Rachel Saltz
Tomatometer-approved critic
New York Times film critic.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Gulabo Sitabo (2020) |
Star power aside, it's more chamber work than symphony, more character study than Bollywood blowout. Refreshing on all counts. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 12, 2020
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Pyaar Impossible (2010) |
Pyaar Impossible shouldn't work, but does. It's sweet, and as formula goes, deftly done and satisfying. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Panga (2020) |
Ranaut's Jaya... elevates the movie, putting the story across better than the script can. Ranaut makes Jaya credible and specific; she's not an every woman or every mom or every athlete. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 26, 2020
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The Dragon Painter (1919) |
[Hayakawa gives] a wonderful performance that's part comic, part plain odd... The film is a kind of visually sophisticated fairy tale, with tinting (best is the moonlit blue of the night scenes) and neatly composed interiors and silhouettes. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 27, 2019
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Dabangg 3 (2019) |
"Dabangg 3" is earnest, and it earnestly wants to deliver thrills. To do so, though, it would have to provide that other essential Bollywood ingredient: emotion. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 22, 2019
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Chhichhore (2019) |
Strains to be an inspirational comedy tear-jerker (Bollywood-wise, a reasonable genre) but mostly seems programmatic and timid. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 08, 2019
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Saaho (2019) |
The movie is crisply, sometimes stylishly shot, but it's too muddled to be slick and too lacking in charm to establish any emotional stakes. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 01, 2019
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Nureyev: Lifting the Curtain (2018) |
Nureyev's sure sense of drama in telling his story isn't matched by the Morrises. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 06, 2019
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Kalank (2019) |
Dialogue scenes can be static, stand-and-deliver affairs. And Mr. Varman leaves the actors at sea; when the script calls for character complexity, the result usually reads as incoherence. - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 19, 2019
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Super Deluxe (2019) |
What was mostly delicate and offbeat tips into something cruder and messier. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 29, 2019
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Total Dhamaal (2019) |
A movie that for all its crassness, comic and commercial, is basically good-spirited. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 24, 2019
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Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019) |
[D]elivering the message of love and tolerance that is this movie's reason to be. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 01, 2019
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Padmaavat (2018) |
A lavish 3-D pageant with the depth of a children's pop-up book. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 26, 2018
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Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009) |
Ms. Mukherjee's enthusiasm is catchy, and when Veera delivers a feminist speech at the end, she's moving, too. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 31, 2017
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The Black Prince (2017) |
A dramatic life does not necessarily a dramatic film make. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 20, 2017
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Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017) |
Hindi cinema conventions and Mr. Khaitan's script may constrict Vaidehi's options, but Ms. Bhatt cannot be contained. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 12, 2017
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Raees (2017) |
Avoiding flabby subplots, Mr. Dholakia keeps "Raees" taut and suspenseful, even at two and a half hours, though it probably has a song too many. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 26, 2017
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M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016) |
The movie, written and directed by Neeraj Pandey, is not hagiographic or overly obvious. Instead, it's something of a quiet muddle, with too many squandered or dramatically blurry scenes. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 02, 2016
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Mohenjo Daro (2016) |
Mr. Roshan, an appealing dancer, works hard to twinkle his way into our affections and make Sarmar something more than a cardboard hero. He can't, but the effort is appreciated. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 15, 2016
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Baaghi: A Rebel for Love (1990) |
Mostly "Baaghi" is a fight movie, and a slightly dull one at that, overstuffed with boom-boom set pieces. - New York Times
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| Posted May 02, 2016
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Kapoor & Sons -- Since 1921 (2016) |
Even though "Kapoor & Sons" goes from lightly comic to more darkly dramatic to pretty overtly melodramatic, it never loses its lived-in quality or plunges into the absurd. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 20, 2016
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Fitoor (2016) |
"Fitoor" doesn't get much political resonance out of its Kashmiri setting, though the wintry sadness of the first scenes has power. Nor does it get much resonance out of class differences between Noor and Firdaus. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 11, 2016
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Saala Khadoos (2016) |
Ms. Kongara seems to know the clichés of fighter movies and is mostly unembarrassed to embrace them. That keeps the film humming along, as does Mr. Madhavan, who grows in stature along with Adi. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 31, 2016
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Bajirao Mastani (2015) |
The central pair of defiant lovers are never particularly convincing as convention-busters, nor are they as appealing as the rooms they inhabit or the clothes they wear. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 17, 2015
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Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015) |
With its full complement of lavishly produced song-and-dance numbers, its filmi heroes and villains, and a two-hour, 40-minute runtime, "Prem" hews closely to the old-style Bollywood formula. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 16, 2015
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India's Daughter (2014) |
"India's Daughter" is a portrait of a place and time. And for all of its horrors, the movie has a positive message, too: Out of tragedy - and this case is just one of many - can come galvanizing change. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 22, 2015
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Guilty (2015) |
Mr. Khan is this movie's best weapon. Playing a familiar character type, the world-weary detective, he gives a performance, full of small, sly details, that doesn't seem familiar at all. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 05, 2015
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(undefined) |
With its light silent comedy, Mr. Wenders's film presents movie history as a meeting of the inventive and the inevitable - a playful lark. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 17, 2015
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Paul Taylor: Creative Domain (2014) |
Ms. Geis wisely plants her camera in the rehearsal room, and mostly leaves it there. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 10, 2015
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Brothers ... Blood Against Blood (2015) |
As David's trainer tells him: "The world is cruel, master. It laughs at your pain." And it applauds your pain, too, especially the punishing physical kind. It's up to you to keep the tears flowing. - New York Times
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| Posted Aug 14, 2015
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Bombay Velvet (2015) |
For much of its first half, Bombay Velvet hums with the kind of energy found in movies by the 1970s American directors Mr. Kashyap seems to admire. (Martin Scorsese is thanked in the head credits.) - New York Times
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| Posted May 21, 2015
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Piku (2015) |
Bhashkor is not your typical Bollywood papa, and "Piku," directed by Shoojit Sircar from a script by Juhi Chaturvedi, isn't a typical Hindi movie. - New York Times
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| Posted May 07, 2015
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Dostana (2008) |
It irreverently normalizes a topic that has been virtually absent from screens in India (where gay sex is still technically illegal), and does so using contemporary Bollywood's best not-so-secret weapon: star power. - New York Times
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| Posted May 02, 2015
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Detective Byomkesh Bakshy (2015) |
"How do middle-class people like us stand up for our country?" Byomkesh asks Ajit. The teasing answer: "We don't. We go to the movies." - New York Times
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| Posted Apr 06, 2015
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Around the World in 50 Concerts (2014) |
These people's stories unfold in surprising ways, as does Ms. Honigmann's documentary, which mostly avoids the formulaic. - New York Times
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| Posted Mar 02, 2015
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Hawaizaada (2015) |
"Hawaizaada" often fails to soar. Mr. Puri works hard, but the strain shows and so do the movie's seams. - New York Times
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| Posted Feb 02, 2015
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I (2015) |
"I" is exuberant and unselfconscious but too cartoonish to engage your emotions. - New York Times
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| Posted Jan 14, 2015
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PK (2014) |
Mr. Hirani remains an excellent storyteller, weaving his disparate story strands into a convincing, satisfying whole - a rare Bollywood feat. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 19, 2014
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She's Beautiful When She's Angry (2014) |
As filmmaking, "She's Beautiful" is meat and potatoes: It gets the job done without frills. - New York Times
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| Posted Dec 04, 2014
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Kill Dil (2014) |
Mr. Ali's movie has glimmers of reality and even of a social conscience. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 16, 2014
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Getting to the Nutcracker (2014) |
This is a sympathetic, even sweet, account, but it's too soft. - New York Times
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| Posted Nov 06, 2014
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Haider (2014) |
"Haider" may not be the equal of Mr. Bhardwaj's other Shakespeare films, and it may be deficient in the "Hamlet" department, but it certainly gives good Gertrude. - New York Times
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| Posted Oct 02, 2014
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Finding Fanny (2014) |
Dimple Kapadia's prosthetic butt is emblematic of Homi Adajania's botched comedy, "Finding Fanny." - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 11, 2014
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Alumbrones (2013) |
Short and sweet and limited ... - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 11, 2014
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Raja Natwarlal (2014) |
Mr. Deshmukh's setup can be overly fussy - some of the con machinations seem needlessly complicated and hard to follow, or maybe not quite worth following - but his payoff works. - New York Times
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| Posted Sep 08, 2014
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Rabindranath Tagore-the Poet of Eternity (2014) |
Though clearly a labor of love by Mr. Bhattacharya, "Tagore" is mostly clumsy as filmmaking. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 31, 2014
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Kick (2014) |
A star can lift a movie like "Kick," making its silliness sublime. That doesn't happen here. - New York Times
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| Posted Jul 27, 2014
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Humshakals (2014) |
The director, Sajid Khan, who wrote the script with Robin Bhatt and Akarsh Khurana, seems insulated and unable to tease out the difference between inspiration and indulgence. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 22, 2014
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A Coffee in Berlin (2012) |
If "A Coffee in Berlin" has its own kind of formula and a romanticism that reads as both youthful and obscuring, it nevertheless absorbs you and makes you wonder what Mr. Gerster will do next. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 12, 2014
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Holiday (2014) |
The action sequences mostly have tension and punch, even if the movie is old-school long - 2 hours 41 minutes - and the plot doesn't bear too much scrutiny. - New York Times
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| Posted Jun 08, 2014
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