Bawaal Movie Review - Critics
Star Cast - Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor
Director - Nitesh Tiwari
Release Date - 21 July 2023 on Amazon Prime Video
Total Reviews - 12
Average Score - 2.69/5
Overall Word of Mouth (Critics) - Mixed
1. Taran Adarsh -
Rating Score -> 3.5/5
#Bawaal: HEARTWARMING. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½ #Dangal. #Chhichhore. Now #Bawaal… #NiteshTiwari is, without doubt, a fantastic storyteller… #Bawaal has a refreshingly different plot, well-knit screenplay, several emotional moments and terrific performances [#VarunDhawan, #JanhviKapoor]… RECOMMENDED! #BawaalReview
2. Komal Nahta -
Rating Score -> n/a
Bawaal is a beautiful film which will find huge appreciation on Amazon Prime. No doubt, it will be loved more by the classes than the masses but the fact remains that it is a wonderfully written and excellently made film.
3. India Today -
Rating Score -> 2/5
Saddled by the weight to be more than just your average romantic drama, Bawaal staggers throughout the duration of the film and ultimately ends on an all too predictable note with nothing new to add to the conversation about either war or love.
4. Indian Express -
Rating Score -> 1.5/5
Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor-starrer makes you ask – when will our films come of age? Varun Dhawan-Janhvi Kapoor-starrer promises a lot, but keeps faltering, never quite knowing what to make of a wholly harebrained flourish in the plot.
5. Rediff -
Rating Score -> 3/5
Despite the uproar in its title, Bawaal is mild even with jazzily-dressed Gujaratis and their love for food thrown into the mix. It's only when things get too schmaltzy for their own good, history is doomed to repeat itself.
6. The Hindu -
Rating Score -> n/a
Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor struggle in bizarro romance. After a few charming scenes, Nitesh Tiwari’s World War II-referencing drama becomes a heavy and heavy-handed moral science class
7. News 18 -
Rating Score -> 3.5/5
Bawaal falls well short of perfection, but it never comes unstuck. It passes muster as a wholesome entertainer embellished with humour, warmth, authentic emotional trappings, and actors adept at going seamlessly along with the flow. Just like Varun Dhawan’s character says, ‘Mahul aisa banao, ki logon ko mahul yaad rahe, result nahi. Tiwari surely manages to create the ‘mahul’ and the audience will also remember the results.
8. Hindustan Times -
Rating Score -> n/a
There's no point in even trying to contextualise that horror and imagine what would one do in that situation. It is a deeply problematic exercise of narcissism and worse, invalidation of the stories of countless victims, whose experiences can never be put under the examining lens. Bawaal is perhaps the most tone-deaf and insensitive film Hindi cinema has produced in recent memory. This is a history lesson no one deserves to sit through.
9. Times of India -
Rating Score -> 3.5/5
Bawaal is worth watching for World War II history, especially the recreation of the holocaust, and Varun as well as Janhvi’s stellar performances.
10. Khaleej Times -
Rating Score -> 3/5
A World War II theme in a love story. Sure, the premise makes Bawaal an interesting weekend watch, though it could have been more layered.
11. India TV -
Rating Score -> n/a
Varun Dhawan, Janhvi Kapoor’s love story loses its way somewhere in Europe. From Paris to Normandy to Berlin to Amsterdam to Auschwitz, Nisha (Janhvi Kapoor) & Ajju's (Varun Dhawan) rusted love life begins in the backdrop of World War 2.
12. NDTV -
Rating Score -> 1.5/5
Bawaal is as fake as its fibber-hero - a film that masquerades as cinema's equivalent of an agony aunt who wants to mend a marriage on the brink of annulment even as its larger aim is to deliver a pat truism about man's inhumanity to man. The exercise, no matter how offbeat it seems, inevitably sinks into a bottomless trench.
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