The plight of a Western critic tackling the modern Bollywood blockbuster is that, although a sea change has increased its appeal to international audiences (the standard three-hour-plus running times are suddenly truncated; the violence and sexual innuendos are more overt), the supersize melodrama inherent in populist Hindi cinema often feels strained and corny to our unadjusted senses. Nothing has changed there in director Mani Ratnam's epic... More >>>