Batla House: reviews

What the critics say average 5.6 from 35 outlets

• 10 BollySpiceSubhash K Jha Batla House is a film that allows us the audience to come to our own conclusions about remedial guilt and compromised absolution. In not giving us a solution it provides the best option to a society that clearly doesn't want to learn from the lessons served up by history. Read
• 9.0 Bollywood Hungama On the whole, BATLA HOUSE is a powerful saga which is sure to spark off discussions and debates. The relevant plot, watertight screenplay, clapworthy moments and terrific performance by John Abraham makes BATLA HOUSE one of the finest films of the year. Read
• 8.0 Planet BollywoodJoginder Tuteja It is to good credit of Nikkhil Advani that he channelises his resources quite well and gives audiences a film that deserves a watch on the big screen. Read
• 8.0 GlamshamVishal Verma BATLA HOUSE is a massy/crowd pleasing distillation of Operation Batla House that manages to share some facts on heroisms, valour, faith, religion and the politics behind. Read
• 8.0 PinkvillaVaibhavi V Risbood In brevity, Batla House is a movie made for those who want to revisit the pages of history. On the Independence Day, the police officers deserve a film like Batla House to remind us that there is a world in between the two extremes of 'memes' and the 'hyper-national portrayal of the forces'. Read
• 7.0 The Times of IndiaSreeparna Sengupta Despite some of the flaws, 'Batla House' makes for a gripping, intense watch. Read
• 7.0 FilmibeatMadhuri V John Abraham's sincere act, some solid dialoguebaazi and well-executed action sequences make 'Batla House' an engaging watch. Read
• 7.0 KoimoiUmesh Punwani All said and done, Batla House gains all the marks in keeping us thrilled till the end. John Abraham's flawless performance, Nikkhil Advani's effortless direction and Ritesh Shah's absorbing story help the story to flourish in its own enthralling way. Read
• 7.0 Mid-dayGayatri Nirmal On the whole, Batla House is the perfect watch on Independence Day with friends and family. Read
• 7.0 Mid-dayMayank Shekhar But no doubt, it keeps you stuck to the seat nonetheless, largely for the rich visual detailing, meaty research — basically fine writing/dialogue (Ritesh Shah) — gluing it all together. Read
• 6.5 Film InquiryMusanna Ahmed Overall, a thrilling core narrative and star leading performances are enough to overcome Batla House's inconsistent ideology and garrulous climax. Read
• 6.0 FilmfareDevesh Sharma It does suffer from sloppy writing in places but that doesn't mar its overall impact. Read
• 6.0 Film CompanionRahul Desai But Batla House is forced to take a stand. And it does, in good conscience. Read
• 6.0 Mumbai MirrorKunal Guha Inspired by the 2008 Batla House encounter, this Independence Day action-thriller delivers on various counts. Read
• 6.0 Deepa GahlotDeepa Gahlot None of the other actors have much to do except prop him up, so that he can shoulder the burden of carrying a film which retains some level of complexity, despite simplifying the politics (and adding an item number) to appeal to a mainstream audience, that prefers everything to be black and white, when many shades of grey exist. Read
• 6.0 India WestR.M. Vijayakar For this single virtue, the film needs to be endorsed, but then, as we said, it fails completely to take a sharp stand in its confused flip-flop between truth and fiction. Read
• 6.0 CNN-News18Rohit Vats Batla House has ingredients to keep you engaged for more than 140 minutes, provided which side are you on—activists who still smell a foul play or police that claims to have not heard of anything substantial from Indian Mujahideen after that September encounter! Read
• 6.0 NowrunningPiyush Chopra But the increasingly common trend to have a courtroom sequence serving as a film's climax (including the recent Khaandani Shafakhaana) takes Batla House on a downward trajectory that is hard to recover from. Read
• 6.0 Times Now After an excruciatingly slow first half, we finally see the film getting gripping and interesting in the second half. Read
• 5.5 DNA IndiaSusri Sahu Watch it for the depiction of real-life incidents and the obvious cinematic liberties. It's not really the Independence Day treat but makes for a good one-time watch. Read
• 5.0 FirstpostUdita Jhunjhunwala Yet Batla House feels burdened by its patriotic ambitions and by repetition (including numerous frames of police officers exchanging side-long glances). Read
• 5.0 NDTVSaibal Chatterjee Batla House held together by a steady and solid star turn by John Abraham, leaves you with a feeling that it had the potential to be an absolute humdinger. But stray flashes apart, the dramatised true story drifts too far from the heart of the matter without delivering the expected drama. Read
• 5.0 CNN-News18Rajeev Masand There is much to admire in Batla House but the film is ultimately betrayed by its own prejudices. Read
• 5.0 Zee NewsVinayak Chakravorty John carries off the quasi-fictional creation Sanjay Kumar with admirable restraint, in what has to be a career-defining role. As flawed screenwriting leads to uneven storytelling, the actor exudes tremendous screen presence to keep you engaged. Read
• 4.5 Film CompanionAnupama Chopra The film is firmly on the side of the beleaguered cops and it makes its point with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Read
• 4.0 Rediff.comPrasanna D Zore Nikkhil Advani's Batla House -- named after the controversial encounter that took place in Delhi's Jamia locality -- shows neither conviction nor courage in dealing with a sensitive subject about two suspected Indian Mujahideen terrorists killed by a special cell of the Delhi Police. Read
• 4.0 ReutersShilpa Jamkhandikar As far as this film is concerned, there is no room for debate. In true Bollywood tradition, "Batla House" chooses to hide its grays under black and white. Read
• 4.0 Hindustan TimesRaja Sen There's promise in the subject of a police encounter scrutinised with extreme cynicism by the rest of the nation, and it builds toward an engaging finale, but Advani stands still too long, meandering through wooden actors and limber item-dancers in subplots that miss the point. Read
• 4.0 India TodaySandeep Unnithan This burden of mainstream commercial Bollywood expectations weighs down the narrative and sinks what could have been a tight police procedural. Batla House could have been a sniper rifle which instead ends up as a blunderbuss. Read
• 4.0 Khaleej TimesKamaal Rashid Khan Batla House is more an investigation-based movie rather than the real encounter that shook the nation. And that's why only a select audience is likely to like the film. Read
• 3.0 Anna M.M. VetticadAnna M.M. Vetticad Batla House has no patience with nuance or debate. The bad are 360 degrees of bad, the good are 360 degrees of good and their evil deeds can all be excused as being for the larger good. Read
• 3.0 The Indian ExpressShubhra Gupta But Bollywood is not interested in complexity, clearly. As far as Batla House is concerned, the cops were clearly in the right, and the group of young men holed out in that tiny flat were not 'students', as claimed, but armed members of the Indian Mujahideen (IM). Read
• 3.0 The HinduNamrata Joshi Batla House is a needlessly convoluted and garbled interpretation of the 2008 encounter case which entirely sides with the police. Read
• 3.0 Scroll.inNandini Ramnath Nikkhil Advani's Batla House, based on a screenplay by Ritesh Shah, claims to explore the role played by doubt in a police investigation, but it is loaded with biases. Read
• 2.0 Deccan ChronicleSuparna Sharma Batla House's screenplay is so inept and daft, completely lacking any sense of cinema, that if you were to close your eyes and just listen to the painfully expository dialogue, often accompanied by a terribly didactic background score, you won't have missed anything. Read