"In Bruges" (2008) - Movie Review

People who decide to take the job of killing people for money generally bury their conscience and one who cannot come up with values and rules in excluding their targets and adhering to a code religiously. This theory makes three hit men in the film “In Bruges”, a poignant and darkly comic film which turns into a bloody mess in the end is one of the best slow starting film with a ramped up nerve biting culmination I have seen in recent times. It has a conviction so rare for a film taking the shooters as its prime object in its plot.

Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) come to a place every one will now be aware of called Bruges in Belgium. It is a tourist town with land marks enough to entertain for couple of days or may be just hours. Both are hit men on hide on the advice of their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), whose voice is all we hear till he appears in person late in the film. He is the boss we do not see and a foul mouthed personality with weird taste for his sense of questioning, expectations and admiration. The expected plot unfolds when Ken learns the real purpose of being in the town with Ray. Harry gives a hit on Ray because of a kid being killed. But Ken likes the kid and owes a lot to Harry. Where does Ken stand? Or where does Ray stand with himself?

Ray is the young and obviously does not get along with the patience and mature Ken. Ken appreciates the beauty the town has to offer while Ray is simply irritated by the place and cannot wait to go back to London. They are in the hide out because of the last job Ray in a way screwed up. In the process of killing a priest, his stray bullet hits an innocent kid. Now a hit man should shred off it as the acceptance of collateral damage but Ray is not able to. The guilt in this film has a feeling of outsider as from an audience, because you think of the Irish accent and sarcastic profane guys has only one thing to offer, dark wit with guiltless blood spill. “In Bruges” takes that dark comic into factor but we get close to these characters. The world and laws they have formed in their constitution is the inner mind. And it kills them and for Ray it is double staying in Bruges.

Director Martin McDonagh in the character of Ken takes us through the touristy side of this town unknown to many with rich buildings, boat ride on canals and street bars. Ray is the irritated kid running with his guilt and trying to survive the day. There are two women which represents some hope among these men of guns. They are Marie (Thekla Reuten) and Chloë (Clémence Poésy), former a pregnant hotel owner with a mutual respect and soft zone for Ken while the latter becomes the reason for his day to blossom for Ray. There is a dwarf Jimmy (Jordan Prentice) which brings about the skewed reality the film and in a way for the town. Every one has a part to be played with a necessity.

Gangster films or any violence film is watched, enjoyed and appreciated for a reason that it is not happening to us and mainly some of its unreal factors. Adding to that is the convenience of the people deserves to die attitude which provides a major comfort for viewers. Here the hit men while seem deserve to die show humanity which makes to look it with a different viewing glass. “In Bruges” concentrates on these three characters that kill people for living but carry a code of conscience which does not really make up a good profile for their job. But they exist in the film very much real and their outlook on their job with actions makes even greater sense of their remorse and regret. Their rational to dissect this feeling of a moral taught in as children only intensifies their pain.

The writing is sharp and the humour is as dry it can get. As the film begins, McDonagh tempts and tests with some of the raw touches of humour and then throws more of those and it keeps getting better and better till the final lines of the Ray’s voice over is said. The bloody comedy Guy Ritchie brought through “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” has given origin to many other similar films but “In Bruges” is a level above that trend. It amongst its character of wit invents feelings and in profanity embeds morals and codes. But mind that it is a sleek line with a slippery slope to experiment which as a confident director with right cast skates through. The character Ray as Farrell is a novice among the men who has done the act with more experience and with stern are Gleeson’s Ken and Harry played by Fiennes.

There are phones broken by villain which we have seen but a follow up word of “inanimate object” has never uttered. There has been strange shootout with funny instances but never in that was comedy an intention with genuine request. “In Bruges” does have bad people but it is a film about them where we watch them behave and find a plot and niceness. In that we want to take sides and forgive some but the consequences are known. Nothing heroic is going to happen and tragic is a question of perspective and observation. But “In Bruges”, it is a matter of a humour bland and caustic, action thrill and tragic and humane in the world of blood and steel.

"Three Colours: Red" (Language - French) (1994) - Movie Review

Sunken streets and pasted water on the stones of the road becomes a live wallpaper in the “Three Colours: Red”, the final piece of the trilogy by director Kieślowski. Similarity in various people’s life is coincidence and when we learn the end of this film, it is more than coincidence flooding our thoughts with limitless possibilities. Is it a past in present or future in the past or is it merely a present? Yet without any answers we are not worried about the riddle rather it is the merging of numerous hearts, some defined, some never gets its name.

In the sullen roads of a big town with a small busy street lives a model Valentine (Irene Jacob). She has a long distant boy friend shooting questions and loading annoyance, yet she needs some one to confide on her lonely days. Accidentally hitting a dog, she traces the owner, a man with no empathy only to take care of the dog herself. A neighbour of her Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) is in love with a blonde Karin (Fredirique Feder) preparing for his exam for becoming a judge. Both Auguste and Valentine cross each other as stranger and yes they would end up together but not in the manner we have been used to. The film is more about the lonely old man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who is the heartless owner of the dog as introduced and his developing acquaintance with Valentine.

He is an eaves dropper listening to the passionate encounter of his neighbour the head of the house with another man. His neighbour is a husband and a lovely father. When Valentine sees it, he does not hide it and motivates her to do the right thing, telling the man that he is listening. She could not do it but he knows the consequence of this. He has no attachment to whatsoever and the conversations of him with Valentine have nakedness. She while being humiliated as a human being by his acts of invading privacy is also impressed by his candidness. This drives her back to him and he has missed a woman or a person to speak his heart in a long while. In Valentine he sees the soul to listen and reads her eyes for his accurate judgments of events and personalities to be validated and wondered. A strange relationship blossoms.

It is beauty for the old man and he knows his limits when it turns into a trusty friendship. He cleans his act while both are in a photographic moment of washed up memories. The segment of Auguste is detached and that bothers but how it joins the film is a demonstrated method in films before in a clarity not seen before. The dry leafs in a deserted front yard of his house, the windows half covered with book cases and coffee tables, the table lamps shining lights engulfing the characters in its diameter with broken glasses and sounding silences some how tells me the French imagination in it. Not that I know much of the French art or an arduous follower of their films and for that case Kieślowski is Polish. Yet in the couple of films I have seen, they seem to have grasped the missing moments in the reality and the unnoticed pieces of time left in the emotions of two people. They see the surroundings and in the nostalgia and worries they blanket them with a comfort of picture perfect colours.

The obsession for finding reasons for events and naming relationships have always been the controversial and comforting factor of people. Age, sex, religion, colour, jobs and factors undefined have determined the sustainability and possibility of a relationship. It might start but not necessarily finds its end. Here in between a man in island syncs up with a young woman unknown of her presence. They take time to understand each other and end up becoming more than friends and less than lovers.

There are connecting events and reoccurring characters in three films which I have failed to mention in other two. It is mainly because of how it is used as a preference of resemblance of sitting in Kieślowski’s trilogy film than a matter of significance. But he reminds us of its importance. In “Blue”, there is an old lady bent all the way down trying to dump a bottle into a dumpster high above her. Julie Vignon the widow numbed in pain watches that but does not help. Similarly in “White”, the old lady goes unassisted and we are wondering what is wrong with these people and in this film it is ended as it should be. In this final film, it hints on various logics but with one proper feeling of ending a trilogy, complete.

"Get Smart" (2008) - Movie Review

Not seeing the “Get Smart” TV series did not stop me from enjoying the “Get Smart” film, with Steve Carell as Agent Maxwell Smart. Smart is working for covert intelligence team called CONTROL which has an arch nemesis of KAOS. CONTROL is clearly run by the US government while no specific claim is taken for KAOS. But who cares as their enmity blows up for a plot seen in serious and spoof film of spies. “Get Smart”, forgive me for the eventuality that the film actually is smart.

Maxwell Smart is an intelligence analyst eyeing for the field agent job forever. His role model and an effective field officer Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) supports him while his three numerals pages of reports are annoying sleep pills for other bullying colleagues Agent 91 (Terry Crews) and Larabee (David Koechner). Smart is not an idiot as the stereotype runs for spoof James Bond films. He is diligent in his job of analysis and deduction. He knows information and how to process it. The thing which goes wrong for him is the misfortunate matter of luck. True that he gets couple of instances due to his idiocy but every one gets that moment of foolishness.

Making him an effective operator actually brings laughs due to Carell’s nice charm with a loss of touch to his naivety. Director Peter Segal uses the talent astute and gives the correct lines for each of them. The villain Siegfried (Terence Stamp) and his assistant (Ken Davitan), Chief (Alan Arkin), nerd buddies of Smart Bruce (Masi Oka) and Lloyd (Nate Torrence) and especially Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 are placed with clean as a whistle screenplay.

When viewing an action film’s stunts with car chases, escape tactics and landing zones, often we determine the flaws of logic. Quite obviously it would not add up but the Hollywood has considerably cast its spell over the audience such that those logics are forgiven. Still sometimes the line gets crossed and insults the audience. In well executed films such as The Bourne series, time is not given to think about those rather the pure adrenalin of a temporary believability surpasses that stressful truth, logic. This film accumulates the possibilities of those failure and not comically but genuinely fails it which is funny and acknowledges the intelligence of the audience.

I once read the favourite quotes of actors which are shown before a film which had Steve Carell saying that he has cornered the market for being idiot. Indeed he has the juice for it with a sweetness required for a likeable person out of it than to be bored or to dislike the character. In Maxwell Smart he is zealous and well equipped as an agent but at the same time has the awe struck factor of being a rookie and sustaining the attractiveness and appreciating for his new partner Agent 99. The joke is generated out of his unaware unluckiness than an actual act of being a jerk as Mike Myers does in Austin Powers (I do like Powers in pieces than as a whole character).

“Get Smart” treats the story with seriousness and it plays for its good a lot of times. The plot has the same routine but it goes on with a purpose revealing a good suspense. And Alan Arkin is easily able to be funny as he did with a foul mouth in “Little Miss Sunshine”. He is trusted with the remote observer of the stunt in the climax and generally that part has the danger of being incredibly flat and an awkward indulgence of a kind to demise the scene. Arkin is in control of that and he becomes the instrumental character in being a commentator of the comedy which happens far from his place.

Another fact which makes the film effective from start till the end is the stunts. They are used as a blatant display of exhausting material in a comedy film and hence we sleep through those. The care of choreographing it as an interesting, funny and a thrilling fact in the film projects how the team worked on it with gravity for its content. Trailers I have learned are great spoilers but that is the marketing strategy for inviting the viewers. I have come to dislike it completely since it robs the pleasure of surprise and pure cinematic experience. For “Get Smart” it did a lot of it and it worked favourably for the film this time. Because as the trailer gives Maxwell Smart as a complete unfit for being an agent, I went underestimating Maxwell and his skill did surprise me and it was fun to see a spoof spy not being inept at his job. But he has cheery dumbness as any human and fortunately it happens in a comedy film for not casting catastrophic results.

"Three Colours: White" (Language - Polish/French) (1994) - Movie Review

Blanc is the French translation of the colour white and it stands the title. It is a poignant and melodic sans extraordinary film. The characters are sinister and Dominique carried by Julie Delpy is up for serving cruelty in multi course meals to the protagonist Karol played by naïve and hopelessly caught in love Zbigniew Zamachowski. The intensity of Dominique in hurting Karol increases proportionally with the attempt of contacts he tries to make. She ignites a fire in a property attained by divorcing Karol and says she will tell cop that he did it, she freezes his account and leaves him in streets and finally to top it off when he calls to check on her at night she moans and screams in her lovemaking with another man to him. And still Karol could not able to get over her.

Karol could not make love to her is the reason she gives for breaking up the marriage and it indeed is. She makes it miserable break away. Either Karol has pestered her to nuts or she is a little devil with an expertise skill level in moral and emotional torture. Karol a Pole meets another countryman, Mikolaj (Janusz Gajos) at the train station. Mikolaj has that comforting big brother scent as that of Philip Baker Hall in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Hard Eight”. These are the men who can immediately identify a failed and defeated man, comfort him with a drink and offer a help and are genuine in the succinct sentences uttered to accept it without doubt or concern. With some dangerous risks, Karol comes back to Warsaw and begins working with his friend Jurek (Jery Stuhr). He has been a great hair dresser and he does that. He still loves and aspires to attain Dominique. What now is the question?

Director Krzysztof Kieślowski’s second in the three colours trilogy is unlike “Blue”. We can say both films have an approach of similar nature by a creator particular about camera angle, music and mystical suspense of how a scene might end. The direction is directionless in the character’s next step of action. He does not let Karol speak up what he is about to execute and the film smirks when Mikolaj performs what Karol asks to without any question. It is a cruel test of teasing when Karol is about to tell him but Mikolaj walks away. The scene gets its nature of concealment and while it runs condescending on the viewer, it is not insulting because Mikolaj’s character’s honesty and integrity is maintained.

How man is hopelessly attracted and becomes an emotional slave for the opposite sex? The more they are rejected, the more they are attracted. With insolent actions and humiliation, they polarize it as a test of their love. But the naked truth is the pleasure in self pity, a drug which once identified can be got rid of and that happens at a pace of the person’s discovery of denial. Karol is a nice and amicable person as we see him sleeping on the street, suffering under the hands of Dominique, getting robbed and kicked. But he is not stupid and he is a clever businessman. He begins to venture tactics of money making in a risky with perfect plan. But we do not question his state of mind for the love he has for his woman mainly due to the association we make with his pain and while simultaneously want him get over her, feel sorry for him too. He keeps it to himself and make sure it does not interfere in his day to day life which is the reason we like him. He is a friend not grouching about the unfairness but building up a life for him and may be some thing more. As the money making process attains fruition, the coming events would give closure but the end is more tragic and has a deep sense of wicked innocence. The two characters come to terms over a plain of discomfort and pity. But we are convinced by it.

The film’s nature of its lightness and basically plot driven loses some of the serene emotions “Blue” carried on. Still it operates in its circle of genre and execution. It has uncorrelated scenes which come to make sense later which are rightly to be put as such but it is more about the chemistry of these two men, Karol and Mikolaj. I liked that better than the passion which drives Karol and Dominique. Karol and Mikolaj should have been the interests. It is said that “White” is the conceptual representation of equality and in this case of both sexes. While most of the time a film of such value would go for the take of an injustice act upon woman, this takes the other way round. This is a film with multiple emotional pay offs to take upon. It is in its content of depiction attains its destination. The journey while appears bland has significance of how characters has the capability to be vicious and able to make peace with them to survive upon. It is not disturbing not because of how much one would go to hurt another rather we come out guiltless and the acknowledgement of the dark companion in us scares a little.

"Three Colours: Blue" (Language - French/Romanian/Polish) (1993) - Movie Review

“Three Colours: Blue” is the numero uno in the trilogy by late director Krzysztof Kieślowski. It is a somber journey of a woman’s grief. The visuals following the title has tints and shades of the colour never as a distraction of an unnecessary prop but an aiding symbol and landmark of the sorrow unexpressed, words unsaid and tears that never made it to the earth. A painting of pain through isolation, introspection and suppression, it is an exercise to listen and observe the back ground behind and away from its characters.

A close tire, we watch its treads merging into a smooth surface, a tunnel ride, we see that through the vehicle sounds it diminishes and a little girl, through the rear wind shield staring with blank eyes and unreceptive stare with still an innocence to charm. A young boy with a skate board is on his side walks asking for a lift, the car passes and the boy continues his handy game. His face is drawn suddenly towards the direction of from where the loud sound of the crash comes. If the car would have stopped for the lift, it would have survived. Is it the point or does the director teases us in these thoughts of fate and missed opportunities? It is neither but a tragic start for the sole survivor of the crash, Julie (Juliette Binoche). Her husband a great composer pending to play his music for marking the “unity of Europe” is killed in the crash along with their daughter.

Julie does not cry or react. She could not commit suicide not for any reason but simply cannot. The film begins the viewer as the stranger to her sorrow. We are sympathetic but are we really sympathetic to leave our work and console her? We are in that stage of pausing a second for her but moving on with life, not because we are boorish rather the help is to leave her alone. Julie precisely does that. She decides to wipe the memories, objects and pieces of her loved ones. She tells the lawyer to sell the house and the furniture. She sleeps with her husband’s friend or assistant whom she knew he loved her. She does that not for company but for the pain of guilt. She rubs her fist through stone walls to feel and to punish herself. Out of every sold piece, she keeps a chandelier of blue coloured stones. In the desperate eradication of memories, Julie as any other person in deep grief cannot erase everything. For better or worse, stones with stains of past lacerations take immense impossible measures to neutralize those permanently.

She even destroys the half composed music of her husband but the music she has seen keeps on playing in her mind. At distress, she blacks out in her heard to the sounds and comes back. Director Kieślowski darks the screen for that to return and seasons the viewer with the sadness. The situation is tragic and Julie of course in a state of homeless feeling in her mourning. As any broken heart would do, she cuts off the risk of knowing some one. In desolation and doing nothing, she feels safe. When relapses occur, she dissolves her tears through swimming in the blue water.

A sad film with profound details attended real close in photography. In the mood of dull air, the film punctuates with sudden sounds, a sliding light and a fluid motion to provide energy of drunkenness. Juliette Binoche encapsulates the stern Julie not expressing but has a calculated rudeness wherein one empathizes but still be hurt. She is spectacular when she eats the blue candy in a hurried motion as if slowing it down will make her breakdown rapidly. It is wrapped in a toffee paper which we have seen the tender hands of her child flapping against air through the car window. The secondary information becomes the aesthetic guidance to the primary object. This gets applied to the faces and back ground sounds, a sugar cube’s tip on the surface of a coffee and a street flute player in one side of the screen with the other side a coffee shop door.

It is a navigational tool in to a woman separating her from human contact recuperates and rejoins the life through subtle contact by them. One wonders what the symbolic significance of the colour is apart from its visual depiction. Blue is her sorrow, pain, solitude, anger, guilt but of all a masquerade for those under which she relaxes to release them submersing herself into the colour.

"Green for Danger" (1946) - Movie Review

The good old murder mysteries with a knack for fast dialogues and fast plot are lost in the word wars than the actual discovery of the murderer. Here I was able to guess as Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim) but as him was not able to reason out or come about on how. This is a noir crime film and in an odd way is funny as well by the narration of Cockrill. His letter to the Scotland Yard is the investigation he led and some hapless smug of him costing a deadly loss of a life. But we do not take it seriously because it is not meant a tragic rather a crime thriller for entertainment. It is like watching Tom and Jerry cartoon beating the hell out of each other and we laugh at it. It is not a comedy but every instance of it is not real and we view it as a play. Hence the murder seems as a puzzle than sympathy.

Everything happens in a hospital during the war time with V-1 guided missiles giving chilling silence to intrigue the fear in the existing tense scenario. The narrator Cockrill focuses on an operating room with Mr. Eden (Leo Genn), anesthetist Mr. Barney Barnes (Trevor Howard), Nurse Freddi Linley (Sally Gray), Nurse Esther Sanson (Rosamund John), Sister Marion Bates (Judy Campbell) and Nurse Woods (Megs Jenkins). Two will be dead and one of them is the murderer is the clue Cockrill provides. Later one patient in the operating theater dies which causes to rethink all the relationships, hates, unknown past and devious looks and envious eyes to figure out who could have been responsible for the event. Of course we would not get a hint of who did it because that would eliminate the film in fifteen minutes.

Every one talks in a hurry and gets a terse intelligent reply as a bouncing ball’s force on a wall. Eden is a charmer and smooth gentleman having a romance for Linley who is having problems with her fiancé Barnes. Sanson is recovering from a trauma happened a while ago while Woods is plainly rude. Bates is a strict invigilator of the hospital having enormous love for Eden. Thus the circle completes in this dubious people of rigorous hospital ordeal of saving lives and constantly denying sleep.

The beauty of black and white as it always has the skill of silhouetting the dark and bright drawings. The characters are well aware of their positions and that does not stop them from being sarcastic and solid in conveying their innocence to the necessary intruder Cockrill. Cockrill relishes this situation seeing this as a form of amusement. He instigates situations, pops up from bushes and reveals the tidbits clues. He delivers as though he has been practicing it daily in front of a mirror. While he is a clever observer and interpreter, his complacency in his job and the funny bone mixes to give a careless approach. He acknowledges it in letter with an addendum of slick slip on of his success over the case.

“Green for Danger” directed by Sidney Gilliat in my eyes is not a classic but a display of sharp acting and a screenplay clearer than a still water. It knows what it’s dealing with and has the actors to perform rightly just for the required amount. Once the killer is revealed we do not feel shocked because the number is minimal in guessing. The journey though is interesting and does not bore us. The old mystery film rarely carries emotion or drama since it is not the person who died is of importance but are the ones who are alive to create suspicion to keep us guessing till the end. We may have found the killer but the reasons are unjustly kept in dark. But we do not feel much cheated since the screenplay jumps under our nose and keeps us busy in these studious exchanges of words with little emotion.

"House of Sand and Fog" (2003) - Movie Review

Often we go through an incident and handle it by the spur of its whirlpool enormity of the situation and the reason by a person to be in an unknown area of his judgments and actions. At that moment, words flow like a river of uncontrollable filter to brain and mouth. What has said will stay forever and the emotions are going to haunt him/her for rest of his/her life despite atonements and apologies. Those emotions are the ones which would be in the firm grip of the grasses and stones. Not a house of bricks and bones of contention. And “House of Sand and Fog” is a sad story to remind us that. It is a film tough to watch through the end because its confrontations are sour for its harsh truth.

We are aliens in a great wide earth yet we have borders, boundaries and fences especially to the place we live in. In a turn of events Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) loses her house to the county for not paying business tax which she does not owe. She is in a state of personal and financial depression. Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley) of Iranian origin has got his daughter married and has a son waiting to finish his school. He seizes the opportunity to make money out of this deal by auctioning Kathy’s house to sell it later for a better price. He is in desperate needs too. This tug of war for the property becomes the fulcrum of many traumatic events.

These are all good people caught in a situation of survival driven by the affection for their family members. Behrani used to be a Colonel and behaves as one in the immigrated America. He is sharp and clean. He works hard labour for feeding his family but opts for the life of luxurious personnel. Drowning in dirt he comes to his expensive suite but before he enters the apartment goes to a rest room and cleans up. He shaves and dresses up in a suit sparkling. He is the man of the house. He has a faithful and loyal wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo) with broken English and an unbelievable patience. She questions his decision only to be asked to shut up and follow orders. Behrani is not all tightened. He knows to be calm, respectful, and gentle. He is a husband and a father taking every single moment of pride in his management of his family. And he adores his son Esmail (Jonatha Ahdout).

In comes Kathy need of a morale support. Her family has been critical of her life that we get every thing we want to know about them or to be precise what Kathy thinks in a single phone call at the start. Kathy has not said a word about her separation with her husband and her current eviction. She has always opted for alcohol and cigarettes but has managed to keep it under control for few years only the current situation to tempt her to succumbing for it. She finds support in a married police person Lester (Ron Eldard). Lester is clean even in his act of adultery and its consequence. Once a bad guy for him it is always a bad guy which proves fatal.

This is a film of human dynamics failing to communicate or acknowledge a translation of it. Everything gets masked by the cloud of injustice, anger and sadly a lot of fear. Fear to lose the identity, love and a roof. The attachment we create towards our living space is a scale model for having a country, state and city to belong. This feeling to belong over an earth more than people is astounding. I know how much I feel about the house I grew up. I remember the day I visited it back which we rented. It is an unexplainable feeling to see some other people reside at the place I used to call as home, my room, the dining room, living room with a corner for TV. The shelf whose edges never failed to indent my skin every time I crossed. The scratches and splinters sound a poetic invitation. And for that moment the object comes to life. In Roger Deakins cinematography the lines of that poem are read through rays, shadows and remarkable human presence.

Vadim Perelman, the architect of this film debuts and it is a classy and artistic piece of framed emotions of tragedy. We feel angry at the end towards Kathy for her insolent association with the house and the action she takes upon herself. But we realize the zeal of Behrani in sticking to his gut for desperation. The innocence shattered is the people who get involved in this battle. In between so many people’s mixed emotions and judgments, all it takes is a bullet for a great tragedy. In every sobbing moments of the end, we think of the title over and over again to weep in our hearts of helplessness.

"Dasavatharam" (Language - Tamil) (2008) - Movie Review

Great movies need great reviews. A film ignites a reviewer to pen a satisfying and proud composition which he obliges for his self sufficing pleasure and to the people reading it getting resonating emotions what they encountered watching the piece. Even if some did not enjoy the film as they did, there will be room for discussion in positive manner. The film “Dasavatharam” is not one and does not deserve a review in first place but all film gets its day with equal rights of dissection and disposition.

Hence, I came up with ten reasons I hated the film. For people unknown of the choice of ten, actor Kamal Hassan does ten roles in this despicable film written by him too.

(1) The amount of time and money through resources and materials for creating ten characters could have been solved by ten very good actors with more dimensions and depth for a film, but it does not matter since this film is not an attempt in giving good cinema.

(2) The baseless story of ridiculousness with a condescending intellectual stand Kamal takes on his knowledge of the 12th century history which has no place in this film. It deserves more than an ego inflated person who is known to be the hope of the Indian film industry to put a great effort for contributing to the art of cinema. He has not been that and have avoided it most of his films giving priority to the film rather than his stardom and the rare talent he possesses in a mundane film industry.

(3) A baseless and implausible screenplay having characters walk in and out with no agenda other than to create a project for the CGI people to interlace multiple Kamal in single screen. And for the money they ravished upon, at least couple of shots should be a wide one to show the fund dispatched in those multiple waste characters.

(4) While I hated at least 7-8 characters, the prominent professional killer Christian Fletcher, an ex-CIA officer (No Kidding!) with a bad make up wanders senseless and sociopathic having no idea whatsoever on what to do with the “biological” weapon of mass destruction carried on by the protagonist Govind.

(5) Asin’s character of Andal and mainly her voice – Andal an orthodox Brahmin girl with fanaticism over her religion spitting out in every scene is neither funny nor insightful. She shouts “En Perumaale” (My Lord) towards the idol which has the “weapon” box so many times with an irritating voice and ignorant mode that I was suffocated with that character.

(6) Himesh Reshammiya’s horrible display of senseless aural hell. That is enough since nothing more is needed for this abysmal audio sample.

(7) There are twenty easy instances of awkwardness which mocks itself. It does that because the film tries to be intelligent at many places and makes a fool of it but it goes to auto pilot in logic when there were chase scenes of uber insanity.

(8) A length of 165 minutes of sheer boredom. In the first thirty minutes, I saw the watch to check the timings and then in a tragic sigh I told myself, “I have another freaking two hour and fifteen minutes of this irredeemable film to rob my salvation”. I immediately shrugged off it to do a fair justice on judging the film by its first thirty minutes. After 165 minutes, my salvation was robbed. How much naïve I was?

(9) The boasting up of its story, technical aspects and every single tiny departments of the film stating its obvious success. The stench of their glorification was so bad that the one interview I saw made me to doubt the actual intention of Kamal. And he proved the intention with the film shamelessly advertising on its value and presence in the industry failing to make advancement.

(10) Finally Kamal, for whom I have always been a fan and have great respect. I loved his “Guna” during when it was discarded as a social film outcast. “Mahanadi”, “Thevar Magan” and mainly his “Hey Ram” were master pieces. My appreciations for his films did not stop with his artsy drama but loved his diversity and versatility in his blockbuster entertainment and comedy hits. It would have been great to see an entire comedy flick with couple of characters especially the funny Balram Naidu to have it the way of “Michael Madhana Kamarajan”. Even in his “Aalavanthan” failure there were ahead of time touches of cinematic excellence. His stardom persona never interfered in that. But here you see a distorted Kamal pompously declaring his uniqueness in a common entertainment done bad proclaiming artistic aesthetics. Apart from the character of Balram Naidu, the rest were first of all an unnecessary baggage for his pleasure of doing “extraordinary”. This is a sign of decline towards his perils of stardom in his realm of great stand in a mud of entertainment blockbusters. It hurts me more because some times when great talents decline, they take the film trend along with them. I can only hope there is a redemption plan currently in his production.

"The Happening" (2008) - Movie Review

What to expect out of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening”? In his films after “The Sixth Sense” he has not been able to sustain the wave he created in it. And he will not be able to because the occurrence of that film is not regular. Also people anticipate a stunning end like that which again is shortening his creativity. “Unbreakable” lived on the frequency of “The Sixth Sense” while “Signs” is something I had hard time grasping. “The Village” and “Lady in the Water” were both films I missed. I went to “The Happening” as I go for any regular films and it can be said that the film is a pleasant thriller and a horror film with unconventional approach in the current gory trend.

Being his first R-rated film, I had reservations on what blood bath Shyamalan has planned. Either the scale of gore I had in mind got elevated to make it look normal or the films now a day has tuned every one for gruesome images, I survived with couple of flinches. The north east of United States encounters a strange phenomenon of people affected by a neurotoxin suspected to be a terrorist attack. It disables their senses and allowing a window of it which is applied for killing themselves. The event spreads across and a science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is the character we begin to follow. He is a regular man with marital problems with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel). He tags on with his friend Julian (John Leguizamo). Julian has a daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). These are the people who will be the ones we would root for to survive this cataclysm by the nature.

“The Happening” works for lot of reasons. One such is the actors. It only takes couple of glances and stress in the dialogues to establish the friendship between Elliot and Julian along with the strong disliking opinion Julian has over Elma. In the situation of ultimate destruction, the humans are props for killing and one or many take the heroism potion. But “The Mist” handled it extremely well on the human horror existing in the society. Here it is the nature’s reaction to the zillions and zillions of human inhabitation and abuse of it. Shyamalan gives a horror film with an unconventional tone. He does not go for cheap shots of people killing each other in grisly manner. It would then be a zombie attack. He does not make strange things jump from nowhere or from a closed window. The fear he creates is a fear inhabited in common. In making the people suicidal, the terror is on the living ones. When the victims choose any form of tactics to choose their demise, they do not seem to feel the pain or at least their face is expressionless..

While it is effective, the film is not a great statement either. Mentioned earlier Shyamalan employs a novel style in giving a horror film with a human relationship at stake. He did the same in “Signs” which did not move the pace either as a thriller or as a drama. It got stuck in that zone of identity crisis failing to mingle the content properly. In “The Happening” the relationship trouble between Elliot and Alma has its moments of understanding and oddly a couple of comic timings in a fear looming picture.

We fathom and luxurious ourselves in the strong hope of nothing can happen in most circumstances and the truth is most often nothing happens. The tiniest possibility of the worst thing such as apocalyptic calamity has no place in our minds amongst the diurnal chores of hedonistic pleasure of routines. That is the reason world destruction comes as a block buster than a serious analysis of the effects. In that “The Happening” distinguishes a little bit.

Much credit goes to Wahlberg’s performance who manages to maintain the atmosphere of tension with a cool face. While the air is filled with fear, his ambidextrous ability of controlled deliverance at ease oscillates in between rare comic touches and terrifying runs. His Elliot does not become the almighty expertise hero to save the reducing clan but he is regular man who behaves as a regular man. And his deduction of this event is from his observation as a science teacher. This is a well composed role by him.

In theatres, I could hear most of the people sighing and a gentleman commenting that no wonder critics hated this during a scene of Wahlberg having a moment with a plant. It is quite impossible to go for a film without any expectation. The trick is to tone it down and ready to open up for what the film has to offer. The film obviously has the responsibility to fit the viewers in and guide them through where it wants to. The disappointed fans in most anticipated film often fall in to that iron curtain of disobeying to free them up. So I can understand what they would have wanted out of Shyamalan, one another “The Sixth Sense”.

"The Incredible Hulk" (2008) - Movie Review

Bruce Banner and his inner beast Hulk has not found a place in my comic hero years. The nostalgic fan of the TV series might get it is what I was thinking but “Iron Man” fell in the unaware radar and yet I enjoyed it. Ang Lee’s “Hulk” dealt most of this green guy as a human trapped inside and “The Incredible Hulk” does not have the time to let Bruce Banner here portrayed by a favourite actor of mine, Edward Norton to let out some more words. May be he would said the right word I am saying out here. Disaster.

The title roles up with chronicles of events to what made Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) diminish in to the lands of Brazil and practice his controlling skills of repressing excitement. He has a communication through chat with an unknown identity declaring as Mr. Blue. Supposedly Banner has come to trust this mysterious man/woman for a cure to his green nightmares in daylight. He has managed to keep things under control so far with a menial labour in a soft drink manufacturing plant. These initial scenes had an unspoken charm and desperation of this lost scientist. With a music guiding the current life of him, I was hooked and when he undergoes a breathing control from his martial arts instructor (Jiu Jujitsu I presume), I grinned. It is going to be a character study and an analogy of monstrous behaviour as such in us. It fizzled within couple of minutes.

It is bound to happen that he will be located by the military dictator General Ross (William Hurt), father of Bruce’s love interest Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). And his intelligence and sense can be questioned in each of the strategy he plans to capture Bruce. He sends a team consisting of an aging soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth). I was able to digest the chase but after that it is an opposing contrast of the first fifteen minutes. The film migrated into a silent chaos of banality and insanity. Every character has a single line agenda. Bruce Banner – Cure for green monster, Betty Ross – Love Bruce, General Ross – Frame stupid plans for a grandeur fiascos and Emil Blonsky – Do not want to grow old and get high on the super serum. Throw the CGI into this mix to have big fat blockbuster disguised in the name of characterization and close sense of reality.

What is the drive for Blonsky? The age rarely seems to be his problem because without the experimental fluid inside his veins, he is one tough gun to seriously kick some butts. The connection between Ross and him is immediate. The following lines would have been more sense than what connects these two people.

Ross: I am General Ross. My motto is killing the Hulk dude. I have a fluid to kick off your veins. You want to get high and become a super freaking soldier.

Blonsky: Get me high, forget about super freaking soldier.

The people in this film are denied to talk and I mean not even sigh for help. They do not understand discussion rather keeps mum and let the mean big dude come out to make pieces of cars and what not. What were they thinking when the attack of Hulk on a university front was shot? The mistake is that the world Louis Leterrier creates is too real for Hulk and thus tweaks the sensory cells in a viewer. That would directly advice to call that a rubbish. It is rubbish.

Norton has always been an intelligent actor and a good one. His patience and choice of roles has significance effect in adding a film something more than usual. And when he signs on to a block buster, curiosity is a tickling word. It is another attempt after Ang Lee’s execution which pumps up the excitement to another stage but I had limited scope. I was ready for either an introspective Hulk or a blind entertainer sufficing the summer film parades. Combination would have been good too. I was ready for pretty much anything. It does not succeed in any of those and I was staring with disappointment.

“Hulk” had a greater inspection of a beast which still had a little sense of the human Banner. In calamity of rage sprayed on by him, there was a part which was shaded on the consciousness of the inner personality. The “Hulk” lost me when it shifted to the mode of bad CGI and again ridiculous plan of General Ross involving “attacks”. In “The Incredible Hulk” it has CGI ramped up to high technical caliber and music impressive to stand alone in boosting the race of the story but has vacuum of horrendous implausibility and stupidity.

"Rocket Science" (2007) - Movie Review

A high school film with students not resembling the real kids but anyways give a satisfying film have been seen in the raunchy comedy genre of “American Pie” and in the artistic independent circuit in “Rushmore”, “Thumbsucker” and some of the Gus Van Sant films I have not seen (I am saying this on the dependency of the other reviewers who have to say a lot about Sant’s films like “Elephant” and “Paranoid Park”). “Rocket Science” is about as right is it could get on giving a high school reality comedy one would desperately try of.

It tells the story of a suburbian kid Hal Hefner (Reece Daniel Thompson) keeping things to himself due to his stuttering. It is a study of one’s life in terms of himself and his surroundings rather than the big picture of the school ambience. The school activities become the part of his life but do not grab him into the suction of the spiced up themes of sex and deviance. As the film opens, there is a cold narration similar to what I have heard in “Little Children” in a known fact of two distant events conjoining to represent an artistic uniqueness. It was a let down when it happened since it had the symbols of indulgence most of the independent directors masturbate on. It freezes the silence of a debater Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D’Agosto) in his sonic speed delivery in a state championship competition to be watched by his partner Virginia or Ginny (Anna Kendrick) who has aspired so much to win the prize. The same silence is seen when Hal sees his dad (Denis O’Hare) leaves his mom (Lisbeth Bartlett). The relation at that moment though poetic does have a distant union making complete sense of natural behaviour.

“Rocket Science” does the thing what most of the best movies does, merging the reality in to an art of presentation. It has characters with an underlying heart of goodwill with the age and situation playing them. Take Hal’s brother Earl (Vincent Piazza) and he has a secret chest of his favourite items, stolen by him. He talks like a big brother and in every way behaves as one. He is a subtle loving brother in an uncompromising egoistic masquerade of a bully. He has plans or agenda as he calls it for every day and every month encompassing his whole life. And the way he organizes it is too perfect and he would be sucked up into the pyramid marketing as his first fall in fast achievement in life.

There is love and sex not as a material but as an eventuality of life in high school. And when it breaks, a person that age cannot come to terms on the emotion as whether it is rage or affection. Hal is lured in to the debate team by Ginny, a desperate go getter aiming the next year’s championship. She is fast, showy and has a vibe sensing satellite reacting to people watching her when she is not looking them. And she gives a chance for Hal to be in a map not in a school but in himself of what he could make out of this existence.

This is brilliant film making with unique common characters some how or other would have encountered in our school life. The film has teachers eloquent and versatile in their subject that they do not shy to show it off to their students either as a power or an approval of their accumulation of that talent. And there are coaches for special students and the school as an exercise hires some one in the idea that it never gets much people in first place. One such is Hal’s coach Lewinsky (Maury Ginsberg) supposed to help him overcome his stutter. And his knowledge on the subject is umpteenth hand gossip of an online forum discussion about overcoming stuttering.

The hero of this story does not have a high note in front of a crowded auditorium to deliver his success in confidence and speech. He does not get his love back nor has a mystified understanding to look at life as it is. He gets his confidence in a natural way and his level of success is something he could ask properly on what he wants to eat. Reece Thompson gets Hal in every nuances of predictability and topples us with a simplistic delivery of a usual line. He stutters to make the realization of our impatience and completes the meaning of it before it runs off thereby giving the sense of his situation and gets away with it. This is a mature acting by the young Thompson.

Director Jeffrey Blitz’s has one documentary to his name and this is his first feature film and he has the courage to show high school students as high school students. Here he generates comedy out of the old school rule book, on some one else’s misery. But we laugh guiltless and empathize with Hal and many other personalities around him. It is an execution of a screenplay to its creator’s content. I cannot think of a scene which may be out of the lot. Blitz teases us on bringing the formula prep and the usual culmination. He wants us to think that he is taking that path and comes up with a different novel realism which is not put to trick us but anchors the film in to a terrific story telling.

"The U.S. vs John Lennon" (Documentary) (2006) - Movie Review

All the information of John Lennon, the quintessential Beatles member and his influential wife Yoko Ono I have heard (not read, heard) is that (1) Lennon produced lovable cheery music with the Beatles and (2) he bedraggled in the pool of drugs and sex (3) Yoko Ono separated the Beatles and (4) both had a vague participation in the peace activism. And how much we assume out of media and inability to pursue for a truth or the necessity for knowing about them is a shame especially in my part in this case. “The U.S. vs John Lennon” in a manner is a post Beatles biography of John Lennon.

It in its title means a revolutionary stand against the then Nixon government for appeasement in Vietnam but all the more it is the illumination of Lennon not able to contain his excitement on learning things about the world or simply maturing. His first marriage with Cynthia is not discussed and it starts with his love for Yoko. Yoko Ono a creative audacious artist ignites Lennon to amalgamate hers with his in giving birth to a form of revolution which caused more stir, controversy and entertainment too.

The film begins by the controversy created by a statement by him and it is clever of the directors to start with the subject matter of religion. All of the arduous religious people (which are majority of the world) were terribly disturbed when Lennon said a statement of Beatles is more popular than Jesus Christ. I believe it was said as an expression of their status and their presence of theme and cult as that of religion ticked all the people. He tries to explain but only in vain. It is the genesis of his awakening in being a rebel from a rock star.

Seeing the footages of Yoko and him kissing, caressing, in bed and in tandem reciting their answers and points to the journalists, I was wondering how much love these two shared which is oozing out whenever they are over the screen. Of course the documentary is not a discussion of their marital problems but it is a matter of their unity in a cause both believed in and went beyond conventional approach to spread it.

Whether giving press meet out of big bag or representing their honeymoon as a mark for peace, Lennon and Ono had their way with the society. The notion of artists’ opinions automatically losing its intensity and value towards politics of the world is put into trashes by Lennon. He stood up to whatever was thrown at him. And he used his stardom and that over the media to bask the rest of the world. If I was in the era of the 60s and been in a society of shunned down view point of normalcy, then Lennon appears insane. He dances on the streets with Ono and comments bravely on the incoherence of war in the countries. His hope in changing for peace and prosperity through concerts and songs were sky high. And it brought him trouble too.

Nixon’s government nearing the election saw the mere presence of Lennon in the New York City a threat for their survival. Lennon in a plain sight is an artist with his principles of having harmony in the cacophonic universe of violence and vengeance. But it is “unpatriotic” in terms of the US government at that time. Patriotism always had the dubious misconception and deviation of fighting for the country one belongs or in simple terms is the egoistic attribute of protecting their property and acquiring others. This troubled Lennon who in his songs had a strong opinion of a single world with no country. Idealism is insanity in any time period as per the definition of normality. It will not work out which is the easiest way to dispose and discourage the attempt to take an effort. Lennon wanted the people to take that effort.

He made friends with Bobby Seale the head of a group considered dangerous in US called Black Panther party and activists such as John Sinclair to intensify his chances of getting axed by the government. He believed to be followed by the FBI. He believed that his phones were being tapped and basically driven to paranoia. He was thought to be paranoid because that a government watching a musician looked laughable. But it came to shock to have him deported from US. And that is the open declaration of war on his principles and presence by the Nixon government.

David Leaf and John Scheinfeld II does not over do the sentimentality and present a straight lined narration of the necessary elements needed for this statement of Lennon being singled out by the presidency of United States. Interviews, footages and songs are assembled accordingly which tells the character of this persona now viewed with the realization of what he was talking about. His actions reminded me of the Larry Flynt in “People Vs. Larry Flynt”, a man boosted to riches by selling explicit pornographic material through his magazine. Many did not like what he did but his right to live and lead a life was valid and similarly, Lennon did what he thought was to be a liberation from the cruelty of lives being lost in the name of patriotism and property.

"Kung Fu Panda" (2008) - Movie Review

“Kung Fu Panda” cannot be a surprise film for you as the title pretty much says the amount of Kung Fu air fights, training and slow motion fight frame freeze drags it has to show. Hence it lives not exceeding its limitations and you got to give it to submission because what cooler animal could you think of than an overweight Panda. Po the Panda (voice of Jack Black) is a sampled representation of any sizeable lazy kid who aspires to be the cool kick karate master. How else did “Karate Kid” found its place? It is a drug for the lazy kids (like me) to relish the dreams over the screen.

See how the voice of Jack Black says “awesome”. No one ever will be able to match that voice of energy and honesty in the true meaning of the word that it is destined to be said by Black repeatedly in the film through Po and we say, “Yes it is totally awesome!” Po the dreams of the Kung Fu legends who are the residing Zen of the temple of Kung Fu in the top of the mountains with the never ending steps to discourage any one at all to attain some moments of inner peace they practice.

The film does not mention the time period or place or why does animals live in ancient Chinese valley, but that is not one goes for a film titled “Kung Fu Panda”. They go with their kids and have a little fun for themselves. And the film uses this luxury well enough and develops on their strong holds. First is the animals as such are chosen to a level of coolness one can qualify to him/her. Apart from Shifu (voice by Dustin Hoffman) a red panda and Po the rest of the players Master Tigress (voice of Angelina Jolie), Master Mantis (voice by Seth Rogen), Master Viper (voice by Lucy Liu), Master Crane (voice by David Cross) and Master Monkey (voice of Jackie Chan) have a small role but are used well in stunt scenes. But the film worked in its first half by Oogway (voice of Randall Duk Kim) the tortoise. The old age and the calm wisdom of the creature bring a sudden seriousness in this animation comic.

It is for most of the part is the conversation of Black and Hoffman. And that combination as actors as such is a duo of professional combat in action. I have been widely impressed by the way the casting of the voices is done for the animation films. How do they choose? The animated characters do the acting and while in some mannerisms they can match the actors, how does the real challenge of going for a voice takes place at all? That is something I would love to see happening because what would happen if I did not know the actors who voice the characters? While watching most of the animation films I can picture the actors and their voices dropping through the creatures on the screen. Yet the eyes absorbed the animation and that blend of visions had a great work of magic in “Horton Hears a Who”. For “Ratatouille” I did not know the actors and still it to my best films of 2007. This is always a puzzle of how this casting and the mechanics of its effects on audience for an animation film has its charms. Here the amalgamation of Black trying hard to inject the life of strange activeness in this lazy Panda turned out well.

Director John Stevenson and Mark Osborne did not want a complicated creative method in their film. They went for the straight execution of the Kung Fu moves with the animals which has found its place for being cool than cute. Hence the film has the feel of honesty in its story, stunts and voices. When I say they do not try hard, it does not mean the material is bland, rather the departments they concentrate add up to the predictability the screenplay offers. If there is something which can be different about a Kung Fu film that would be the moves either animated or not. In those aspects and for the sincere effort of Jack Black breathing life into Po the Panda, this film succeeds.

"You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (2008) - Movie Review

Awareness of the stereotypes and inside jokes are must for “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” or else the super hero stunts and easy sexual jokes are the only islands of happiness as it had for me. I do not know how much of the jokes I really was lost but the hint of it is a must know factor. Adam Sandler of course is refreshing to not shout, scream and he plays his nice charms innocence side to give this killer commando Zohan the sweetness he needed.

A well built and toned Sandler is a serious strength and super agile human Zohan, a man for whom any attack can be dismantled. The army of Israel depends on him and he delivers. But as someone who has been doing the job of rescue, killing and tackling of terrorist it has become a job of boredom and wants to go for his passion, a hair stylist. After performing his own death under the hands of his nemesis Phantom (John Turturo), he lands in America. He becomes the super hair stylist with a special service of screaming sex to his female customers. So you can judge where the jokes lie.

With a PG-13 rating they manage enough semi nudity not of women but Zohan to raunchy the material on surface level. The film had lots of stunts which in reality was not comic but fun to watch. It was no different as any super hero film might have and as the genre is comedy which will be a known fact while watching, we inflict some humour onto the stunts a bit ourselves. Actually the film appealed more on a regular story telling than a complete comedy. It had smiles but laughs were hard to come by. I liked this sweet guy with sweetness and innocence with lewd acts seemingly casual. That goes a lot to Sandler. He is committed in the character of the Zohan.

Zohan eats hummus for anything and I believe it is comments on the dining choices the Middle Eastern or Israelis have. I cannot know for a fact whether that is the intended comedy out there. I was blank at those and many other scenes. They bring in the issues with Palestine and Israel which I was not sure is the right track for a comedy. Yet it made it clean without any scratches. It did not aid in the comic stand either. Strange that I am so indifferent to the film and I cannot strongly say whether I had a good time or not. It was a lukewarm material with really nice performance from Adam Sandler.

I liked the film and it would have promoted if it had rioting guffaws and a toned down stereotypic pieces. My preference for penning the reviews for the films I watch is the immediate writing of it as soon as it is over. For weird reasons, I do so because I feel that more than the film my retentivity for the thoughts got stay and to do the proper justice to the film itself, it needs to be spitted out as soon as possible. Still there have been films which missed its chances and made it to this space after a while. I am writing the review for this film after six hours and it is kind of tough to think back everything I enjoyed or dragged on. For the most part, Zohan did the job of entertaining me successfully but I hoped it could have been more. It could have been in the class of the comedies Apatow crew has been producing prolifically without any problems at all.

"Lonesome Jim" (2005) - Movie Review

Whoever came up with the name of Casey Affleck for the role of Jim would not have had any other option because if you can think of physically draining you out of impossible dragging dullness with ease, that could be him. Yet he gave unbelievable mature performances in “The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford” and “Gone Baby Gone”. A film which is depressing and disgustingly lazy makes loathe this bum who has given up on life with out even moving a muscle to flinch. Actor Steve Buscemi’s directorial venture meditates the ambience of disappointment and despair that there are multiple instances wherein we are on the verge of giving up on the film.

Jim is back to hometown to stay with his old parents Don (Seymour Cassel) and Sally (Mary Kay Place) not of choice. He is broke. We are befuddled by the intensity of numbness Jim emanates towards his parents and his divorced brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan). These are the people caught up in the scale they have set phenomenally low and just seeing it makes them give up. Jim is no accident from a town like this. Tim has two girls and coaches a basket ball team which is yet to make a basket in the whole season. Sally is the cheery bubbly mother who cannot let her boys grow up. She gets new towels for her filthy son, keeps an empty plate in the table when one is in the hospital and most of all covers her eyes and eats candy amongst the ditches of boredom.

The film begins in a drenched and dull day. When Jim gets out of the home to go for a drink, we see this town. The place is a cross section of mid big town where hopping pubs are all run by owners related to each other or used to work together to became business rivals. If the bar “Riki’s” has people you do not want to face, you have “Riki’s II” and if that is too dead for you, then you can always vouch on “Riki’s III” for some action. Jim finds that in a single mom nurse Anika (Liv Tyler), too beautiful and too mature for the bar, for him and for the town itself. We are surprised by her approach towards this hopeless suicidal person. His energy for hopelessness runs so much that he manages to make his brother attempt to kill himself but of course Tim has had similar “accidents” before says his dad.

A dark and staunched film of a low attitude beyond imagination, “Lonesome Jim” gets us in a level we are not able to confront. Here is a person not shy of shamelessly sitting on a couch to deny answering a phone call all day and bold to say no to work when his family is in shambles and exercises mind yoga of nothingness. It became incredibly uncomfortable watching the film after a while. We get angry at this loser. We want to shook his body off and talk some sense. Do these people exist in this axis of earth? Yes but the real shocker is that whether there is a chance of an Anika in a town like that who falls for this downer? Initially I thought it was impossible and in fact stood out as the only unreal character in the film. Later we evaluate her based on the town. Every time I doubted the possibility of her actions, a spare thought laminated the plausibility.

Anika while initially acquaint Jim because he is beyond hope and mainly she can have the control. His lethargic attitude appeals as a laid back which she very much needs in a hard working labour of being a single mom. Slowly she gets hooked onto this person who is very much aware of the goodness in other people but sits tight and wants to embrace the disappointment life eventually has to give. Questioning this relationship is a male mentality. We (or to be precise I) cannot tolerate that a jerk like Jim does not deserve a beautiful thoughtful girl like Anika. But I guess one can never infer a female’s mind on what they want or what they appreciate. I made myself to think such to realize that Jim offers her the much needed compliment in an honest way unaware of himself. He at one point even asks her that she deserves better and that scene is a slit through a window for a lonely and desperate single mom in a desolated town.

Jim is the condensed exemplified person of every one’s cowardice and pessimism. He wants to be a writer and the only close thing he could come up being that is practice the art of misery as his idols were all. Seeing Jim, I was reminded of the film “Naked” where the protagonist hates the world and accepts that to survive in anyways possible. He hurts people and wanders through the dirt of street. People knowing him still cannot help a magnetic attachment of a vacuum he creates to provide a vacation from their sadness. Jim is a magnified version but not eloquent or stunning as him rather he is too lazy to move, act, cry, emote, stand up, walk, eat and live.

"Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi" (Language - Tamil) (2006) - Movie Review

Director Shankar produced and debutant director Chimbudevan’s “Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi” works terrifically when it does not takes itself serious and fails astronomically when it does in the name of social responsibility. I am not amnesiac about the memories I have on what to expect in a tamil film but there has always been a feeling of unwholesome when a film I watched had many flaws and I forgave lot of it due to the rest of the strong material. I have disowned that forgiving attitude towards any film and thus the unanimous declaration of this film in its entirety on naming it a novel attempt is a cover up for much larger routine. Yet it had the maturity of a comic intelligence in numerous occasions to sidle the ever green classic comedy “Thillu Mullu”.

Knowing that it is a satiric period piece, it had a creative pleasant surprise of funny notes over the screen. Arrow marks pointing the character and mentioning their name, the time of the situation is said as “Aanthai Pilirum Neram” (Time at which Owl’s screech) set high hopes for something original. Then it came shattered down early on with a MGR and Sivaji era story of twins separating. And I did not jump to conclusion and was eagerly expecting a parody of it but there was more happening in the same taste. I was disappointed that a tamil film I am viewing after a considerable time and with rave suggestions and reviews had such a downtrodden path of unfunny routine execution. The saddest part about a comedy is that the predictability of the joke and the worse part is that it is still not funny. Surrounded by it, the film let me down for a near forty five minutes.

Then the real material arrived with thunderous revelation in the innovative stupidity of actor Vadivelu as Pulikesi. The “Jaathi Sandai Maithaanam” (Caste/Religion fights Stadium) and then with “Akka Mala” and “Gupsi”drinks. The cola drinks reign and its insane marketing are the true satiric moments (even though slapping the members who did the commercials is a cruel injustice). At the start of the film, the ruthless and imbecile ruler Pulikesi (And this I believe does not represent the “real” ancient ruler Pulikesi in Chozha Kingdom (Braces and braces to be politically correct)) begins to be a lovable rascal. That is when the film strikes its vantage point. From that till the interval (for people who does not understand this concept, Indian films and especially tamil films have a 15-20 minutes break for the people to stretch, smoke and empty their bladders) it is clear indication of Chimbudevan’s original intention. He perfectly employs that strange innocent stupidity and the façade the character of Vadivelu puts in a manner many viewers of regular tamil movies be surprised.

The serious flaws in the film are the (1) Songs and to call it even songs makes me feel dirty (2) the character of Ukkira Puthiran played again by Vadivelu (3) carrier of the righteousness flag in the name of social messages which most of it is a language chauvinistic and over the top zeal of patriotism. Why the film takes itself into a stand of social righteousness? It is not a mistake having those but how it gets its place in a comedy genre is a skill of rope walking. The marketing of the film and the success of it is the character of Pulikesi on an elevated innocence in his ruthless violence and thus liking him among his wrong doings. Ukkira Puthiran’s character walks and talks like a guy who just had strong concoction of self declared revolutionary philosophies. Why does he still carry the similar tone of that when he disguises as Pulikesi? How much fun it would have been if before he did the exchange studied the Pulikesi and while performing the good deeds and ordinance carry the sense of comedic capability?

Forgiving the flaws and that would be eliminating an hour from the film would definitely make the film radically sound and one of the hysterically funny films of our times in tamil film industry. But that would mean an unfair evaluation from this reviewer’s perspective. I have never laughed so hard for a tamil film in many long years and as equally flinched, stretched and hoped the film to end. The signs of self parody were not absent but were quite evident when one of the characters explains the screenplay’s obviousness of uniting twins in film. When you see something like that, it hurts even more on the succumbing script and direction for the appeal of finance. At the end of the film, the redeemed ruler announces “Patthu Kattalaigal” (Ten Rules) in his land of governance. If the film had one of standing up for its material (which it is in surplus), “Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi” would have been my all time comedy film joining the list of “Thillu Mullu”, “Avvai Shanmugi” (despite Kamal’s core plagiarism of “Mrs. Doubtfire”) and “Panchathanthiram”.

"Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" (Documentary) (2004) - Movie Review

The scale of how much ignorant I am of current affairs, history and people can be gauged by the introduction of new wonderful people I never took the effort to peruse of through films. Howard Zinn a historian, author and an activist is today’s “learn about people you idiot” section of mine. This is a biographic documentary film of his life, works, speeches, interviews and the points and idea of democracy and non-violence. It is more than a film and this write up will be less of a review. It will be thoughts, opinions and disarrayed vision for lucidity by this reviewer.

Passages and sentences are narrated from his book by the voice of Matt Damon. A man brought up in poverty and hard labour through his passion for reading earned Ph. D and became a Professor. He is student’s person and his advocacy of civil disobedience and action through non-violence, movements and discussion against war and for civil rights became instrumental and still is on the lives of young people to look for character not in the irons of weapons but in the stillness of character.

I will let the film dictate the history of this historian and humanitarian. The points jotted down as sentences and strong will about the idea of democracy brings forth lot of discussion. Lately along with the ideology of religion and atheism, patriotism is one another topic I have largely pondered upon. Many of my mail bears the strong quotation by George Jean Nathan which is “Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.” Strip off the sticky substance defined as one’s self esteem; character and duty which would leave the giant mass of dirt spread across boundless and limitless with sky blanketing this game of power and acquisition is nothing but earth. That is a truth which is not said to disgrace or humiliate a country or a person’s withhold of character but to grasp the enormity of the human existence. It is the perfect inconvenient truth.

What is left of us is and will be nothing but memories. And making memories are the sequential and cumulative collection of those into a chapter of life. The tranquility and disturbance, subconscious darkness and attested hatred, sweetness in the hold of child’s grip over one’s hand and the punching fist for immediate vengeance are the contrasting pictures of tone and voice consummating our death. In that how much of the effort it takes in a day to day life of practicing passivity and governs the rights as well? It may be few and people like Zinn are the personalities scooping those as the restless but seasoned lethargic practice onto our faces. History is those memories.

I remember the frustration of my friend Mathi in the people visiting diverse countries particularly to US do not take the pain to peruse some pages of the past or history to be precise. I am going to buy the book “A People’s History of United States” by Zinn for the history in perspective of various people. History has been perceived and delivered as a representation of art of architecture and victories of war, injustice and its revolution but the people who stood on the streets of those cities ruled by power are the maps to the memories of those past.

I might not have the complete education on the character of Zinn or his actions with the sole literacy the film has provided. And the film itself is a soft spoken statement of the man’s life but reading his books are the adjudicators to sculpt the character. But that is not the juice I am reading for and it would be the discussions, debates, anger, frustrations, ideas, speech, rational of the irrational and the irrational of the rational in the egoistic stand of intellectualism.

The immediate outcry or for more aggressive readers, the shouting sarcasm over this reviewer would be that what I am doing for the cause of it. Are these glimmers of immediate reaction which lies flat in the bed and lays there then next morning to be eviscerating in laziness? It would be untruthful to deny those but these are the positive stains accumulating as the stepping stones for the accumulation in myriads of smaller actions and build up into a passing philosophy from one to another. I made a memory through this review and would be doing so for rest of my life.

"The Hurricane" (1999) - Movie Review

You go in a book shop and start to read a book which attracts you. Skipping pages in tens and twenties and finally at the end of it, you read the final thirty pages consecutively which leaves contented for reading a whole book in an unwholesome manner. Seeing Norman Jewinson directed “The Hurricane” is a similar feeling and there are certain powerful pages and the final act is considerably emotional but it is a pass of those and not a wholesome script.

The film discloses that even though it is based on true story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, it has fictionalized material. Filming a true story has an obligation and an exception. The obligation of not twisting and bending a blatant truth more for the appeal of completion or angelic portrayal of the person and the exception of acid testing the veracity to its highest level. In this tiny region of walk, it is a tough dance to do. It connects the past with the present through the book “The Sixteenth Round” by Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (Denzel Washingon) ending up in the hands of a boy Lesra (Vicellous Reon Shannon) in Toronto, Canada. He has been helped by the three wondrous people Lisa (Deborah Kara Unger), Terry (John Hannah) and Sam (Live Schreiber).

The story from Carter’s child hood is read through the narration of Carter to Lesra and the remaining three as well. Lesra being suffered the tough child hood as Carter identifies the injustice and ordeal went by the man. The book summarizes certain instances of Carter’s life and the process of him being pinned down for murders by a cop named Della Pesca (Dan Hedaya). Whether one existed in that name and whether he continuously slammed down Carter with corruption and pure hatred is a question. After seeing the film, I went and read the chronicles of the events in Wiki and lot of details have been missed out, omitted and skewed. But while seeing the film, I assumed its fictionalization and went along with it. The film’s problem is more than the verisimilitude nature of it.

The actor playing Lesra is not convincing. He is noticeably overjoyed incoherently. But the material plays a part in it. After he reads the book, he writes to Carter, one of the important letters for both Carter and Lesra and the film ignores the complete narration of it. That clouds the reaction of Carter when instantly replying with another letter which again does not carry the emotions. While debilitating it to a melodramatic staged communication would be crude, the true events and the film depend on that relationship, which marks the origin of the third fight for the man.

Similarly, when Carter is sentenced to prison, he is put in solitary confinement by Warden (Al Waxman) for refusing to wear the prison uniform. That is a high point in the film of one man’s fight with himself in constantly questioning, punishing his decision to stand against the authority. His ego is presented in shadows of darkness by Washington. He comes out and meets with Lieutenant Jimmy (Clancy Brown) who shows a welcome kindness to Carter. Their relationship thus forms out of thin air and they become good buddies (And is Clancy Brown redeeming Captain Hadley from “The Shawshank Redemption” through Jimmy? It was strange to see Brown who forever has inscribed as this dangerous Hadley into a much amicable Jimmy in my mind. Weird how much of a good performance can typecast one actor).

To expect a lucid film of exact recreation of the true events is ridiculous but concealing a man’s flaw seems unreasonable. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter had a life spend mostly in jail. Empathy of understanding that is an insult to him but the greatness of the character is the reality of his existence which is a combination of dark and bright tones of him. What did he feel about his prejudice? What did he feel about his previous arrests? What did he feel the hatred he grew upon the people who did injustice to him? Essentially in omitting those crucial feelings, the man in “The Hurricane” becomes a ghostly hero.

"Solaris" (Language - German/Russian) (1972) - Movie Review

My apologies to Mathi, apart from being a disappointed friend he is also an ardent fan of Tarkovsky’s films and bear the following lines. I was terribly bored and disappointed once again by another film from the director. This time it is the adapted science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, “Solaris”. The poetic photography of the obscurity of abstractness satiates the visual pleasure but rolling up into an experience of art and philosophy would be a long stretch in agreement with me. There are methods of each director which is in perfect synthesizing moments which the fans of them appreciate. That is the reason I love the direction of Paul Thomas Anderson and not so much of the Coen brothers and none at all of Andrei Tarkovsky.

While in theater, I am sure many might at least once would have went through the ordeal of holding up a full bladder in a suffering which does not kill you but rip the comfortableness from the countless nerve in your body when an amazing film is on the go and in the fear of missing a single shot, we continue with the pain. “Solaris” retains the pain with an expectation and hope of a single shot around the corner turning into a futile patience of blunt screen. I may be cursed by the fans of Tarkovsky and this film naming me ignorant and imperceptive to the cached strata of meaning of this work but I did not see any significance other than a spectacularly photographed shot of void and monotone in series of frames.

Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is a psychologist spending his penultimate day of leaving to the mysterious planet/space/object Solaris at his father’s house. In a short film depicting the hearing of another astronaut Burton (Vladislav Dvorzhetsky) long time ago is shown and we are educated on the hallucinogenic capability of this alien land. Burton warns and wants the possibility of exploration than termination for which Kelvin is been sent for evaluation. Kelvin reaches the place with no one to welcome and is appalled to see the station in shambles and pieces.

He learns that his colleague Dr. Gibarian (Sos Sargsyan) has died mysteriously and the other two resident scientists Dr. Snaut (Jüri Järvet) and Dr. Sartorius (Anatoli Solonitsyn) behave rudely but advices to see the weird phenomenon as a common occurrence. Perplexed he watches the tape left by Gibarian and then in the middle of his sleep sees a calm and serene faced woman, his wife Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk). Apart from the freaky fright of her in the space station, the fear is that she died ten years ago committing suicide. Kris lures her into a rocket to kill her only to find her again recreated. He understands the phenomenon the scientists were mentioning. The person resembling his wife is a manifestation of his thoughts only that it is real in flesh and blood. It is understood that she is a product of the “ocean” or the alien through the minds of Kelvin.

Kelvin knowing that falls for her but here is what the temptation of a beautiful film popped up in me. Hari or the alien or “guest” resembling her begins to fall for Kelvin and fastidiously learns to be human. But then again by the time you reach this, the film has spent a considerable hour and half which felt like three hours. And it kept on rambling in the indulgence and tickles hope and slaps with bare solid hand on my face.

Abstraction is a beauty. The idea of the concealed and partially exposed material is a thought to be dug upon by connoisseurs of the film. And as Michael Haneke’s “Cache” this is a form of presentation which I am afraid will I ever be able to appreciate or sit through. Quite sad that after many films of Tarkovsky I am unmoved even to a tiniest bit of emotional attachment or appreciation. I began to doubt the skills of the presentation and the fan and critics base his films have engulfed. Is it something of this sort is labeled a classic and masterpiece because of peer pressure? I immediately took back for this judgment on other people who genuinely love this film. While all the films have its audience, this one has been the definition of being a true film lover for many people. My love for movies is no less but the streak of Tarkovsky’s film failing to reach out to me continues.

"Incident at Oglala" (Documentary) (1991) - Movie Review

I have often wondered on the term of criminals in war. The clear ground in a society has enough dubious doubts to offer on a day to day criminal case and in the middle ground of fire exchange authorized by a country heads to bat out the hell out of each other, is there a reach for justice out there? The shoot out resulting in the deaths of two FBI agents in June 26th 1975 in “Incident at Ogalala” was not an official declared war but at that moment with Pine Ridge Reservation pinnacle for the high deaths due to violence, it was a war to protect each other.

Narrated by Robert Redford, Michael Apted directs towards that day of losses where the FBI agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams came in to the Jumping Bull location chasing a pick up truck driven by their suspect, a man named Jimmy Eagle. Not alone Jimmy Eagle was not in the car but in the vicinity and the mystery person in it became their object of attention. The thing blew up because the ambience among the Native American community in the region was lethal. With the internal tension and people camping up nearby and no awareness of who started the shooting, suddenly that place became a war zone. The people nearby living in the culture of being hunted down wanted to protect their loved ones. Bullets rained and ended up with the FBI agents and a Native American dead. The film details on the situation which led to it and the trials of this tragic event.

Apted has a rare use for narrator Robert Redford who places facts than the emotion. In documentaries emotions run high among the people involved in flesh and blood with an incident or a cause either in complete truth or in the opposite of it. Perceptions differ and the director in the middle of putting the pieces in front of us has an obligation of placing all the facts possible. In a documentary, end is mostly a confused state of the viewer what to believe in. Some times it is loud and clear as “An Inconvenient Truth” and some times riddles you out as “The Corporation”. Here things went wrong and it was not followed by a right but a series of vengeance, politics and emotions leading to a very high possibility of a man wrongly in prison for life convicted of two murders. His name is Leonard Peltier.

The ring of violence which built up before the shoot out and after the shoot out is a chronicle of the government negating the rights, will and goodness of the Native American people. They had a leader, Richard Wilson, Tribal Council Chairman, a corrupt one who not only routed the Federal money for welfare into his wellbeing but formed squads to terrorize the traditional clan amongst the community. The rivalry never dealt became the outcome into an air of fear and hatred. The American Indian Movement (AIM) came to protect the traditional people. The word protect takes a very big significance as to defense. This was civil war and the day of June 26th 1975 it forced them to use their power in fear and guard when the lives of FBI agents were taken along with their fellow man.

The film knows what it believes and it does not force us to believe that. It has interviews of the then FBI heads, the US Attorneys, one of the jury member, witnesses, defense attorneys, the Native American people and we are left with a situation dealt bad and have the property of doubt carrying it over for so long. Redemption seems to be an option when power, ego and hatred reigns all through these times. Near the end of the film we see a possibility of an unknown confessing individual who did the killing and we see the opinions shed by Peltier and others. Peltiers says he knows who it is and will not reveal it. This is not a Michael Moore moment but a true genuine person who has already past half of life sentence and aware of his possible demise before his release in the year of 2035.

The FBI agents were executed in close range than shot by distant rifles. What happened that day would only be told in papers and over screens and the people having it in memory. But the incident is not alone a tragedy of the lives lost but an origin of a tremor for the injustice being done to the Native American community. The law enforcers and protectors have the toughest job any one could possibly imagine and more than the rules applied to a normal citizen, they are bound to be more stringent than necessary. It is a double standard set for a purpose which would in any case cannot and will not allow that shade of doubt to pass on their philosophy of guarding the law. Basically good and fair law officers cannot afford even a stumble because the very next moment their every step is doubted and justice never gets served. In the case of this incident, the matter of the guilty or not guilty was major regardless the existing sourness of the government and the community got wider and inapproachable due to this severe crusade of vengeance over fairness. The result is the doubt over justice itself.