Monday, April 10, 2006
Inside Man (2006) - English Movie Review
I usually do not like reviews for English movies. Not that I do not understand them or enjoy them but I just find it outside my genre of interest to discuss them. This movie is special...and I will tell you why.
Inside man is a movie on Bank Robbery. This action flick has lots of gun, lots of screaming people, loads of cops, and of course the plot of the movie is Bank Robbery. The plot of the whole robbery-escape although is not the most nouveau ideas...I believe that someone in India had done it a long time ago...You know who? Let me see if I can explain this in simple flashback...
Ok now let us track back to somewhere between 1980-1990 (I know it is a long span) when K. Bagyaraj released a movie with him in the lead role. The movie starts with Bagyaraj dressed as a clown attempting Bank Robbery...He walks into the bank, points a gun and locks up the bank...He calmly proceeds to lock everyone up in a room and with the same calmness calls the police tells them that he will send all the hostages one by one (or something like that) and then dresses himself like an old man and walks himself outside the door and then escapes with the help of police who got conned. It surely was a novel concept...
If K.Bagyaraj had adopted it from an English novel and reproduced it in his movie then I am sorry...But still the idea behind the movie is stale. I wonder why I even spent the $8...But it was worth for just one thing...
The titles at the beginning and the rolling credits at the end. They played the song Chaiya Chaiya from the movie Dil Se by A.R. Rehman and sung by Sukhwinder Singh and Swapna Awasti. In fact I made all my friends wait till we saw A.R.'s name mentioned on the screen. We were four proud Indians standing there alone in the theater after everyone had cleared out. And I told everyone who had called me "Gavti Bunder" because I was from a small village called Chennai that "It was a Gavti Bunder who had also graced the screens of movie theaters all around the world!!!"
So now you see why this movie gets a special mention...Most of the times I always see an English movie remade in Indian but for the first time, at lease I felt that it was the other way around...and of course because of our ARR!
Inside man is a movie on Bank Robbery. This action flick has lots of gun, lots of screaming people, loads of cops, and of course the plot of the movie is Bank Robbery. The plot of the whole robbery-escape although is not the most nouveau ideas...I believe that someone in India had done it a long time ago...You know who? Let me see if I can explain this in simple flashback...
Ok now let us track back to somewhere between 1980-1990 (I know it is a long span) when K. Bagyaraj released a movie with him in the lead role. The movie starts with Bagyaraj dressed as a clown attempting Bank Robbery...He walks into the bank, points a gun and locks up the bank...He calmly proceeds to lock everyone up in a room and with the same calmness calls the police tells them that he will send all the hostages one by one (or something like that) and then dresses himself like an old man and walks himself outside the door and then escapes with the help of police who got conned. It surely was a novel concept...
If K.Bagyaraj had adopted it from an English novel and reproduced it in his movie then I am sorry...But still the idea behind the movie is stale. I wonder why I even spent the $8...But it was worth for just one thing...
The titles at the beginning and the rolling credits at the end. They played the song Chaiya Chaiya from the movie Dil Se by A.R. Rehman and sung by Sukhwinder Singh and Swapna Awasti. In fact I made all my friends wait till we saw A.R.'s name mentioned on the screen. We were four proud Indians standing there alone in the theater after everyone had cleared out. And I told everyone who had called me "Gavti Bunder" because I was from a small village called Chennai that "It was a Gavti Bunder who had also graced the screens of movie theaters all around the world!!!"
So now you see why this movie gets a special mention...Most of the times I always see an English movie remade in Indian but for the first time, at lease I felt that it was the other way around...and of course because of our ARR!
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Being Cyrus (2006) - English Crossover Movie Review
Ranking: 4/5
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Naseerudin Shah, Bomman Irani
Director: Homi Adjania
Music: Salim-Sulaiman
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Naseerudin Shah, Bomman Irani
Director: Homi Adjania
Music: Salim-Sulaiman
Do I like this movie? I don't know. Was I bored? Nope. Was it interesting? Yup. Was I curious? Totally. These are some of the feelings that passed through my mind as I sat watching this movie. Incredible screenplay and performances make this somewhat predictable story a very interesting movie.
The story is about the Sethna family, a rich but dysfunctional Parsi family settled between Mumbai and Panchgani. Dinshaw (Naseerudin), a famous potter of yesteryear lives in Panchgani with his wife Katie (Dimple). They are not happy couple, Dinshaw and Katie live in their own worlds.
Enter Cyrus Mistry (Saif), the narrator of the story. He is an orphan who had been living in various foster homes with his sister. He moves in with the Sethna's in pretense of being an apprentice to Dinshaw. He is welcomed with open arms and sometimes just a little more than that from Katie. Katie and Cyrus have a flirty relationship. In the course of a year Cyrus learns all about the Sethna's.
The sethna's family has a surviving dad, a brother Farooq (Boman), and the brother's wife Tina (Simone). The father the owner of a big apartment complex in Mumbai lives in a small shacked up room adjacent to his illtreating son's apartment. Farooq, a controller, oppresses both his wife and his father. While he is having an affair with someone over the phone.
Cyrus, on the request of Katie travels to Mumbai to deliver a package from Katie to Dinshaw's father who is senile. Cyrus taking pity on the state of life led by the old man starts visiting him often and starts befriending him. How does the Sethna family and Cyrus Mistry's life get entangled? For that you need to watch the movie because anything else I might say now might give away the whole plot...Just trying to keep the suspense in!
The ending of the movie though serious has a very comical narration and touch to it. In fact it was even funny and at times confusing. Though the story seemed predictable at times sharp twists makes it a very unpredictable movie.
How many actors have more than one chance to prove that they can act and make a movie work? Well Saif and Abhishek Bachan are a couple I can name off my head who have had more than 15 chances before they finally made an entrance. But that does not give me the right to take away credit from Saif for a job well done in this movie...His portrayal of Cyrus was just perfect.
Dimple, Naseerudin Shah, Boman Irani, and Simone Singh should be commended for a job well done. From the casting of the police inspector to the fat lady with a dog everybody in the movie were well picked for their role...On the whole the movie is a package well put together!
For some odd reason I did not come out of the theater with a happy feeling but rather a very disturbed mind...So If you are the kind that enjoys a light movie this might just be too heavy for you. Because it is Dark Comedy!
Monday, April 03, 2006
Reverse Analysis of Rang De Basanti
The first time I saw this movie I just fell in love with it...It was the perfect Indian movie, it had good cast, comedy, music, camera work, direction, screenplay, romance, patriotism, revenge, etc. But one thing I noticed when I saw the movie for the second time was that there were a couple of loop holes in the movie...Somebody please try and explain this to me!
1) Sue comes to India to make a documentary movie with practically no funding but a camera (I guess!). So who sponsors her for the expensive sets that are shown as a part of her movie?
2) To whom is she going to show the movie to once she completes it? To the English? Really? What makes her think that anybody will want to watch it (Like her boss asks her)? I mean isn't it ridiculous to think that anybody in GB will watch it? How many Indians will watch it? Most of them have already seen Gandhi or Bagat Singh and know about these guys...What makes her think that she can make or expect all Indians to have the same emotions as her?
3) All six friends including Maddy were happily enjoying life in their own way in their own not-so-super country, India. Enters a Britisher with an idea to make a stupid movie, then what happens? She gets them killed...Normally these kids would have mourned their friends loss, felt depressed, dejected, and then in a few days after cursing the government, after feeling further disillusioned about India they would have gotten back to their routine! But what did she do? She got them killed because it was her idea that they should feel patriotic...Thus ending the movie saying that more killings of ministers will happen to make India a better place...As if we do not have enough violence yet!
4) Was the moral of the story well received? Just like our ancestors (the freedom fighters) fought with British and got rid of them 150 years of being their slave...We should also do the same...Wait for 150 years before we emerge as a role model country!
Oops! Sorry...That was not what I wanted to write...Just like our ancestors (the freedom fighters) fought with British and got rid of them 150 years of being their slave...Forget non-violence and Gandhi but instead resort to arms and killings? Sweet I hope at least half the country still believes in Gandhi and his non-violent motion...
5) Aamir explains that he has at his college in spite of having graduated fives years back because he has an identity there, people know him, they know that DJ will do something...
Really??? In my college we called them LOSERS!!! If a person even had more than two arrears after graduating they were called LOOKERS!!! And if his friends were also of the same kind, staying in school after graduating...Then they are also a bunch of LOOKERS...And they did perfectly well what LOOKERS do! In fact Maddy is the only one with any character in the movie...
Now I guess I have given enough reasons to say why I did not mention STORY as one of their strong points in my first paragraph! If you think otherwise about the movie let me know...I would surely enjoy reading it...I love movies...Logical and illogical ones alike...But I like to analyze them just the same and wonder if I can suggest any changes...and during this process I hit upon these above mentioned misfits in an almost perfect movie...
The first time I saw this movie I just fell in love with it...It was the perfect Indian movie, it had good cast, comedy, music, camera work, direction, screenplay, romance, patriotism, revenge, etc. But one thing I noticed when I saw the movie for the second time was that there were a couple of loop holes in the movie...Somebody please try and explain this to me!
1) Sue comes to India to make a documentary movie with practically no funding but a camera (I guess!). So who sponsors her for the expensive sets that are shown as a part of her movie?
2) To whom is she going to show the movie to once she completes it? To the English? Really? What makes her think that anybody will want to watch it (Like her boss asks her)? I mean isn't it ridiculous to think that anybody in GB will watch it? How many Indians will watch it? Most of them have already seen Gandhi or Bagat Singh and know about these guys...What makes her think that she can make or expect all Indians to have the same emotions as her?
3) All six friends including Maddy were happily enjoying life in their own way in their own not-so-super country, India. Enters a Britisher with an idea to make a stupid movie, then what happens? She gets them killed...Normally these kids would have mourned their friends loss, felt depressed, dejected, and then in a few days after cursing the government, after feeling further disillusioned about India they would have gotten back to their routine! But what did she do? She got them killed because it was her idea that they should feel patriotic...Thus ending the movie saying that more killings of ministers will happen to make India a better place...As if we do not have enough violence yet!
4) Was the moral of the story well received? Just like our ancestors (the freedom fighters) fought with British and got rid of them 150 years of being their slave...We should also do the same...Wait for 150 years before we emerge as a role model country!
Oops! Sorry...That was not what I wanted to write...Just like our ancestors (the freedom fighters) fought with British and got rid of them 150 years of being their slave...Forget non-violence and Gandhi but instead resort to arms and killings? Sweet I hope at least half the country still believes in Gandhi and his non-violent motion...
5) Aamir explains that he has at his college in spite of having graduated fives years back because he has an identity there, people know him, they know that DJ will do something...
Really??? In my college we called them LOSERS!!! If a person even had more than two arrears after graduating they were called LOOKERS!!! And if his friends were also of the same kind, staying in school after graduating...Then they are also a bunch of LOOKERS...And they did perfectly well what LOOKERS do! In fact Maddy is the only one with any character in the movie...
Now I guess I have given enough reasons to say why I did not mention STORY as one of their strong points in my first paragraph! If you think otherwise about the movie let me know...I would surely enjoy reading it...I love movies...Logical and illogical ones alike...But I like to analyze them just the same and wonder if I can suggest any changes...and during this process I hit upon these above mentioned misfits in an almost perfect movie...
What's in a Name?
I guess that was the title of the Amar Chitra Katha or Panchatantra story I had read gazillions of years ago. I had read and re-read the story many times because I loved the illustrations and the book had many other nice moral stories..
This story was about a brahmin boy named Lowly. Lowly was enrolled in his brahminical education classes under a very learned teacher (Don't remember his name). Lowly graduated with flying colors but was very unhappy in spite of it. His teacher wondered what the matter was. Lowly explained to the teacher that he did not like his name and would like to have it changed. The all-knowing teacher tells Lowly to pack his bags and travel a little around the country to decide what his new name would be...Lowly prepares for the trip.
At his first stop he meets a man who is very sick. Lowly helps him and gets acquainted with him only to find out that his name is Healthy. Shocked Lowly continues his journey. Next he meets a beggar with whom Lowly picks up a conversation only to realize that the beggar's name was Rich. So Lowly moves on and finds a very rich man whose name was Poor...and so on.
Confused, Lowly heads back to the ashram. His teacher asks him if Lowly had decided what he would like to be called henceforth...Lowly replied that he was very happy with his name and would not like to have it changed. His knowledgeable teacher replied that he wanted to Lowly to step out and see that there is nothing in a name. It is the person and name is just an identification. Just because his name is Lowly did not mean that he was Low...
This random story came back to my mind after almost twenty years. Maybe I was fascinated by it because I have a very peculiar name myself...Which almost every one I have met have reminded me till date...But still a story worth reading...
I guess that was the title of the Amar Chitra Katha or Panchatantra story I had read gazillions of years ago. I had read and re-read the story many times because I loved the illustrations and the book had many other nice moral stories..
This story was about a brahmin boy named Lowly. Lowly was enrolled in his brahminical education classes under a very learned teacher (Don't remember his name). Lowly graduated with flying colors but was very unhappy in spite of it. His teacher wondered what the matter was. Lowly explained to the teacher that he did not like his name and would like to have it changed. The all-knowing teacher tells Lowly to pack his bags and travel a little around the country to decide what his new name would be...Lowly prepares for the trip.
At his first stop he meets a man who is very sick. Lowly helps him and gets acquainted with him only to find out that his name is Healthy. Shocked Lowly continues his journey. Next he meets a beggar with whom Lowly picks up a conversation only to realize that the beggar's name was Rich. So Lowly moves on and finds a very rich man whose name was Poor...and so on.
Confused, Lowly heads back to the ashram. His teacher asks him if Lowly had decided what he would like to be called henceforth...Lowly replied that he was very happy with his name and would not like to have it changed. His knowledgeable teacher replied that he wanted to Lowly to step out and see that there is nothing in a name. It is the person and name is just an identification. Just because his name is Lowly did not mean that he was Low...
This random story came back to my mind after almost twenty years. Maybe I was fascinated by it because I have a very peculiar name myself...Which almost every one I have met have reminded me till date...But still a story worth reading...
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