Salt It.

Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie)’s talent for the action heroine is obvious, her choice of plot is two decades too late. Evelyn Salt is at the very least a double agent, but is she a triple agent? It is distressing that every aspect of the plot seems to have been drawn from some currently irrelevant Cold War cliché, and, in spite of the same, some of the sequences are barely believable. Cut to the story. An interrogation of a Russian defector reveals that the CIA interrogator – Evelyn – is possibly a double agent (why he gives this information voluntarily to the CIA at large is but one of the faux pas of the movie). In any case, Evelyn performs her dubious role admirably in battling the forces of law and order while fulfilling her near-impossible assassination missions through various decent to good action sequences, and suffice to say that many realities are stretched. When you have finished yawning through the Defcon II and suicide bomber and Universal Soldier-like sequences, the movie trails off rather ambitiously in the quest for a sequel. All the best on that one, Evelyn

10/20

Racy Romance

Racy script full of, well, races. Beautiful locales - Azores, Seville, some Americana, Salzburg.. good looking cast of Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) and June Havens (Cameron Diaz). Knight and Day is at heart basically a romance built through successive action sequences. So where does it all start. June,on her way home to her sister's wedding, meets Roy at the airport and as co-passenger in a flight that... crashes. June's simple life becomes somewhat complicated as she first works at shaking off Roy and the associated baggage of villians, and then works at survival with him in tow. Entertaining, simple, not much to be said of it besides.. a simple movie for a rainy Saturday evening with hotdogs at the movies and baby in bed

12/20

Character Assassins

With brushstrokes that occasionally border on the noir in the unlikeliest of settings for the same, Assassination of A High School President profiles the socially inept Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) as the unlikely protagonist as a wannabe journalist – looking for a breakthrough article for the school paper, Funke embarks on an investigation centered around stolen SAT papers, and zeroes in on Paul Moore (Patrick Taylor) as the culprit. But things are not quite what they seem, and with heightened suspicions, not least caused by the behavior of Paul’s girlfriend Francesca (Mischa Barton) and stepbrother Marlon (Luke Grimes), a plot is unearthed that is considerably larger than anticipated, and leads Funke into personal danger followed by adulation. An unlikely candidate for an interesting movie – do not expect a teen flick here – and in case you have a compelling need to watch movies with star power only, Bruce Willis as Principal Kirkpatrick plays a significant if not central role in the movie

14/20

Play, United

The World Cup of Football just got over, and, for the moment, the world does not doubt the capability of sport to unite nations in a shared passion. However, uniting a nation – South Africa - in the midst of cataclysmic change – through sport is another matter altogether. With an insecure and newly disenfranchised white population, and a newly liberated but deeply suspicious black population, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) turns to the captain of the national rugby team – Francois Piennar (Matt Damon) with a mission – win the world cup of rugby. A victory would unite a nation torn by decades of deep-rooted animosity, in a manner that no change in law or governance could possibly accomplish. Another brilliant and award-winning film by Clint Eastwood, and moving like only sports movies can be – the spirit of the movie (and its name) is no better captured than by William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus – No matter how straight the gate/ or charged with adventures the scroll/ I am the master of my fate/ I am the captain of my soul

15.5/20

Dream Merchants

Leonardo DiCaprio (Cobb) continues his winning streak with Inception – a taut sci-fi thriller about men that construct dreams and through them seek to prise out the secrets of their fellow men. Lured by Saito’s (Ken Watanabe) promise of being re-united with his children, Cobb embarks on a mission fraught with danger – the inception of an idea in Saito’s arch-rival Robert Fischer Jr (Cillian Murphy) – to break up the latter’s business empire. Aided by a core team including architect Ardiane (Ellen Page), Cobb and his team must travel successive levels of dreams to seed the idea – and see the fruition of the same in the real world. However, the memories of Mal (Marion Cotillard), the ex-wife of Cobb, cloud Cobb’s presence and his dream, and imperil the success of the mission. With the slightest hint of the Matrix, and of Shutter Island (the movie trails off in a fashion where the eventual truth is unclear), this is a carefully crafted movie with moments of brilliance, and sterling performances all round. But good enough to be cult?.. as in Matrix/ Dark Knight class? Didnt think so.

14.5/20