A Perfect Little Movie

You may actually like A Perfect Getaway, if for no better reason than the fact that there is nothing obviously wrong with the movie. Cliff and Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) and Nick and Gina (Timothy Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez) are two couples doing the long hike across a Hawaiian island, and strike up a friendship. And a (reasonably predictable) twist later, the couples find themselves in a race against time and each other on the island. A fact paced movie, reasonably believable, well-acted, uncomplicated, low-engagement, and with a comely cast. Time-pass fare and decent, even

12/20

Get The Formula Right

And how much better could London Dreams have been only if the music was right! In a country where, as far as I can make out, people are falling over each other trying to out-sing each other on every single (of two dozen) TV channels every single night, to have sub-standard music in a movie where the core is supposed to be musical talent, is a travesty that is unforgivable (and the audience did not forgive – this was one of 2009’s quiet deaths). And then there is the cast. Salman Khan is great as the foil who becomes the lead, Ajay Devgan is watchable, Asin – the third key character in the movie – has nothing to do except jive on stage with the group and show her obvious lack of fit for the role. London Dreams should have spent time studying Rock On and its likes to figure out what made these movies click – spending a bomb on the sets is no excuse for a surprisingly bad job

5/20

Normal Activity

There is nothing much wrong with Paranormal Activity. It is just that the horror genre is becoming woefully bereft of any fresh ideas. Yet again there is a movie that chooses to place you in a familiar setting – a regular couple in a regular affluent American suburb, and the gradual changes in their lives on account of an increasingly intensifying haunting. The “lack of originality” problem is compounded by the average cast and the truly mediocre script (for one, find the burning curiosity of a day trader continuing his incessant surreptitious solo investigation of a phenomenon that does not really concern him, less than believable). End of the movie, I felt boredom with the horror genre itself. Post Mirrors, I cannot think of a single movie in the horror genre that has not been an out and out disappointment

7/20

What Idiots!

3 Idiots is a perfect example of why Bollywood is not world class. Here is the perfect showcase for explaining what learning is all about. 3 students – one from a lower middle class background who desperately needs that job, another from a slightly “better” background and with an unrealized passion (wildlife photography), and lastly – the protagonist – Aamir Khan as the precocious nonconformist who time and again shows how engineering should be taught, while excelling at it in evaluation and in tests of real life. All great so far. What is incongruous is a full blown romance (and a poorly cast Kareena Kapoor whose large framed glasses cannot quite obviate her glamour quotient), a sloppy treatment of all subjects to do with medical care – insensitive vignettes on a paralytic, unscientific child delivery, and a second paralyzed man who comes to his senses through an improbable turn of events – the whole approach appears trite and insensitive – and not in the least uncommon in Hindi movies (though one would imagine that Aamir Khan and his ilk would have raised the bar by now, sadly the Indian audience seems inured to the insensitivity of this stuff). And the fairytale around our protagonist continues in science, in love and in being a general do-gooder. In the end I got the feeling that this movie is about as representative of the Indian middle-class struggle between the need to survive by being on the beaten path vis-à-vis the need to self-actualize, as some of the airy thoughts that I heard from many at various points of time in IIT and IIM – idealistic but only lacking in any real substance, depth or conviction. Saving grace – getting to see the alma mater (IIMB) campus all over again, including (improbably) a good deal of d-mezz (my ex-wing)

7.5/20

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

No reviews of Bollywood movies for 2009 would be complete without a mention of Kaminey. Shahid Kapoor is in a double role (why is this so endemic to Bollywood?) as Guddu – the simple folk in love with the minister’s daughter Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) and Charlie – a man at home in a life of crime. Oh, and Guddu and Charlie are identical twins. But this movie is not about the inevitable and hackneyed faux pas that ensue between the brothers (and Bollywood has so much of that that that could emerge as a genre in itself). This is a movie about the sheer nature of people, and Vishal Bhardwaj’s (Maqbool, Omkara) triumph is about showing that people – or most – are inherently rotten out and out, and the movie leaves this message without a twinge of cynicism. Where Kaminey strikes out on its own it strikes a chord – it fails wherever it attempts a Tarantino – the kill ‘em all shootout for example does not click, by a mile

13.5/20

Talking about a Revolution

Eliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) and family are down and out. The man leaves a mediocre job uptown to salvage what he can of his parent’s motel in the Catskills. One nondescript day, upon a chance encounter, Eliot finds that there is the possibility of helping host a major hippie music concert in a neighborhood farm, and that would bring in business to the dilapidated motel. Things are not quite what they seem, and the few hippies metamorphose into the half a million visitors that would define a generation by Taking Woodstock and would change Eliot’s life forever. Another masterpiece from Ang Lee of Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fame. However, the movie could have done with a little more of Woodstock and a little less of the Tiber family – just to show what it all meant, if you know what I mean

13.5/20

Men without Women

Peter (Liam Neeson) has the perfect – or not quite so perfect – marriage with Lisa (Laura Linney) and Lisa is dying. All of a sudden, Peter has to contend with the trauma of the revealation that his wife’s various business trips were cover up for a raging 10-year long affair. Investigations lead to Ralph (Antonio Banderas) and what follows is a cat-and-mouse game where Peter tries to draw in his quarry to the final confession. It takes the eventual demise of Laura and subsequent vignettes, to uncover the fact that The Other Man was no other man at all. Intense exchanges between Neeson and Banderas – watch this movie if for no other reason than a study in the emoting ability of two great stars

12.5/20

B Grade beyond a Doubt

Michael Douglas in 2009 incongruously creeps into a B-Grade movie called Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, that captures two ambitious men – one a potential candidate for District Attorney (Michael Douglas – Mark Hunter) and the other a very ambitious investigative journalist (Jesse Metcalfe – CJ Nicholas) looking for his Pulitzer-winning scoop. As CJ relentlessly pursues his quarry, including using newfound love Ella Crystal (Amber Tamblyn) from the opposing camp’s office, the shocking truth about Mark’s rise to power is overshadowed by revelations from CJ’s own no-holier-than-thou past. And in the end, all the three in the lead cast end up losing in the game of life. Strictly onetime fare, and not particularly well made

10/20

Avatar = Reincarnation or Recycling?

Avatar does not seem to be a movie that is suited to the Indian cynic as audience. What of Ehwa (Gaia?) in a distant planet, an indigenous people with lifestyle and roots in the bounty of nature around them, their inevitable conflict with the human race and its endless quest for resources – this is all schmuck, says the Indian audience. And I cannot help but agree to some extent. There is a been-there done that aura about the movie – whether it echoes the indigenous tribes and fragile ecosystem of the Brazilian (and a dozen other) rainforests, or whether the unlimited greed for mineral resources brings to mind America’s global warmongering in search of oil, it seems that the core of the movie is drawn around a rehash of all-too-familiar elements and the fact that these elements are of course finding increasing resonance in an increasingly aware world does not take away from the fact that the core of the movie is somewhat unimaginative. But what is undeniable is the sheer quality of the graphics and the overall cinematography – the attention to detail and the sheer quality and complexity of the visual imagery bring to mind Jurassic Park – another genre-defining milestone in the use of technology by Hollywood. This is a movie that is likely to be a resounding commercial success in the short to medium term, but on a more measured inspection both critics and the junta may find it wanting

12/20

Hope this is the Twilight of This Series

In some quirky way, I can actually empathize with a vampire romance series. I suppose there are people out there who would find a love triangle with a vampire and a werewolf respectively, intriguing if not downright charming. And I also suppose that if I had the inclination to read the Stephenie Meyer novel that forms the basis of the series, or had watched the first part, some of the movie may have actually made sense to me. The fact of the matter is that none of these aforementioned wonderful things came to pass. So here I was, watching The Twilight Saga: New Moon wondering what’s going on. Which viewer in his right senses would be moved by the mediocre acting, the uninspired dialogue, and the downright horrific graphics. Was left wondering how the disjointed pieces that came together in the movie fit together. Wondered whether someone actually expected that the revelation of Jakob Black (Taylor Lautner) as a werewolf was actually a matter of suspense. In the end, I could not recall a single thing that I actually liked about the movie. And this is one of those reviews that I am glad I am penning down, because two weeks down the line I am not going to be able to recall a single thing about this eminently forgettable movie

5/20

Shoot thy Enemies

Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Joseph Fiennes and Ed Harris capture both the all-out poignancy of war as well as the fraility of man in the face of personal and extraleous challenge, in Enemy at the Gates. Easily one of the best war movies that I have seen, young Vassili Zaitsev (Jude Law), sharpshooter from the Urals, finds himself the hero of the Battle of Stalingrad on account of his superlative sniper skills. He also finds love in the beautiful Moscow-educated Tania (Rachel Weisz) and the two catch some fleeting intimate moments in the midst of the horror. The fame and love awaken jealousy in no small measure in Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) who clears his conscience in one last cathartic act. And the showdown between the deer-hunting German nobleman sharpshooter Major Konig (Ed Harris) and Vassili is the piece-de-resistance of the movie. It is a rare combination of the depiction of the large-scale brutality of war coupled with the cat-and-mouse game of the two sharpshooters

16/20