Maximum Burn

Deepwater Horizon is the true story of the blowout of a BP-led oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, largely on account of BP officials glossing over safety procedures. Mike (Mark Wahlberg) and chief safely officer James (Kurt Russell) are the central characters herein - voices of courage under duress, and of resistance of laissez faire corporate practices exemplified by the likes of BP liaison Donald (John Malkovitch). Superbly executed and clinical in its explanation of the sequence and the science behind it all, with characters that connect even as they play succint roles

15.5/20

In a puff of smoke

… Like much of the weed in the movie, goes my respect for Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. How could two Hollywood A-listers be caught dead in a movie like Ted? Here is an apology for a movie that I could tolerate for all of 33 minutes. So, John (Mark Wahlberg) was a lonely boy, and a shooting star grants him the wish of a lifetime – a talking – and soon-to-be-celebrity teddy bear (Seth McFarlane) for company. Novelty and a quality relationship fade with time, however. As John grapples with a dead-end job, the neither-here-nor-there relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis) that is on for all of four years, and the viewer is treated to more hash and hookers, and outright grossness, I decided it was time to can the movie and trash it here. No matter how it ends, jokes about Parkinson’s are not my idea of humor – in any form

7/20

Get that Marriage Right

Remember Tina Fey? The woman who rocked the world by her hilarious impersonations of Sarah Palin? Well, here is Tina Fey as Claire Foster, in a quiet New Jersey existence with husband Phil Foster (Steve Carrell). A humdrum daily routine, quiet careers, a book club, and a Date Night every week make up their existence. This movie is about one date night that does not quite go as planned. Driven by an irrepressible desire to try something different, the couple head off to New York for a dinner at the super-exclusive “Claw” and pose as the Tripplehorns (?) in order to get a table. Accosted by two perfect strangers who believe that they are actually the Tripplehorns, Phil and Claire find themselves running for their lives across New York at night. Diving headlong into adventure, and with a little help from security expert Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg), the couple end up heroes in an unlikely adventure that, while unraveling intrigue at the highest levels in the big city, more importantly, rekindles their romance. This movie would have been a forgettable popcorn flick except for the universally recognizable nuances thrown in, about marriages and why stress arises in them, and how couples who want to make it work, well, can. Have fun with this one

13/20

Family, Heaven, Anger, Love

A few weeks back there was Shutter Island. Now comes another movie - this time from none less than Peter Jackson - that is truly enthralling in its scope, brilliant in its execution, poignant to the core, and genuinely moving. Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), teenage daughter of Jack and Abigail Salmon (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz), is brutally murdered by George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), and finds herself in the afterlife, in a zone between earth and heaven, in The Lovely Bones. With the power to influence the emptions of her parents and siblings, the anger in her heart against her murderer, the love for her classmate Ray Singh (Reese Ritchie) unrequited, and the call from those in the afterlife to her to cross over to heaven, Susie must face the full complement of her emotions, while allowing her family to move on from the tragedy. I felt weak watching the depiction of a father’s love for his daughter, the great anger of Susie and the humble contrition as her anger leads her father into danger in the real world, and the quiet revealation and eventual poetic justice in respect of her captor. A movie to cherish for a long long time, beautifully woven, not a hint of superfluousness, on human relationships, coping with personal loss, and eventually moving on

17.5/20

Max Wahlberg

Max Payne offers little original amidst a plethora of big screen adaptations of popular animated characters and games. These are interesting times in Mumbai (the siege of the Taj ended yessterday) - the themes that stick in one's mind are clearly that of individual courage, loss of family and of course the ubiquitous floors of scyscrapers exploding and burning. Perhaps not the best of times to review a movie, or watch one in a hall - cant remember the last time when I saw less than twenty people in a Sunday evening primetime movie. To continue, Mark Wahlberg exudes character as always and brings his force of personality to bear on an otherwise hackneyed plot of catharsis and revenge in a Batman meets V is for Vendetta like dark urban milieu. Kudos to John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix, Behind Enemy Lines) for some really smart cinematography.

Cop or Criminal?

One of the best gangster movies ever, The Departed is a Martin Scorcese triumph of 2006 that finally got the great director his just desserts at the awards sweepstakes. DiCaprio and Matt Damon square off superbly in a cat-and-mouse game in the ganglands of Boston. The former is an insider spying on the redoutable Nicholson, while the latter uses every trick in the book to keep the police off his foster father. The thrill of the movie lies in the continual deception, the characters in shades of gray, the fact that virtually every second sentence in the movie - especially the colourful utterances of Mark Wahlberg and Nicholson - are eminently quotable, and the amorality of it all - especially towards the last fifteen minutes and the breakneck pace of events in the same. The Departed refines the gangland genre, and the study of characters, especially that of DiCaprio and Matt Damon, is unforgettable.

A Thought-Provoking Planet

Though Planet of the Apes is a relatively old franchise, it is quite entertaining in terms of lightly exploring arguments about man coming to confrontation with a comparable intelligence that has travelled along a different evolutionary trajectory, only just. Mark Wahlberg exudes a Matt Damon style thinking physicality but cannot match the latter's intensity. This is not the best of Tim Burton. The "What If" questions that emanate from coming to confrontation with a comparable intelligence are quite amusing at the very least.