't catch on TV.
Updated on Feb 26, 2013 06:57 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra, Robin Bansal, Mumbai
Anupama Chopra's review: Kai po che!
Kai Po Che! is a moving portrait of friendship, loss, forgiveness. Working from Chetan Bhagat's best-seller The 3 Mistakes of My Life, co-writer and director Abhishek Kapoor lovingly constructs a deep and abiding camaraderie. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Feb 24, 2013 02:23 PM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: Murder 3
Over the last ten years, the brothers Bhatt - Mahesh and Mukesh - have perfected the art of the high-concept, low-budget franchise. Think Jannat, Raaz and, of course, Murder. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Feb 16, 2013 11:40 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: ABCD
Taking a cue from Hollywood's Step Up series, director-choreographer Remo D'Souza packs in a television dance competition, several elaborate dance sequences, a romantic rivalry and the requisite rich-poor divide. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Feb 13, 2013 11:04 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Special 26
Special 26 is the best Hindi film I’ve seen this year. Inspired by a real-life heist in 1987, writer-director Neeraj Pandey constructs an elaborate cat-and-mouse chase between cops and robbers. Except, here, you’re rooting for the bad guys, writes Anupama Chopra.
Updated on Feb 10, 2013 12:50 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Vishwaroop
Vishwaroop has to be admired for its scale and ambition. Kamal Haasan attempts to give the terrorists a context. The film shows us the damage inflicted by America’s war on terror. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Feb 02, 2013 12:29 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Race 2
Race 2 is essentially a big-budget cartoon in which coolness is all. The director duo Abbas-Mustan have no pretensions about what they are making - full-on masala with a dash of revenge. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Jan 28, 2013 02:25 PM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: Inkaar
Sixty-three years ago, in the classic Rashomon, director Akira Kurosawa showed us that truth is slippery, subjective and ultimately unknowable. In Inkaar, writer-director Sudhir Mishra attempts a similar take on sexual politics in the workplace.
Updated on Jan 19, 2013 12:26 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra, New Delhi
Anupama Chopra's review: Table No. 21
Table No. 21 is the sort of determinedly silly movie that can make fine actors like Paresh Rawal and Rajeev Khandelwal look foolish. Echoing films as diverse as Oldboy and Slumdog Millionaire, director Aditya Datt creates a reality game show-revenge saga that gathers some steam in the last act, but its too late, writes Anupama Chopra.
Updated on Jan 05, 2013 11:42 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Khiladi 786
Box office figures suggest that many people enjoy this school of cheerfully moronic cinema, but Khiladi 786 really isn’t my idea of a good time. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Dec 09, 2012 01:02 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra, Mumbai
Anupama Chopra review: Talaash
To watch Talaash is to embark on a passionate love affair that ends in frustration because the object of your desire reveals itself to be shallow and depressingly ordinary. In short, a profound anti-climax. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Dec 01, 2012 11:14 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Son Of Sardaar review by Anupama Chopra
In the hands of director and co-writer Ashwni Dhir, it has become one of those high-decibel, low-IQ masala movies that hit the screen every few months. Son of Sardaar made me miss Rohit Shetty, the reigning king of this type of cinema.
Updated on Nov 15, 2012 12:45 AM IST
Jab Tak Hai Jaan review by Anupama Chopra
You don't go to a Yash Chopra movie to delve into realism or the messiness of relationships. You go to partake in a fantasy of swooning, idealised love - and Jab Tak Hai Jaan delivers plenty of that.
Updated on Nov 15, 2012 12:43 AM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana
Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana is about the frantic search for a much-coveted recipe for chicken curry. Directed by debutant Sameer Sharma and co-produced by Anurag Kashyap, it has been pitched as Bollywood's first food film. But the curry is merely a plot device.
Updated on Nov 03, 2012 02:54 PM IST
Hindustantimes.com | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Student of the Year
Karan Johar's forte is excess. He creates fantastical worlds brimming with beautiful people and expensive things and yet anchors them in high emotion. His films work as both designer porn and soap opera.
Updated on Oct 20, 2012 02:27 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Makkhi
Makkhi is the most outlandish film I've seen in years. It's also the most fun I've had in a theatre recently. This is the dubbed Hindi version of Eega, which was released earlier in Tamil, Telegu and Malayalam, but nothing has been lost in translation.
Updated on Oct 13, 2012 11:58 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Aiyyaa
Aiyyaa is a bewilderingly odd film. In 2009, writer-director Sachin Kundalkar made a film called Gandha, which consisted of three short stories. Here he adapts one of these stories about a girl with a heightened sense of smell.
Updated on Oct 13, 2012 06:52 PM IST
Anupama Chopra's review: English Vinglish
English Vinglish is that rare thing – a Hindi film that creates a heroine out of a homemaker. Shashi, played by Sridevi, is a beautiful, accomplished woman who efficiently manages her home, husband, mother-in-law and two children.
Updated on Oct 06, 2012 01:46 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra, Mumbai
Anupama Chopra's review: OMG Oh My God!
OMG Oh My God! is about something that touches all our lives - religion. It is a film about our relationship with God, how instead of being God-loving, we have become God-fearing. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Oct 05, 2012 11:16 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Heroine
There’s alcohol, affairs, a sex tape and even – gasp – a lesbian one-night stand. But Heroine doesn’t even deliver the frisson of a good Stardust story. It’s limp and, more incredibly, boring. Anupama Chopra reviews.
Updated on Sep 22, 2012 02:03 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Indian filmmakers experience ‘Toronto’s embrace’
The ongoing Toronto International Festival, which had a special focus on Mumbai this year, saw a huge presence of Indian cinema, Anupama Chopra writes. Hot Titles at TIFF
Updated on Sep 16, 2012 01:27 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Barfi
In Barfi, writer-director Anurag Basu creates a gossamer, fairy-tale world. Sometime in the 1970s, somewhere in the misty hills of Darjeeling, a penniless but irresistibly charming deaf-mute boy named Barfi gets the prettiest girl in town to kiss him. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Sep 15, 2012 01:00 AM IST
None | Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra's review: Joker
Joker testifies to the power of the star in Bollywood. It is staggeringly inept. I can't imagine that it was persuasive even as a concept. Yet it got made, in all likelihood because Akshay Kumar said yes. Anupama Chopra writes.
Updated on Sep 02, 2012 09:39 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Anupama Chopra
It’s all in the stars
Event films in Hollywood are driven by concepts and characters. But in Bollywood, the actor dwarfs everything else, writes Anupama Chopra.
Updated on Aug 26, 2012 11:53 PM IST