Shandaar (2015)

Criticism toward the film centered on incoherence in the story line and poor writing. Deepanjana Pal at Firstpost described the writing as sloppy, commenting that, “it’s more a series of YouTube sketches than a proper story. Indian Express felt that Kapoor’s character Jagjinder Joginder was “badly-written”, noting, “He can be such a natural charmer, but here the charm offensive is not allowed to stop, and finally just overtakes him. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV, felt that while there were “flashes of smart writing”, that there was also “[a lack] of sustained narrative force, especially in the second half”. Chatterjee described the interaction between Kapoor and Bhatt as “spontaneous chemistry”, an opinion that was not shared by the Indian Express reviewer, who wrote, “Shahid and Alia look good together, but there’s not very much else they manage between the two of them.

Subhash K. Jha from skjbollywoodnews described the film as “awfully written”, noting specifically that, “the narrative is so bereft of any genuine inspiration that it repeatedly resorts to gimmicks to explain its convulsive movements. Jha also found fault with Vikas Bahl’s direction, criticising the “supposedly liberated and progressive” director for his stereotypical depiction of gay men as having “limp wrists and aspirations only to make women’s clothes”. Similarly, Jha also commented, “It’s just plainly obnoxious to have women either playing a witch (Sushma Seth), a bitch (Niki Aneja) … a victim (Sanaah Kapoor), or a waif (Alia Bhatt).” Martin D’Souza from Glamsham described the film as a “mishmash” and considered the film a departure in quality from director Bahl’s last film,Queen. “What happened? Was Queen a fluke? You have disappointed us big time.