Starring <strong>Aditi Rao Hydari,Randeep Hooda, Sara Loren</strong> Directed by <strong>Vishesh Bhatt</strong> Rating: <strong>*** ?</strong> If the truth be told, the essence of this neatly-packaged thriller about what lies beneath is obtained in the second-half where the whole philosophy of the mirror-image and the reflection of the soul in the individual conscience is given a walloping visual manifestation. Hats off to debutant director Vishesh Bhatt for bringing to life that tricky zone which separates mirage from reality.

Starring <strong>Akshay Kumar, Manoj Bajpai, Anupam Kher, Jimmy Sheirgil, Rajesh Sharma, Kishore Kadam, Kajal Aggarwal</strong> Written & Directed by <strong>Neeraj Pandey</strong> Rating: <strong>****</strong> Gimme raid, said the fake CBI officers who in a daredevil swoop-down on a well-known jewellery outlet in Mumbai in 1983, escaped with a loot worth lakhs. If done today it would have been a heist worth crores.

Starring <strong>Asha Bhosle, Padmini Kolhapure, Ram Kapoor</strong> Directed by <strong>Mahesh Kodiyal</strong> Rating: <strong>*** ?</strong> The Mother is a figure that instantly evokes tender thoughts in each of us. Getting singing diva Asha Bhosle to play the mother in <em>Mai</em> was a master-stroke. At 80, Asha<em>ji </em> with all her years of experience as a singer of unlimited range brings those vocal emotions into visual terms.

Starring <strong>Vikram, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vinay Virmani, Tabu, Lara Dutta, Nasser, Rohini Hattangadi, Monica Dogra</strong> Directed by <strong>Bejoy Nambiar</strong> Rating: <strong>**** ?</strong>

Starring <strong>Kamal Haasan, Pooja Kumar, Rahul Bose</strong> Directed by <strong>Kamal Haasan</strong> Rating: <strong>****</strong> First things first. Kamal Haasan’s enormously controversial film doesn’t hurt Muslim sentiments. In fact it doesn’t hurt the sentiments of any section of the people except those party-poopers who think having a ball at the movies went out of style with <em>Sholay</em> and <em>Chachi 420</em>.

Starring <strong>Kartik Tiwari, Nushrat Bharucha</strong> Directed by <strong>Luv Ranjan</strong> Rating: <strong>****</strong>

Starring <strong>Arjun Rampal, Chitrangda Singh</strong> Directed by <strong>Sudhir Mishra</strong> Rating: <strong>****</strong> <em>Khamoshiyan awaaz hain labzon mein bass inkaar hai</em>.....Sameer Anjaan’s evocative lyric and Shamir Tandon’s compelling composition follows you out of this searing scathing relentless probing drama on work-ethics in corporate places. This is one occasion when you don’t mind being stalked.

Starring <strong>Sachiin Joshi, Gihani Khan, Vimla Raman, Prakash Raj, Mahesh Manjrekar</strong> Directed by <strong>Ankush Bhatt</strong> Rating: <strong>***</strong> If Chulbul Pandey in <em>Dabangg</em> were to be merged with Anant Velankar in Govind Nihalani’s <em>Ardh Satya</em> we would probably get Abhijeet Patil in <em>Mumbai Mirror</em>. Patil, played by entrepreneur-actor Sachiin Joshi, is the product of Mumbai’s underbelly. He is a cop. But he could well be on the other side of the law without skipping a beat.

Starring Pankaj Kapoor,Shabana Azmi, Imran Khan, Anushka Sharma, Aarya Babbar Directed by Vishal Bharadwaj Rating: *** There is plenty of singing and dancing in this whimsical serio-comic drama about a landlord who when inebriated, becomes one among the peasant class hollering for the blood of the bloodsuckers ,and when sober becomes a tyrant who pushes around his driver-cum-man-Friday with a gusto that most moviegoers would recognize as a sign of power gone to the head.

Starring <strong>Paresh Rawal, Rajeev Khandelwal, Tena Desae</strong> Directed by <strong>Aditya Dutta</strong> Rating: <strong>***</strong> The last 30 minutes of this gripping thriller has a life of its own. In fact the end-game is so stunning and so overpowering in its message that it makes us overlook the ingrained improbability of the rest of the film.