Love Games Reviews by Critics

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Love Games Review by Bollywood Hungama

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While Vikram Bhatt has given us some fine films, we cannot expect anything less from this filmmaker when it comes to this genre of erotica. He masters it and Love Games reinstates the same. The film has ample love making scenes shot aesthetically. The plot, like other Bhatt films, explores the deep, dark and dangerous sides of humans with several twists and turns and handling them comes naturally to the director. A special mention to a scene shot at the hospital, wherein Alisha rushes to attend a serious patient. While the actors in the scene play their parts with conviction, the scene also portrays how a hospital handles the chaos with authenticity. Though the story moves with a good flow overall, there are several dips in the plotline. In fact, certain portions look a tad bit stretched, especially in the second half. It should have been a Ramona film all the way. Considering the way this good girl gone bad character should wow the audience, the Citylights girl Patralekha fails to match up to the pedestal of this Priyanka Chopra-meets-Rosamund Pike (from Gone Girl) sort of character. May be it is her debut film’s demure girl image or may be it wasn’t the character for her, but Patralekha’s act as Ramona could be termed as a ‘casting woe’. On the other hand, Gaurav Arora does a decent job of playing the depressed and helpless character of Sam Saxena, who resists to abide by Ramona’s mean and cruel ways. Tara Alisha Berry, however, has surprised her with her good performance as a doctor. While she debuted in Mastram, this actress has come a long way we believe. Her confidence as a doctor is impressive. Blue eyed boy of television Hiten Tejwani, who charmed the audiences with his perfect son avatar in serials, has by far given us one of his most disappointing performances. Other characters help in taking the movie forward.

Love Games Review by Sarita A Tanwar on DNA India

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It’s sad to see a director like Vikram Bhatt succumbing to subjects like these, which are now becoming a T-Series trademark. Making an erotic thriller is one thing; making an unreasonable B-grade flavoured flick quite another. The last 20 minutes of the film are phenomenally tacky; you stay glued to your seats only to find out how worse can it get.

Love Games Review by Rohit Vats on Hindustan Times

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Love Games introduces us to cocaine snorting and friends with benefits within minute before providing a peep into the lonely lives of its protagonists, but then it becomes murkier. Ramona’s obsession takes the center-stage and Sam gets pushed to play a victim, but the film loses the shock value in the process. It’s not something we haven’t witnessed before. Once the surprise factor dies down, we’re left with only fast paced action, but disappointment greets us right there because Love Games is a lift-up from many similar films. Words hold no meaning after a while. Come on, we have been there, heard that. Newcomer Gaurav Arora looks confident and has shown some potential, but it’s very difficult for anybody to stand out in a film meant to explore the uncontrollable sexual urge of its heroine. Patralekha is the highlight of Love Games. She did a good job in Hansal Mehta’s Citylights, but this role demanded a certain kind of language and body movement from her. She tries her best to hold everything together, but she is all alone in her pursuit.

Love Games Review by Saibal Chatterjee on NDTVMovies

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As for the acting, the less said the better. The obviously promising Patralekhaa, saddled with a dodgy accent, tries far too hard to do justice to the role of the amoral femme fatale. The effort shows. Tara Alisha Berry is pretty much in the same boat. No matter what she does, there can be no rising above this insipid screenplay. Debutant Gaurav Arora, despite reasonable screen presence, makes a complete hash of trying to balance the boyish with the bad-ass. Love Games is a Vishesh Films offering. So it does not lack surface gloss. But it simply isn’t enough to hide its lack of depth. Best avoided.

Review by Namrata Thakker on Rediff

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Overall, the film tries to offer something new and it does to an extent. But if you have watched Cruel Intentions, Love Games will not appeal to you. The first half of the film is all about love games, sexual boredom and intimate scenes. The story takes off in the second half but it misses the mark because of its predictable story, cliched dialogues and all-too-easy screenplay. Patralekha plays her character well, in a wicked, twisted way. But there are times when her dialogue delivery is a bit off. She does look sexy. Gaurav also does well but there are times when he goes a little overboard. Tara Alisha Berry is good but she doesn’t have much screen time. Hiten Tejwani has a few bold scenes with Patralekha but he looks very unconformable. His character hardly adds anything to the story. It would have been better if his character was explored more.

Review by Shubhra Gupta on Indian Express

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Bolly plots are bust. The Bhatts’ long-standing promise of giving us fully adult men and women bursting with carnal desires and twisted motives used to be backed by storylines. This one gives up quickly. All sorts of things crop up—blood, bodies, guns, murder, and dollops of confusion wrapped in eye-popping improbability. Missing the point you are? Bunging in a kiss we are. Uh oh. Conclusion? Some of the smooching looks professional, about the only thing that does. As for the rest, bye bye, two hours, which will never come back.

Review by Mohar Basu on The Times Of India

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“Roses are red, violets are blue…Sex can be messy, love can be too…” On this note, begins this amateurish film. Vikram Bhatt’s Love Games tries to be a tempestuous tale about temptations. But his bright concept is far from being well-fleshed out. There were a bunch of interesting ideas which never intertwine with the narrative.

Review by Urmimala Banerjee on Bollywood Life

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Though it has some bold quotient, Love Games is quite traditional at heart. Every character has a justification about why they behave in that manner. Patralekha’s acting, a tight screenplay and editing are the highlights. Those who just want to pass time for a couple of hours won’t be disappointed with this one.

Review by Rohit Bhatnagar on Deccan Chronicle

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It would be unfair if I say it is an unseen tale of sex, mystery and betrayal but somewhere down the line, director Vikram Bhatt manages to sail through with his typical midas touch. The screenplay keeps you glued till the climax. Nevertheless, ‘Love Games’ is a typical Bhatt camp film where women and mystery play a pivotal role. Debutant Gaurav Arora is refreshing. He has immense potential to pull of a solo hero ‘Bhatt’ film with his balanced facial expressions, chiselled body and a boy next-door image but he needs to spruce up his dialogue delivery skills a tad bit. Beautiful Tara Alisha Berry is so convincing that you empathies with her when she cries. With every new film, she is surely getting better. Post her d-glam debut in ‘Citylights’, Patralekhaa tries to don a sex and drug addict in which she shines but not too bright. Her cruel laugh, steamy lip locks are to look for, however I still feel that Patralekhaa was not the right fit for such fierce role.

Review by Kriti Tulsiani on IBNLive

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There are so many comparisons in the film that will make you go ‘yuck, yuck, yuck’ and not because they’re planned sexual innuendos but because they make no sense whatsoever. Such as, love being compared to scuba diving or a bull’s reaction to red fabric being equaled to blackmailing and so on. It seems Bhatt’s signature plot is pretty much a staple for him now. While it might have worked for him in ‘Murder’, it surely fails to do wonders this time and end up making you laugh with disbelief that what you just saw was actually shown.

Review by Shaheen Parkar on Mid-Day India

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Considering that making films autobiographical is a speciality of the Bhatts, Vikram has drawn inferences from people around. Sam’s character owns an in-flight catering business — one of Vikram’s former lover’s exes was in the same business. But that’s where it ends as the director takes recourse to sketching typical characters who have come from broken homes and abusive relationships. That is the only reason they are playing the game. Though the film has good production values, by the end of the first half, you can easily predict what is going to unfold on screen. Wonders don’t cease to surface in the second half. What the film lacks is the thrills and spills in the game.

Review by Kunal Guha on Mumbai Mirror

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A downer here: in this mirage of ‘highs’ (many characters are on a staple of mountains of Colombian talc) is Patralekha, who shone in the 2014 indie hit CityLights. In Love Games, her ability to juxtapose a frozen face of manic bewilderment and outbursts of hearty guffaws is enough to suggest that the lights have long gone out. For newcomers, Gaurav Arora and Tara Alisha Berry, this may not be the launch vehicle they hoped for. That said, both reveal glimmers of promise and deserve a second chance. From the banner that championed the cause of smut and bore the flag for mediocre madness on the big screen, this one is curiously different. And perhaps unintentionally, writer, director and lyricist Vikram Bhatt has lent a surrealistic edge to B-graders with this wonder. Love Games is a bad trip, but it’s a trip.

Review by Sonia Chopra on Sify

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Director Vikram Bhatt puts in steamy lip-locks in the film, perhaps the film’s sole selling point. But why does an erotic thriller have to be such a mess with over-the-top characters, implausible developments, sketchy execution (a small push leads the car to leap off the cliff and into the air) and a finale that is as outrageous as it is predictable.

Love Games Review by Indiaglitz

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The middle portions drag to the fullest with repetitive scenes and some unwanted tracks. The moment the novelty factor is established the screenplay goes on a stagnating point.The makers could have elaborated more on the novelty factor of the film, rather than focusing more on the age old love story.The back story of Gaurav fails to get established due to which you fail to connect with his character.. There should have been more detailing in characters of Gaurav, Patralekha and even Tara Alisha Berry.The directorshould have played more with the adult theme and add some thrills in the film. The second half of the film drags to the fullest due to its bland story line which has been shown in many films.Gaurav Arora has good screen presence but, fails to carry the film on his shoulder, solely. Rukhsar was totally misfit as an over glamorous psychologist. HitenTejwani was wasted.

Review by Manisha Lakhe on Nowrunning

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There is death, and destruction of a premise that could have been a wonderful thriller if only the whole movie had been handled with a little more finesse. If you can forgive the awful open mouthed kissing scenes and not laugh at the so-called ‘rough’ lovemaking, the movie does have some merit. It just becomes too twisted too glibly. And the logic just dies.

Review by IANS on Zeenews

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The biggest drawback of the film is its writing. The script is far-fetched and unrealistic. The characters are flawed, especially those of Ramona and Alisha. Being the protagonists, Ramona and Alisha’s characters are two-dimensional and their graphs are not fully developed. The dialogues too are unintentionally funny and are packed with some interestingly novel similes and metaphors. It is amusing to hear Ramona tell Sam: “You are like a fire brigade, you only come during an emergency.” The songs are typical pub numbers and they go with the flow of the narration. Overall, the film has sleek production values and, though frothy, it is a decent adult film.

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