Shikhar Verma
Tomatometer-approved critic
Co-founded the independent platform High On Films so that Independent film from across the world could get the love they deserve. Has a keen eye for everything art related and is constantly involved in spreading it around. Films are first love. A dream, a reality, and an illusion - all wrapped in one.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Late Night With the Devil (2023) |
This mock-doc-styled narrative is designed in a way where it takes subtle digs into corporate culture and the obsession with fame while giving us a reason why horror can be just as fun as anything else. - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Chris Rock: Selective Outrage (2023) |
Some of the jokes come straight from the boomer persona that Rock inhabits in the internet-frenzied world that he is trying to satirize, and for better or for worse, the comedian wouldn’t care, or will he? - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 12, 2023
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You Resemble Me (2021) |
You Resemble Me eventually becomes a sort of patchy exercise that remains effective due to Mouna Soualem’s exceptional performance and dedication to telling an honest story. - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 06, 2023
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Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) |
Palm Trees and Power Lines becomes a powerful, clear-eyed, and distinctively disturbing look at systematic grooming and predatory behavior. - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 02, 2023
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God's Time (2022) |
To make things interesting and always lively, Antebi, who is making his debut here, populates his movie with stylistic flourishes that both feel kinda cool and peppy but also excessive and frustrating. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 26, 2023
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Attachment (2022) |
The regressive nature of Leah’s relationship with her mother and the dynamic nature of her relationship with Maja leads ‘Attachment’ into a study of the dreadful repercussions of co-dependency. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 09, 2023
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Poor Agnes (2017) |
Navin Ramaswarna’s film only goes downhill until it just becomes a sappy film with good ideas waiting for the right execution. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 06, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
It is a bonus that this lean thriller also doubles down as a cautionary climate change allegory, making all of Shyamalan’s flaws (including the unnecessary use of flashbacks) feel like distant callbacks. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 06, 2023
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Unconformity (2021) |
It assuredly becomes a film about how uncertain we are of our choices and how carefully our life paths merge and diverge from the pre-decided notions we have in our heads. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 02, 2023
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Raymond Lewis: L.A. Legend (2021) |
There’s a touch of manipulation towards the end, but this is a well-rounded and researched tale about a legend that never was. - High on Films
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| Posted Jan 19, 2023
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The Seasons: Four Love Stories (2022) |
There’s a gentle, familiar taste that “The Seasons – Four Love Stories” offers, and I’d recommend it for that feeling alone. - High on Films
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| Posted Dec 31, 2022
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One Fine Morning (2022) |
In spite of visiting familiar themes of personal crisis, desire, and existentialism, Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning doesn't feel as emotionally involving as it's supposed to be - High on Films
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| Posted Dec 20, 2022
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The Whale (2022) |
The Whale feels like an end-of-the-world yarn that makes you want to smile and embrace those close to you with all their imperfections and shortcomings. - High on Films
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| Posted Dec 12, 2022
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Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) |
Huesera is a bone-crunching folktale that distills the anxieties of modern-day motherhood through the lens of self-deception. - High on Films
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| Posted Dec 04, 2022
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Return to Seoul (2022) |
Return to Seoul is a masterful character study of a life stuck in the in-betweens. - High on Films
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| Posted Dec 04, 2022
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Ukrainians in Exile (2022) |
The images that we see in the short are not exactly distressing, but the anxiety that these people, who have to flee their own country in order to be in a safer space is visible, and the film manages to make it feel palpable. - High on Films
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| Posted Nov 15, 2022
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Monica, O My Darling (2022) |
Monica, O Darling doesn’t manage to use the sum of its parts to become a true blue noir like it claims to be. - High on Films
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| Posted Nov 11, 2022
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Causeway (2022) |
Some of the sequences are really moving, making Causeway more than just a benign PTSD drama that feels overly exploitative. It becomes a movie about two lonely people trying to find a sense of place in the world and in each other. - High on Films
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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8:37 Rebirth (2021) |
‘8:37 Rebirth’ is a sagacious look at trauma and the ramifications of a single moment of violence. - High on Films
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| Posted Oct 18, 2022
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Stars at Noon (2022) |
Qualley is literally the beating heart of this hot and bothered drama that occasionally becomes so meandering and clueless of its existence that it feels like the actress is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting for no reason whatsoever. - High on Films
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| Posted Oct 14, 2022
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Don't Worry Darling (2022) |
Sans a few explosive sequences, this plays like a pretty straight-forward old-school, psychological thriller that is more interested in finding a way out of the mystery than establishing a more pertinent theme out of the premise it creates
- High on Films
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| Posted Oct 01, 2022
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The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022) |
Director Peter Farrelly returns after his surprising Oscar-winning Green Book, with a movie that is equally unsure of what tone it needs to focus on, or how to let its important message not get diluted by the absence of nuance. - High on Films
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| Posted Sep 27, 2022
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Do Revenge (2022) |
While it sort of overdoes its own subversion. there’s no way you wouldn’t enjoy its twisted nature, especially when you realize how cleverly Robinson adapts Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train by setting it in a teenage wasteland populated by ‘staying fake.’ - High on Films
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| Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Lost Inside (2022) |
Flaws and all aside, Lost Inside works because of its inclination towards being extremely sensitive with the subject it is dealing with. And that’s a step I’d like more indie romances to take. - High on Films
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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Eradication (2022) |
Eradication is a pretty decent and watchable pandemic thriller that uses its slow burn to insinuate that people are only as good as the circumstance they are put into. - High on Films
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| Posted Sep 10, 2022
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Darlings (2022) |
The delicious and biting progression of Darlings is wasted on badly edited sequences that fail to capitalize on its extremely pulpy dark comedic aspects. - High on Films
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Syl Johnson: Any Way the Wind Blows (2015) |
It didn’t just make me look back at Syl’s incredible body of work, but also made me understand the value of a music scene that remains hidden away from plain sight, but almost always possesses a heart that beats the same way. - High on Films
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| Posted Jul 13, 2022
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Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) |
After doing the tough task of redeeming and frankly diverting the MCU into more fun, frolic end with Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi is back with a tonally inconsistent and empty spectacle that doesn’t just lack laughs, but also lacks levity. - High on Films
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| Posted Jul 08, 2022
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Both Sides of the Blade (2021) |
A true blue melodrama with hints of eroticism, the film is about tragic ends and hopeful beginnings. - High on Films
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| Posted Jul 05, 2022
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Sex, Love, Misery: New New York (2022) |
Structured as a funny, sexy, and unfiltered look at the new dating scene in pandemic-era New York, this documentary tries to investigate and look into what’s really going on in people’s heads or behind their social media emojis when they meet someone. - High on Films
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| Posted Jun 13, 2022
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The Souvenir Part II (2021) |
The Souvenir: Part II becomes a masterful investigation of art’s ability to heal and make us understand ourselves a little better. - High on Films
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| Posted Jun 10, 2022
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The Power of the Dog (2021) |
From Johnny Greenwood’s magnificent score to Ari Wegner’s haunting frames, The Power of the Dog barks its supremacy through and through. - High on Films
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| Posted May 28, 2022
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Petite Maman (2021) |
Petite Maman is a total u-turn from the path that Céline Sciamma traveled in Portrait of Lady on Fire. And yet, this story about our female counterparts feels like it could exist on the other side of the beach. - High on Films
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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Memoria (2021) |
Memoria’s most outstanding achievement is a Thai director talking about Spanish national atrocities with a British actor at its center. Thereby showing how political consequences on people feel surprisingly opaque for everyone in the world. - High on Films
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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Fading Petals (2022) |
There are two things the chaos does to the film. Firstly, it unnecessarily drags on into paranoia mode; secondly, it further convolutes the already confusing narrative. - High on Films
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| Posted May 23, 2022
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365 Days: This Day (2022) |
365 Days: This Day is not only dumber, more problematic, and downright un-sexy, it is also incredibly lazy, bland and so supremely unengaging that you wonder if it will even make sense to the returning audiences. - High on Films
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| Posted May 01, 2022
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The Tale of King Crab (2021) |
The Tale of King Crab never actually reaches its primal aim of telling us how stories twist within themselves, and through time they change and become more and more personal
- High on Films
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| Posted Apr 20, 2022
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The Outfit (2022) |
The Outfit matches the charisma of its well-cast stars with a low-key gangster tale about people trying to outwit each other. - High on Films
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| Posted Apr 15, 2022
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The Lost City (2022) |
Brad Pitt, who shows up in an extended 10-odd minute cameo is the only saving grace of this dumpster fire of a film.
- High on Films
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| Posted Apr 09, 2022
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The Feast (2021) |
The Feast is a film that enjoys drenching the viewer in buckets of blood by taking the capitalist pigs to the slaughter. - High on Films
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| Posted Apr 01, 2022
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Belle Vie (2022) |
Belle Vie is a documentary about a man who never lost his sense of humor in spite of getting loaded with adversities. - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 15, 2022
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To Leslie (2022) |
To Leslie is a film that isnt steered across to the finish by the director or the technical aspects, but through Riseboroughs incredible central performance. - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 13, 2022
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Drive My Car (2021) |
Drive My Car shows a tender and melancholic way in which grief follows us around. Leading us to a wholly intimate and cathartic moment of acceptance where the reel and real dwell together and form newer meanings for those who can look through. - High on Films
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| Posted Mar 07, 2022
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The Batman (2022) |
Reeves cleverly subverts the obvious inklings of an origin story in exchange for a brooding and bleak bat-noir that reinvigorates the cape crusader.
- The Cinemaholic
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| Posted Mar 03, 2022
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The Sky is Everywhere (2022) |
In spite of an experimental visual approach and a potent ensemble, the only thing that this trite representation of grief does is punch a hole in Deckers astounding body of work. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 17, 2022
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Death on the Nile (2022) |
While the film works as a homage, the obsessive gaze and campy nature of its writers more bourgeois lifestyle cannot be rectified by Branaghs failed attempt to diversify it.
- The Cinemaholic
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| Posted Feb 12, 2022
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Lotawana (2022) |
I just wish there was more to its critic of the traditional way of living vs the characters choice. That would have made the tragic climax more palpable. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 08, 2022
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Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) |
Cha Cha Real Smooth is an absolute charmer that is smart and moves you in unexpected ways. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 07, 2022
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Looop Lapeta (2022) |
Looop Lapeta doesnt have a dull moment, but it is a lowbrow time-loop comedy that has no method to its chaos. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 04, 2022
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Happening (2021) |
The director presents a sensitive, almost urgent look at the realities of a world that gets aggressively unfair when a person isn't allowed to take control over their own bodies. - High on Films
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| Posted Feb 02, 2022
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