Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Eight years after Harvey Dent's death, Batman is a villain for the residents of Gotham City while Harvey Dent is a celebrated hero. Bruce Wayne(Christian Bale) is in a self-imposed exile mourning Rachel's death, wandering the inner sanctums of Wayne Manor with the help of a walking stick. Commissioner Gordon(Gary Oldman) torn by the lie he is living out and the truth about Batman. Alfred(Michael Caine) and Fox(Morgan Freeman) is unhappy with the way Wayne is treating himself. To add to all this, Wayne Enterprises have been losing money. As you can see, when Christopher Nolan opens up the concluding part of the trilogy, Gotham City is safer than it was in the recent years but our favorite characters are all in despair. But the status quo isn't permanent because of four people; Bane(Tom Hardy), an excommunicated member of League of Shadows, Selina Kyle(Anne Hathaway) the cat burglar who has no permanent allegiance to anyone, Miranda Tate(Marion Cotillard) an investor on quest for clean energy for the world and John Blake(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a cop who believes in Batman.

Unfortunately, the third installment in the trilogy pales in comparison with the second part but is similar in many ways to the first part. Like the first part, Bruce learns the necessary skills for being the caped crusader. The interesting part of the movie should have been how Bruce learns all the skills second time around in order to defeat the villain Bane. As this process happens over a period of 5 months while Bruce is held captive and his city in a state of siege, the joy of viewing is watered down to boredom. Moreover, Bane is all brawn and no brains which translates to Batman learning to endure the ordeal instead of matching the villain with intelligence. For a concluding part, there are homages and re-appearance of characters from previous versions namely Ra's Al Gul(Liam Neeson) and Jonathan Crane(Cillian Murphy). However, this writing is not so interesting to create drama. Thankfully, Joker does not appear on screen anywhere in the movie. Any tampering with that character would have been equivalent to sacrilege. Ironically, this movie lacks a strong villain like Joker. 

With a bigger canvas and a larger cast, Christopher Nolan succeeds only at two points in the movie - The entry of Batman although painfully late and the ending of the movie. For the entry of Batman in full gear, Nolan chooses a chase sequence in a busy freeway. Cops are chasing Bane and gang in their getaway motorcycles which carries hostages strapped to it. Suddenly, the lights goes off. The light comes back. We hear the sound of the Badpod. The hostage is freed. The villain crashes the bike. You see Batman riding the Batpod with the camera following behind him. The cape is dancing in the air. The music climbs up. This entire scene is visually beautiful and exciting while it connects the franchise lovers immediately to the scenes of the second part. The ending is Nolan-esque. He makes the viewers wonder if it is an end or a new beginning. As a bonus, he throws in a neat surprise just during the climactic fight. After the grand entry of Batman, nothing much happening. Even the fight sequences between Bane and Batman are uninspired. While the previous movies used fast cuts to force the viewer to think quick and fast action, this time around Nolan uses traditional techniques. This makes Batman's action sequences seem clumsy.

Performance wise, there are only two people who makes their presence felt despite the weak script. Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle not only looks good in the catsuit but also shows the conflicted emotions very well. She has dual personality; selfish and caring. Anne is a pleasure to watch both during action scene and also during emoting. And yes, she can ride the Bikepod! Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox continues to give an endearing performance. He is the only one who can tease Bruce. Watch out for the glee in his eyes and the dialogue delivery during his meeting with Bruce where he invites the latter to check out the R&D part of the building. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake acts well. but fails to make a definite impact. He is the person with no conflicts and also represents hope. It is sad that this character fails to invoke empathy.

Strictly for Batman fans.

Language: English

Genre: Action

Rating: **

Movie Review: Gangs of Wasseypur Part I

Releasing a movie in multiple parts is advantageous to the film maker. If the story is conceived in a certain pace with a lot of events, then it ends up longer. At this point,  it is left to the discretion of the editor to chop the excess. This could lead to undesirable outcome. By choosing two parts, the film maker is able to entertain and also garner more revenue than a single part. Although Anurag Kashyap qualifies to be one of the movie makers in India who can do this feat considering his contributions to Indian cinema. But his latest offering Gangs of Wasseypur is not the right movie to try this technique. Gangs of Wasseyput Part I is all about Sardar Khan(Manoj Bajpai). It tells the story from a few years before Sardar was born when Sardar's dad impersonates a dreaded dacoit to loot the trains passing through Wasseypur. As a result of this, Sardar's father is driven out of the village by Qureshi muslims. Before long, Sardar's father is killed by an industrialist Ramadhir Singh(Tigmanshu Dhulia). These events instills hatred in the mind of Sardar towards both Qureshis and Ramadhir which in turn affects the way he leads life and also the kind of life he adopts.

Anurag Kashyap's movie details a story of revenge and survival in rural India set against a political backdrop. Even with technical finesse and excellent cast, the movie falls short because of many reasons. The political backdrop of the events are described using an voice over; the voice of Farhan(Piyush Mishra) who is also the caretaker of Sardar in all sense. But the narration is fast on the various political events that propels the growth of many of the characters. This is confusing. Moreover, the political impacts on the story's progression is treated superficially. Rather devoting time on the political backdrop, more length has been devoted to sexual appetite of Sardar especially the wooing of Durga(Reemma Sen) and also romantic interlude of Sardar's son Faizal(Nawazuddin Siddiqui). These are hilarious sequences and captivating scenes. When compared to the main theme of the movie, these are actually distractions. Also, DI techniques could have been better used to denote the different eras. The tough life in rural India is brilliantly portrayed despite the shortcomings. This is a male dominated theme. It is the brilliance of Anurag that such a male dominated theme shows strong women, be it Sardar's first wife Nagma(Richa Chadda), Sardar's second wife Durga or Faizal's lover Mohsina(Huma Qureshi).

Performance wise, the movie belongs two people, Manoj Bajpai as Sardar Khan and Richa Chadda as Nagma. Manoj successfully portrays Sardar who doesn't get angry and adopts violence without guilt. He displays his versatility by portraying an energetic younger days to a restrained older man. The scenes where he lusts and woos Durga are hilarious. At the same time, the scenes where he interacts with his older son after latter's marriage is heart-warming. Richa Chadda, the relatively new face, has a bigger responsibility for Nagma is no ordinary woman. A pregnant Nagma has a showdown with her sex-addicted husband in a local brothel. She has to resist the sexual advances of her husband during pregnancy. Finally she comes to terms with his adulterous habits. When her husband leaves her temporarily, she takes care of her family providing the most essential mental strength to the other members of her family. That is a tall order. But she delivers and her portrayal remains in your mind.

If you are an Anurag Kashyap fan, wait for the DVD. The others can give it a skip. If you still want to go for it, keep in mind it is violent. The violence is depicted by blood and rest is in your imagination. This actually is more disturbing.

Language: Hindi

Genre: Drama

Rating: **

Movie Review: Billa 2

Prefixed with 2, this is not a sequel but a prequel to the updated version of Billa released in 2007. In the prequel, you find out the origins of David Billa(Ajith Kumar) who lands in India as a refugee after taking part in the struggles in his motherland. Despite being a refugee, Billa climbs up the hierarchy of the underworld largely due to his bravado and risk-taking behaviour. He goes from doing petty crimes to controlling drugs and arms trade.

Chakri Toleti is the director of the prequel. He also makes this a watchable fare even though they are many shortcomings. First and foremost, Chakri doesn't waste the viewers mostly (except for an unwanted song towards the end of the movie) by a structured screen play and clever editing. For instance, when the cops arrests Billa, the very next scene shows a tortured Billa  chopping away the unwanted and done-to-death scenes of police brutality. Chakri understands the limitations of his lead actor clearly and underplays it brilliantly. So there are no difficult scenes  for Ajithkumar. Instead there are more scenes where he had to look good onscreen. Finally, Chakri gets the essence of a prequel. That is why you get a fleeting glimpse of Rahman who is featured in the first part in a significant role and a gradual yet prominent change of the background score to synch with the background score of the first part.

David Billa is a criminal. So the movie features violence; a whole lot of it to be precise. But more than the violence, it is the special effects and badly executed action scenes that let you down. There are two sequences reminiscent of Hollywood movies namely Scarface and Godfather. Although the similarity to Godfather can be forgiven, more thought could have gone into the Scarface-like scene.

Ajith Kumar has to look dashing and act cold blooded. This is the easiest thing for him to do. Luckily for him, he has an apt nemesis in Vidyut Jamwal as the Russian arms dealer Dmitry. In fact, Vidyut is also the one who looks cool in the action sequences. Sadly, there aren't as many action scenes on him as much as we would love to have. Parvathy Omanakuttan ends up as a plain Jane when pitted against Bruna Abdullah and the role is both badly written and badly acted at the same time.

Although the movie is tailor made for Ajithkumar fans, it is still watchable for non-fans too because of the director's ease with the medium. If you can't stomach violence, stay away from this. Otherwise, this is a good option in the multiplex when you don't have any options and only care for escapist fare.

Language: Tamil

Genre: Action

Rating: **

Movie Review: Haywire

A spy seeks answers when she is hunted by her former employers. This forms the basis of the film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Mallory Kane is an independent contractor who is assigned to espionage activities by US government. But when a successful hostage rescue operation turns the table on her, she uses her skills to survive while pitted against unknown enemies and also her former colleagues.

Steven Soderbergh is known for erratic style of storytelling with fresh perspective told through brilliant photographic techniques. Like his previous ventures, this one too has brilliant photography and innovative editing. But both these exemplary techniques fail to save the day because of a predictable script and inconsistent pace. The movie has an incredible cast comprising of famous faces and a relatively fresh face  famous in MMA field heading the cast. Both of this work but unfortunately not to the extent it can salvage the movie.

The initial part of the movie stands out because of the violent stunts and smart editing. The stunts take you by surprise. The stunts are also violent to make you squirm in your seat feeling both rage and pain of the characters. On the flip side, the pace of the stunts are uneven throughout the movie which doesn't thrill the viewer despite the acrobatic skills of the lead protagonist. Also the editing, in which flashbacks interspersed in another flashback in order to gradually reveal the puzzle, is interesting. But this is used sparingly to sustain  interest. 

Eventually, it is a movie about a girl trapped in a man's world. The girl is represented by Gina Carano and the men represented by ensemble cast of Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender and Mathieu Kassovitz. It does sound like an interesting premise. But this does not translate into pleasant viewing.

If you are an action junkie, then save this for the DVD. Otherwise, skip it.

Language: English

Genre: Action

Rating: **

Movie Review: The Amazing Spiderman

I never understood the reason for rebooting a series within 5 years after the previous one ended. Most of the superhero comics have many villains that a movie based on a comic is never going to run out of antagonists. For a successful movie, it is not the only antagonist that matters but also on how the story is narrated. Peter Parker's life was changed by two events - the spider bite and uncle Ben's violent death. There is not much you can do to change the beginnings.

In the reboot, there is Peter Parker(Andrew Garfield) growing up with Uncle Ben(Martin Sheen) and Aunt May(Sally Field). While wondering up about the sudden disappearance of his parents when he was really young, he grows up to be a shy young man who is good with camera and stays away from trouble. Ironically, staying away also means refraining from expressing his love to Gwen Stacy(Emma Stone). One day, he ventures into OsCorp to meet his dad's colleague Dr Curt Connors(Rhys Ifans). There, he gets bitten by a spider changing his life forever. A new life also means losing Uncle Ben immediately after an outburst and also putting him in confrontational mode with Captain George Stacy(Denis Leary), Gwen's dad. When a new villain emerges in the form of The Lizard, Spiderman is put to test.

Marc Webb, who is at the helm of this reboot, fails to give us anything more than what was offered in the first installment of Tobey Maguire-Sam Raimi edition. Like I mentioned earlier, there is very little to that can be done while narrating the genesis of Spiderman. As he has cast veterans in the supporting roles, Marc is able to sustain our interest intermittently. Apart from this, what stands out in the movie is the high school romance and the stunts. The high school romance brings out the best moments and many funny one-liners between Peter Paker and Gwen Stacy. The stunts stand out because CG has evolved many fold over the years and use of stunt doubles instead of reverting to full blown CG for a swinging Spiderman. Unfortunately, these factors aren't enough to sustain our interests.

The lead pair looks good together. They act well too. But the script is reminiscent of the earlier ones, you drift into boredom too soon to notice either their histrionic capabilities or the onscreen chemistry. The veterans make you sit back and notice them for we haven't seen them in a long while.

Skip this. If you loved Tobey Maguire-Sam Raimi version, don't even look for this on DVD. Instead wait for the sequels. I am pretty sure there will be sequels and I seriously hope they are much better than the first part.

Language: English

Genre: Action

Rating: **

Movie Review: Teri Meri Kahaani

Directed by Kunal Kohli, this movie tells the story of two people falling in love in three different eras. You could say they fall in love in over a period of time. But, then you would be wrong because the eras are separated by at least 100 years and it is difficult for a couple to live that long. So, the lead pair looks the same but have different names and different backgrounds. There is Govind(Shahid Kapoor)-Rukhsar(Priyanka Chopra) in the 1960, Krish-Radha in 2010 and Javed-Aradhana in 1910.

The movie ultimately is watchable due to the glamour-quotient, a few interesting performances and some of the interesting scenarios. At the same time, the movie is also plagued with problems. The movie is an anthology of three stories. When the same lead pair is featured in all short stories, you expect a connection between these three stories. But there is no strong connection. The only explanation offered makes you guffaw. Eventually, this becomes an anthology where the ending of each story is withheld from the viewer until the last few minutes of the movie. Kunal Kohli tries to give different styles to three stories. The 1960 story is narrated in a Chaplinesque style, the 2010 story using flash-cuts and 1910 in a bland style. The good intention is lost in the childish execution. The different eras have been painstakingly recreated. In order to accomplish this, the green screen has been employed for CG. Sadly, the CG work has rendered blurry images of the actors occupying the foreground in many of the scenes.

It is the performances that makes us forget the flaws of the movie. Shahid Kapoor effortlessly transforms himself into the three characters. He tries to differentiate between these characters by employing different looks and body language. Govind and Krish are good while Javed isn't. Ironically, his co-star Priyanka Chopra puts in a rather bland performance as Rukhsar and Radha while her Aradhana is excellent. It is as Aradhana that Priyanka uses her smile and eyes perfectly to her rapidly disintegrating resistance to poetry-quoting womanizer Javed. While the lead pair has excellent chemistry, they end up impressing us in different segments and never in the same segment. Prachi Desai and Neha Sharma stands in their roles in spite of the limited footage. This is because they portray the most interesting characters - strong willed and opinionated.

The rangoli on screen, the music, the jokes and the running time makes this watchable. So if you have nothing else to do in the multipex, this provides a good diversion.

Language: Hindi

Genre: Drama

Rating: **