Jairam's Jives

Inglourious Basterds - Movie Review

2010-01-04T14:42:00.002+05:30

After quite a few false starts, namely missing out on buying movie tickets on time before the movie left theaters in Hyderabad, getting hold of a few rotten prints of the movie where the audio and the video were not in sync, laziness and selection of other notable movies to watch before this one, and missing out on having the Missus as company to watch the movie, I finally got around to watching “Inglourious Basterds” yesterday, and man, was the wait worth it or what. A self professed Quentin Tarantino fan myself, I found this to be one of his most entertaining and fun movies to watch. In my opinion, this probably comes only behind “Reservoir Dogs” in my list of all time fave Tarantino movies.

The movie deals with two separate plots to assassinate the top Nazi political leadership, one planned by the owner of a French cinema and the other masterminded by a group of American soldiers who are called “The Basterds”. While the Frenchwoman finds herself in fortuitous circumstances in terms of actually managing to get almost all the top Nazi brass in her theatre for a high profile premiere of a German movie, the Basterds on the other hand get this assignment purely on the basis of their ruthless Nazi-scalping (quite literally) exploits in France.

Now, anybody familiar with the Tarantino school of filmmaking would immediately realize that when events like war, shootouts, scalping, etc are picturized by him, they are quite literally almost like the real thing. However, what makes these sequences worth watching is the sheer poetic fashion in which they unfurl on the screen. While some of them happen in slow motion with soul-stirring music playing in the background, others happen so suddenly and without warning that it takes at least 10-15 seconds for the viewer to figure out what actually happened. Now, given this deadly combination of speed, suddenness and poetry of motion, suffice to say that most of the action sequences in this movie are awesome.

This movie has its usual share of offbeat Tarantino-esque characters in the form of Lt. Aldo Raine (wonderfully under-played by Brad Pitt), the quiet determined Shosanna (played well by Melanie Laurent), the double agent actress Bridget Von Hammersmark (played by Diane Kruger) and a wonderful villain, Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, a revelation in this particular role). And this ensemble cast adds a lot of their talents, personality to the wonderful scrip that Tarantino came up for his version of the ‘spaghetti western/macaroni combat’ movie that the Basterds actually is. Christoph Waltz in particular stands out for his wonderful portrayal of Col. Landa and the long list of Supporting Actor awards and nominations are proof of this.

If not for anything else, I would watch this movie for the wonderful liberties that Tarantino has taken with WW-II history, and the sheer audacity that he has shown in almost all elements of this movie. A sure-shot winner in his long portfolio of movies.

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Golden Globe Nominations - 2009

2009-12-16T15:39:00.003+05:30

The 67th Annual Golden Globe nominations have been announced for 2009. The nominations related to movies are as follows -

Best Motion Picture - Drama

Avatar
Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire
Up in the air

Best performance by an actress in a motion picture - Drama

Emily Blunt - The Young Victoria
Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Carey Milligan - An Education
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire

Best performance by an actor in a motion picture - Drama

Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
George Clooney - Up in the air
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Morgan Freeman - Invictus
Tobey Maguire - Brothers

Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical

(500) Days of Summer
The Hangover
It's Complicated
Julie & Julia
Nine

Best performance by an actress in a motion picture – Comedy or Musical

Sandra Bullock - The Proposal
Marion Cotillard - Nine
Julia Roberts - Duplicity
Meryl Streep - It’s Complicated
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia

Best performance by an actor in a motion picture – Comedy or Musical

Matt Damon - The Informant!
Daniel day-Lewis - Nine
Robert Downey Jr - Sherlock Holmes
Joseph Gordon-Levitt - (500) Days of Summer
Michael Stuhlbarg - A Serious Man

Best Animated Feature Film

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
Up

Best performance by an actress in a supporting role in a motion picture

Penelope Cruz – Nine
Vera Farmiga – Up in the air
Anna Kendrick – Up in the air
Monique – Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire
Julianne Moore – A Single Man

Best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a motion picture

Matt Damon – Invictus
Woody Harrelson – The Messenger
Chistopher Plummer – The Last Station
Stanley Tucci – The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz – Inglourious Basterds

Best Director – Motion Picture

Kathryn Bigelow – The Hurt Locker
James Cameron – Avatar
Clint Eastwood – Invictus
Jason Reitman – Up in the air
Quentin Tarantino – Inglourious Basterds

Best Screenplay – Motion Picture

District 9
The Hurt Locker
It’s complicated
Up in the air
Inglourious Basterds

In Bruges - Movie Review

2009-12-16T07:36:00.003+05:30

'In Bruges' had received so many decent to good reviews that it always intrigued me as a movie which I had to simply watch given a chance, and when I did get around to watching it, I was not disappointed. Yes, the sheer offbeat plotline of the story, good performances from two of my favorite actors, Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes and the entire setting of the story managed to keep me glued to my seat. Unlike regular seat of the edge thrillers, this movie takes its time to build the plot, slowly increase the pace of action and finally end up with enough twists and turns to reach a logical conclusion.

The story revolves around Ray, a novice assassin who is riddled with the guilt of accidentally having killed a young boy, and Ken, an experienced pro assassin hiding out in the Belgian town of Bruges. They take in the sights and sounds of this quaint little town to kill their time, while waiting for further instructions from their boss, Harry. While in Bruges, Ray gets involved in a fight with a Canadian couple in a drunken spree. In the meantime, Ken receives a call from Harry, who orders him to kill Ray for having killed a child.

Ken, a good friend of Ray's, stuck with this unenviable task, manages to save Ray from committing suicide. He then tells Ray about his next target and Harry's orders. Convinced that Ray would be better off out of the killing business, he asks Ray to disarm and leave the city. And then after Ray leaves town, Ken calls up Harry and tells him about this. This enrages Harry who takes matters into his own hands and comes to Bruges himself.

A twist in the tale though brings Ray back to Bruges, and this forms the climax of the movie with all 3 assassins in the same town, Harry trying to kill Ray, Ken trying to save Ray, and a few innocent characters caught in between. Albeit this makes for quite a comic situation, the deftness with which the script and the screenplay have been handled make this movie a good watch.

Colin Farrell portrays a wonderful Ray who has the blood of a child on his hands, Brendan Gleesan as Ken and Ralph Fiennes as Harry show why they are the experienced actors who can infuse life into complex characters, and overall the script and situations make this wonderful black comedy a nice movie.

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The Shining - Movie Review

2009-12-15T07:29:00.003+05:30

Now I personally am not a big fan of horror movies in which actual ghosts are picturized and blatantly paraded around on the screen, ie, I am not a big believer in the stereotypical ghost which walks around houses haunting them and its residents. This being said, there are a few movies which I really liked which do have ghosts walking around the house scaring the stuffing out of its inhabitants, and trust me, The Shining stands out on top of this particular list of movies.

Jack Nicholson, in the role of a lifetime pretty much shows how the paranormal and ghosts in particular can drive an already edgy character completely over the edge and ruin his life and that of others around him. The story starts off slow where Jack, a struggling writer, takes the job of the caretaker of winter caretaker of a hotel which gets completely snowed in. Jack's son, Danny has a special ability where he can see and feel paranormal beings (read ghosts and spirits), which simply adds to the fear-fest that this movie actually is. The first few days when Jack, Wendy and Danny move into the Overlook Hotel are good, when they enjoy the facilities of the hotel and Jack gets to work on completing his latest manuscript.

However, things start going wrong when Danny drives his tricycle past Room 237. This is the room where the movie brings out its true colors. When Danny comes out of the room injured and visibly traumatized, the audience learns more about Jack's alcoholism and how he has injured Danny in the past due to his violent behavior. This particular incident begins Jack's descent into insanity and mental turmoil. What transpires in the rest of the movie is something that would be better seen on the screen rather than read about here.

This movie features Jack Nicholson in probably the role of a lifetime, with him portraying the manner in which a reasonably normal person is driven to complete insanity due to the circumstances around him. Roger Ebert's words - "That leaves us with a closed-room mystery: In a snowbound hotel, three people descend into versions of madness or psychic terror and we cannot depend on any of them for an objective view of what happens. It is this elusive open-endedness that makes Kubrick's film so strangely disturbing." could not be truer in terms of describing how the vast empty hotel drives each one of the characters in the movie to the edge. Jonathan Romney, in his critique describes the movie thus - "The final scene alone demonstrates what a rich source of perplexity The Shining offers. At first sight this is an extremely simple, even static film. A family move into a Colorado hotel for the winter so Dad can write his great literary work in peace while perform ing his function as caretaker. But the ancient blood -soaked visions recorded like old movie scenes in the hotel's walls emerge, and Jack is possessed, driven homicidal...."

Now if all of the above doesn't tempt you to go watch the movie itself, the fact that it is based on Stephen King's novel should make you do so. Go watch Jack Nicholson at his best.

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The Jackal - Movie Review

2009-12-14T07:48:00.002+05:30

'The Jackal', whose main storyline is based on Frederick Forsyth's all-time great novel (and also one of my all time favorite movies, 'The Day of The Jackal') had almost always eluded me for some reason or the other. Either the DVD was scratched, or I had other commitments whenever the movie was played on TV. However, yesterday, I finally did manage to catch the movie in its entirety, and I don't know whether it was all the anticipation and the long wait for this movie, but somehow the movie failed to really impress me.

What starts off quite promisingly slowly gets reduced to a dull, predictable story where you pretty much almost know what is going to transpire in the next scene. An assassin who nobody recognizes, another terrorist with a heart of gold who recognizes him, his ex-girlfriend, his current love interest, a honest-to-goodness FBI Agent, most of these characters are very stereo-typical. These coupled with a plot which any of us can easily predict makes the movie fall flat on its face.

What disturbs me is the fact that actors of the caliber of Bruce Willis, Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier are reduced to playing caricatures of each one of these characters. There are absolutely no layers to any of their characters. All of them are either black or white with not a hint of grey in their personalities. And this according to me is probably what brought the movie down, and made it dull and boring.

All this being said, the movie is reasonably decent and probably could be watched one time, provided your expectations are sufficiently kept low enough.

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Terminator Salvation - Movie Review

2009-12-09T14:13:00.002+05:30

Terminator Salvation, the fourth (and hopefully the last) instalment in the Terminator franchise was universally panned by movie critics and audiences worldwide when it released (sometime around mid 2009). However, given the fact that I am a big fan of the first 2 movies, and Judgment Day in particular, to me, it was a must-watch movie. That being said, I didn't have too many expectations from the movie itself, given the considerable amount of criticism surrounding the movie, and the fact that Christian Bale (who plays John Connor in the movie) has pretty much made it his standard modus-operandi to give his trademark 'Batman drawl' to all characters that he plays nowadays since 'Batman begins'. Suffice to say, I wanted to watch this movie only because of my loyalties to the franchise and not necessarily anything else.

The plot itself was nothing remarkable given that the first 2 movies pretty much set the stage for what to expect from the movie. Given that, the character of Marcus Wright (played wonderfully well by Sam Worthington) was quite a revelation, both in terms of the layering of the character within the plot, and in terms of the sheer intensity brought to the role by the actor. It is hard to believe that this movie is his first big screen role, and he displays the panache and intensity of a seasoned actor in this particular role.

The movie begins with Marcus Wright, a prisoner on death row donating his body for medical research to Cyberdyne Systems, and his subsequent execution by lethal injection in 2003. The movie picks up in 2018, where John Connor leading a Resistance attack on a Skynet base. This results in a nuclear explosion out of which Marcus emerges unhurt albeit without any memory of what has happened to him. The movie then takes up two parallel narrations, one in which John's activities with the Resistance are depicted, and another in which Marcus' journey to try and figure out what happened to him is shown. The two stories cross paths, courtesy Kyle Reese, who is on a Skynet "kill list" (which happens to contain John Connor's name as well) and who happens to rescue Marcus from being killed by a T-600 terminator. John, who knows that Kyle ultimately will become his father then sets off on a search and rescue mission with Kyle which puts him in touch with Marcus, who in turn wants to rescue Kyle from Skynet.

What follows it the climax of the movie in which Marcus and John try to rescue Kyle from Skynet, and whether and how they manage to do that makes up for the last action sequence of the movie. Needless to say that like the other movies in this franchise, this one also contains enough terminators, action sequences, chase sequences, gadgets, explosions, guns and the works, in generous quantities. What sets this movie apart from the other ones in this franchise is the absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a significant role, and the fact that this movie for a large part contains two stories running in parallel.

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Breach - Movie Review

2009-12-08T07:39:00.002+05:30

Eric O'Neill, a young and upcoming FBI Intelligence Agent is assigned to the case of a Robert Hanssen, a senior agent who is believed to be a sexual deviant. He is assigned an undercover assignment where he has to work as Hanssen's assistant and report any and all activities of his boss to nail him with some evidence. However, from his first few interactions with Hanssen, Eric realizes that if anything his new boss is devoutly Catholic and yes, maybe a little disgruntled with the Bureau itself. On more than one occassion he strongly makes his point that the Bureau appreciates and respects only the agents who 'shoot guns' and that the Intel folks are considered only pencil pushers.

Eventually when Hanssen gets closer to Eric, so far as to suggest Eric and his wife to join them at church and for a family breakfast thereafter, Eric confronts his handler for this assignment to find out what exactly he is trying to achieve by this assignment. In his opinion, Hanssen posed no threat to anybody and did not deserve to be spied upon. It is then that his handler gives him the complete picture as to how Hanssen has been suspected of being a traitor and selling vital intelligence information to the Soviets, and that he has been suspected of doing so for the past 25 odd years. His handler also informs Eric as to how Hanssen managed to get himself into a position where he was actually heading a committee whose only mission was to identify and weed out the Soviet mole in the system.

Given the gravity of the situation, and his relationship issues with his wife (primarily caused by Hanssen's interference), and his slowly increasing respect for Hanssen, Eric is now faced with a situation where he has less than 2 months (before Hanssen's retirement) to try and actually catch him red-handed passing on information. The second half of the movie deals with how Eric almost loses Hanssen's trust, manages to regain it and nabs him in the act.

Although the movie deals with a reasonably small premise and pencil thin storyline, two facts make it a really good espionage movie. First is the fact that it is based on a true story, a story of possibly the worst security and intelligence breach in the history of the FBI. And secondly, although the viewer knows how the movie will end (halfway into the movie), the twists and turns it takes towards the end makes it an 'edge of the seat' thriller. This is one movie which all spy-movie lovers will really enjoy. Unlike the James Bond series which relies on the antics of a field agent, this is one movie which deals with the Intel side of the Bureau, more in the "Spy Games" genre.

Chris Cooper as Robert Hanssen plays the role of a lifetime and brings a lot of depth to the character. It is always difficult to play someone real, and Cooper adds that much more to this character by bringing in his gruff demeanour, angry looks, and brooding realism to the role. All in all this is one movie which would surely be enjoyed by people who like 'cloak and dagger' stuff.

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The Passion of the Christ - Movie Review

2009-11-26T16:48:00.005+05:30

Now any of us who watch movies and somewhat follow the movie industry would remember the controversy that “The Passion of the Christ” caused the world over when it was released to the movie halls. While I personally was aware of some kind of controversy, I wasn’t a movie geek then to completely understand what it was all about. I assumed that it was just another one of those ‘religious controversies’ that movies dealing with Gods cause, and thought it had something to do with how Jesus Christ was represented in the movie.

However, after watching this movie, I realize (at least to some extent) how it might have hurt the sensibilities (not necessarily religious) of movie viewers worldwide. The extent to which this movie gets graphic cannot be described well in words and has to be seen to be believed. While Quentin Tarantino’s movies also get graphic, the audience is fully aware that it is ‘make believe’ to a large extent, but Mel Gibson pushes the envelope just a tad too far in a movie whose very premise had such historic, far-reaching religious connotations. The fact that he chose to depict some of these scenes the way he did speaks volumes about the extent to which he believed in himself, his material and his audiences. Kudos to him for having successfully pulled off a movie of this magnitude and nature and living to tell the success story.

The Passion of the Christ specifically deals with events surrounding the capture of Jesus of Nazareth by the Romans, his subsequent trial and crucifixion. More than half the movie revolves around the physical travails and punishments that Jesus has to undergo at the hands of the guards, how he is made to carry the cross and his final crucifixion itself. And it is common knowledge by now that these probably are the most disturbing scenes of the movie, at least visually.

Wikipedia quotes Gibson as saying “This is a movie about love, hope, faith, and forgiveness. He [Jesus] died for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It's time to get back to that basic message. The world has gone nuts. We could all use a little more love, faith, hope, and forgiveness." And believe me I really think this is an apt quote and I completely agree with the same.

Watch this movie only if you are not faint hearted, and have the stomach to see a lot of blood being spilt on screen.

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The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Movie Review

2009-11-24T14:21:00.004+05:30

Now if any of you have ever seen ‘The Mummy’ or ‘The Mummy returns’, then you obviously are fans of the Mummy movie franchise. Suffice to say that in my opinion, these movies are the closest that any of the movies made in the 21^st century can match up to the Indiana Jones franchise. Yes, yes, I know I am overdoing it by comparing the Mummy movies to Indy Jones and his adventures, but then, as a series of movies where continuity of the characters, and style of story-telling the Mummy movies are as close as they get.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor takes off around 13-15 odd years after the events of The Mummy Returns. Alex O’Connell, son of Rick and Evelyn follows in the footsteps of his father and unbeknownst to his parents, is bang in the middle of an excavation in China. He locates Emperor Han’s tomb and excavates the mummy out of its resting place and puts it in a museum. Rick and Evelyn, brought to China on an errand bump into Alex.

All 3 of them are then captured by the evil General Yang whose devious plans are to bring back the Dragon Emperor to life and to make him the undisputed ruler of China and serve as his Chief of Staff. The Emperor is then brought back to life and what ensues is complete chaos as his first mission is to locate Shangri-La which would then point out to the exact location of his entire undead army. The story then shifts to the Himalayas where the O’Connells unsuccessfully try to prevent the Emperor from locating his armies.

Once the Terracota army is raised, what follows is the final battle between the army and some of O’Connell’s friends as they try to send back the Emperor to his ‘final resting place’, ie, to his final death.

What makes this movie a must-watch is the sheer entertainment value it brings to the table. Not one moment is wasted in unnecessary dialogue, slow paced action. The entire movie is riveting in terms of the pace of action, and the fact that we have familiar actors playing well-loved characters makes this movie all the more fun. The action and battle sequences have enough in them to excite fans of this genre, and the well executed CGI sequences add just that bit more fun to the movie. All in all, one movie to see if you are a fan of the Mummy franchise. However, if you didn’t like the earlier ones, you are better off giving this one a miss.

LAMBScore for this movie

GI Joe - The Rise of Cobra - Movie Review

2009-11-23T16:51:00.002+05:30

As a small kid of around 8-10 yrs old, I massively used to enjoy the GI-Joe cartoons that used to be telecast on Doordarshan. And when my cousin got a complete set of the GI Joe dolls from his uncle in Dubai, we were thrilled to bits playing with them. In fact, if memory serves me right, these were the first dolls in India where the elbows and shoulder joints could actually be turned around, which gave these dolls more flexibility.

And therefore, when ‘The real American hero’ franchise was taken up by Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment (with a franchise license from Hasbro Inc), I readily knew what to expect. A plot by the omnipresent Cobra to end the world, with the Joes coming together to save the world from imminent doom, and I also knew that Cobra Commander would invariably find a way to slip from the grasp of the Joes at the end and make the way for a return to his evil devious ways.

And GI Joe – The rise of Cobra doesn’t disappoint on any of the above respects. A fun-filled action fest peppered with enough action and chase sequences to keep even the most skeptical action-movie fan engaged for almost its entire running time. Given that this is the first movie of the franchise, it was to be expected that the script would include introductions to some primary characters such as Duke, Ripcord, Scarlett, the Baroness, Snake Eyes and Cobra Commander himself.

While the movie script itself has taken quite a few liberties and deviated significantly from the comics or cartoon series, it still retains the primary elements of each of these characters. What makes the movie all the more interesting is the fact that although it contains more than a few flashback sequences, they are interspersed with all the action happening around, and are brief enough to retain the audience interest in them.

Some decent casting with a good mix of new faces, well known faces, absolutely lovely location choices such as Paris, Prague, Egypt, and some mind-boggling set action sequences make this action fest a front-runner for this summer’s Hollywood ‘mindless’ action fests. GI Joe, in all respects adds to the growing list of cartoon character turned movie franchise list, and by no means a weak member to the same, given the merchandizing opportunities it presents to the brand.

Am not giving away the script or what the movie deals with here in this review, but suffice to say that if you had enjoyed the cartoon and the comic book series, you will surely love this movie. And even if you haven’t read or heard about the Joes before this movie, it still remains a nice action movie to be seen on a widescreen TV. My only grouse is that maybe the director could have shot some sequences with an IMAX camera, and that to me, would have added a lot more weight to the movie itself.

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State of Play - Movie Review

2009-11-23T14:51:00.001+05:30

Now any movie that stars actors of the caliber of Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren and also has talented actors such as Rachel McAdams, and deals with journalists, a corporate scandal waiting to be made public and American politicians is bound to be a good watch. And ‘State of Play’ doesn’t disappoint in this regard. This Universal Pictures adaptation of the British TV Series of the same name, deals with the shady dealings of American Senators and their clandestine dealings with military contractors.

The movie itself starts off as a simple investigation of the murder of a petty-thief and a pizza delivery man who was also murdered as he witnessed the incident. How this story links to an apparent suicide of the principal researcher and secretary to an American Senator forms the crux of this movie. The script and screenplay stay taut throughout except probably for the last 5-10 mins of the movie when all the loose ends are wrapped up one by one.

Regulars to this site will know by now that I personally am a big fan of movies which deal with the shady undercurrents of corporate scandals and their possible linkups to politicians, especially in the American landscape. This movie in many respects resembles ‘Michael Clayton’ whose review I had put up some time ago in the blog.

And similar to ‘Michael Clayton’ this movie also relies on a few characters and actors carrying forward the story. Unlike most conventional studio movies, there is no central villainous character or actor here who all of us would love to hate, but rather presents the stereotypical large multinational conglomerate as the villain that all of would love to see go down. This movie barely stops of achieving its logical conclusion and indicting the corporation and bringing it down for its crimes, but knowing what we know by the end of the movie, the result is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Russell Crowe, as Cal McAffrey, a reporter for the Washington Globe who is grudgingly admired by his editor, Helen Mirren, has in my opinion, played a wonderful role in this movie. His approach to work, while being ruthlessly professional, is also ethical and humane in terms of the fact that he does everything he can to bring out all sides of the story rather than sheer commercial interest in achieving ‘breaking news’. Indian news channels can learn a thing or two from the portrayal of Cal McAffrey’s character in this movie, in terms of how to be completely thorough before publishing news in widely read public media.

Ben Affleck, although competent, fails to really impress us with his portrayal of an enigmatic American Senator. To be just to him, the role demanded him to be one of the slimy ones who has had a sexual affair with one of his aides (which seems to be the ‘in-thing’ in American politics nowadays), and yes, he has done reasonable justice to his role.

Please catch this movie if you like movies which deal with how American politicians and big corporate work glove-in-hand to pull the wool over our eyes.

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One flew over the Cuckoo's nest - Movie Review

2009-09-09T13:37:00.002+05:30

Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy is probably the earliest memory I have of him as an actor. Him with his black woolen cap playing basketball with the Chief (played wonderfully by Will Sampson) is probably the only thing I remembered about this movie which I had probably seen first when I was around 12 yrs old or so. I didn’t quite remember either the rest of the movie or worry about how I was watching one of the best movies of all time back then, but then the second coming of “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” in my life pretty much cleared all the hype and hoopla surrounding the movie and I understood why it is rated so high up there in almost every list of all-time great movies.

McMurphy is a criminal serving a sentence for rape and is transferred to a mental institution (where the rest of the story plays out). The whole transfer is just a ploy by him to avoid hard labor and serve out the rest of his time relaxing and fooling around. Although his anti-authoritarian mindset doesn’t help his cause at the hospital. The ward is run by a calm but unyielding Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, who didn’t need too many words to convey the contours of her character in this movie). Nurse Ratched uses a variety of methods including group therapy sessions, unpleasant medicines and a strict daily regimen to keep the patients under check and calm.

When McMurphy is introduced to the mix, he notices that most of the inmates are reasonably unfriendly and are highly institutionalized in their lives which have no place for an outsider or a new friend. He kills time playing cards with some of the inmates, and trying to bait Nurse Ratched to amuse himself. The Nurse amuses him for a while but increasingly stifles her control levels over him to assert her authority over the ward.

Slowly McMurphy becomes friends with the mute Chief who in turn reveals to McMurphy that he is not in fact mute at all, but is playing the role just to keep the Nurse and the other inmates off his case. The Chief does so also because he is as distasteful of the hospital establishment as McMurphy is, but wants to deflect unnecessary attention off himself completely opposite to what McMurphy was currently doing.

McMurphy, meanwhile couldn’t control himself from making the most of his relaxed lifestyle at the ward and indulges in activities which necessarily don’t go well with the image and discipline that Nurse Ratched had created for the rest of the inmates. This lands him into a lot of trouble with the Nurse, which is when he realizes that she has the authority and the power to retain him in the ward for as long as she pleases, even beyond his specified prison sentence.

What happens in the rest of the movie makes for more than interesting ending. Now while the story in itself might not sound too appealing or entertaining, it is power packed performances from the leading characters, McMurphy, Nurse Ratched and the Chief which make this movie a mandatory must-watch for every serious cinema lover. The fact that it has a pencil-thin story line but still manages to keep you riveted to what’s happening is testimony to its greatness. This would not be classified as a blockbuster, but a ‘classic’ for sure.

Jack Nicholson in probably his second best role (barely behind the role in The Shining) puts in everything that is expected from an Academy Award winning performance. The scene in which he calls for a vote in the group therapy sessions and the other one in which he makes a show of trying to lift a fixed plumbing fixture make for probably the most memorable scenes in cinema.

A must-watch movie for any serious cinema lover and Jack Nicholson fans.

LAMBScore for this movie –

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Shattered Glass - Movie Review

2009-09-07T17:42:00.003+05:30

Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) works as a reporter with The New Republic and is well known and admired among his colleagues for his highly imaginative and witty articles ranging from the Lewinski scandal to young Republicans at a convention and the like. His offbeat selection of topics to write about and his ability to bring out something completely sensational and unknown to readers’ attention was something that set Glass apart from all his peers.

His mentor and editor, Michael Kelly (played wonderfully by Hank Azaria), who always takes the side of his writers when it comes to journalistic liberties defends Glass to the hilt when his credentials and authenticity are questioned in an article involving young Republicans and the facts surrounding the story. Michael does basic investigation, but relies on Glass’s word that his facts are right. However, Kelly is forced out by the owner of the magazine in an incident involving objection to the usage of too many commas by the staff in their articles.

This puts Charles Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) in charge as the editor, and he does not quite have the same rapport with the writers that Kelly had. In fact his predecessor had pretty much escalated himself to a ‘god-like’ status with his writers through being extremely pro-journalist to the extent of being labeled anti-owner and anti-editorial censorship to a large extent. Lane especially doesn’t share the enthusiastic view about Glass and his articles unlike most of the magazine and its readers did.

When Glass discusses his latest article about a teenaged hacker who was hired by a Silicon Valley company, its authenticity is publicly questioned by another online journalist. Lane then probes Glass regarding his sources, his facts and in the midst of this investigation figures out the article was almost entirely fabricated by Glass using hotch-potch sources of information.

Lane then decides to go back through all the articles Glass had written during his tenure with The New Republic and finds out that all or part of 27 articles of a total of 41 articles were fabricated by Glass using part truth part fiction, and publishing them in the magazine as pure facts.

While the story itself may probably not make for wonderful reading or a riveting movie, how it has been told and some good performances by Christensen, Azaria and Saarsgard make this movie a nice movie to watch. Plus the fact that it is based on a true story and deals with one of the most well-read magazines in the US political circles makes us wonder the depths to which people will go down to make a name for themselves. If not anything else, this movie depicts the rise and then the inevitable fall of a reasonably talented youngster because of his hurry to make it to the top of the pile in a hurry.

LAMBScore for this movie –

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Angels & Demons - Movie Review

2009-09-02T13:17:00.004+05:30

Now anybody who is anybody would have surely heard of Dan Brown and read the book “The Da Vinci Code” which catapulted him to instant fame around the world. I personally liked the book myself, and also quite enjoyed the movie also although it is true that the movie didn’t quite do enough justice to the book. In any case, this review is of “Angels & Demons” (A&D), the movie adaptation of the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. The events in A&D take place before Robert Langdon, the principal character becomes well known due to the events that occur in the second book.

The movie begins at CERN, the European Orgn for Nuclear Research where a vial of antimatter (the supposed building block of the universe as we know it now) is stolen. Simultaneously, the College of Cardinals’ papal enclave has been called following the untimely death of the Pope, to select the new Pope. The entire world and its media patiently wait at St Peters’ Square waiting for white smoke to emerge from the chimney of the room hosting the conclave, signaling the selection of the new Pope. However, the Illuminati, an underground secret society, kidnap the 4 most likely candidates for the Papacy, and this sets in motion the rest of the movie’s plot.

Langdon is summoned due to his expertise in symbology and is paired with Vittoria Vetra from CERN to save the four preferiti, recover the vial (which by the way is dying down on power due to its perishable batteries). Langdon through his expertise deduces that the four cardinals will be killed at the four altars of the “Path of Illumination”. The only issue being that nobody actually knows the location of these altars other than the Illuminati themselves.

Thus begins the cat and mouse game between Langdon and the Illuminati where Langdon is racing against time to figure out the locations, and save the cardinals, while the Illuminati unbeknownst of his involvement carry on with their plans, threatening to decimate the entire world using the antimatter vial.

Although the screenplay doesn’t do complete justice to the book (just as The Da Vinci Code movie didn’t either), the fact that this movie remains a fast-paced thriller on the lines of say a Indiana Jones movie, is testimony to the fact that the director, Ron Howard (who directed the other movie as well) is a master craftsman in converting a book into a movie. If you are someone who has not actually read the book, then you will absolutely enjoy the movie to the hilt, and even if you have read the book, you will still enjoy its retelling on the silver screen with the beautiful historic locations where it is filmed.

As is the norm with Dan Brown and these two books of his, this movie also ran into its own fair share of controversies with some die-hard Roman Catholic organizations asking for its banning and the like, but the movie remains one of the better ones of 2009 till date. Yet another feather in Dan Brown’s and Tom Hanks’ cap for sure. All in all, a must-watch movie as far as I am concerned.

LAMBScore for this movie –

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Movie Review

2009-09-01T10:15:00.004+05:30

Being the die-hard X-Men fan that I am and a fanatical admirer of Hugh Jackman, it was pretty much mandatory that I catch the latest flick of this combination - X-Men Origins: Wolverine almost as soon as it hit Indian screens. I personally have liked each one of the three movies of the X-Men series and admit to being a huge fan of the Wolverine character. Maybe the entire personality of Logan who unleashes his primal instincts of anger and killing at the drop of a hat, maybe the entire grim and nasty demeanor of the character, the dark past, all of these probably appealed to something inside the demented mind of mine to become a huge fan of this character in the ensemble cast. That being said, the fact that this was an entire movie devoted only to Wolverine made this a super-duper movie to me even before I watched it. So please do expect an extremely biased review of the movie to follow, although I will try and keep it somewhat neutral, if possible.

The movie begins with how young James Howlett sees his father being killed by Thomas Logan in 1845, and how this trauma activates the mutilation, bone claws which protrude from the boy’s hands. After killing Logan (who in his dying breath informs James that he is his real father), young James flees the spot with Victor Creed (who turns out to be Sabretooth), his brother. Somewhere, somehow both the brother realize their mutilation and their supposed immortality and spend the next century or so, doing what they do best, killing other people (because of their violent urges and skills), albeit as soldiers of armies in the American Civil War, the World Wars and other such wars.

The brothers are discovered by Major Stryker who recruits them in his Team X, a group of mutants which include Agent Zero – ace marksman, Wade Wilson – lethal swordsman and athlete, John Wraith – teleporter, Fred Dukes – the indestructible, and Chris Bradley – the telekinetic one. After a couple of missions, Logan realizes that Team X is a group of people who have scant respect for human life and are probably just an excuse for an execution squad or a bunch of mercenaries. He then decides to leave the team and go off on his own.

Some years later Logan is located by Stryker who warns him that someone is killing the rest of Team X. Victor reappears in Logan’s life and murders his girlfriend. This angers Logan who then agrees for Stryker to implant his skeleton and bones with adamantium, a virtually indestructible metal and rechristens himself as Wolverine. In his search for revenge against Victor, Logan stumbles upon the fact that Stryker is actually conducting experiments on other mutants in The Island.

With the help of Gambit, someone who has the ability to charge any object he touches with kinetic energy so that they explode, Logan makes it to the island thus setting the scene for an action packed finale to this movie. All said and done, the action sequences, the character sketches, the introduction of so many new mutants into the mix and the entire back story to Wolverine, all of these make for an awesome prequel to the entire X-Men series of movies.

What works for me in this movie is the fact that it never deviates too far from Wolverine the main character. Although there is a lot of scope for this movie to side-track into the various other new characters that are introduced, the script stays true to its name and restricts itself to the character sketch of Wolverine. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth make perfect foil for each other throughout the movie and as is the norm, any hero is only as good as the villain is, and therefore Liev’s casting works beautifully for this movie. The chemistry of the characters as well as the actors in the scenes they do together adds a lot of punch to this movie.

All in all this is a must-watch action movie for all X-Men fans and action-movie buffs. Yet another winner from the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster stable.

LAMBScore for this movie -

Iron Man - Movie Review

2009-08-31T10:44:00.004+05:30

Now this was one superhero character about whom I had barely heard about, let alone read the actual comic itself before the movie was announced. The fact that it starred Robert Downey Jr., who in my opinion is one of the most offbeat actors around nowadays (well, with the exception of Johnny Depp perhaps) made this movie all the more interesting. After all how can any fan of superhero movies not fall for the premise of a flying man in an iron suit. To me, the whole concept reminded me of the Giant Robot television series of which I was a big fan of during the Black and White Doordarshan days.

In any case, by the time I caught Iron Man, it had already done its rounds of being the biggest blockbuster of the 2008 summer till then, and believe it or not, I actually caught it only after I actually watched ‘The Incredible Hulk’. In any case, my expectations were sky high from this movie even before I got around to actually watching it. And believe me, this did not disappoint.

Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist and master engineer, who doubles up as somebody who has scant respect for time or money and to add to all this is an incurable womanizer, is in Afghanistan for a sales pitch of his latest Jericho missile which he intends to sell to the US Army. He gets caught by a gang of militants who call themselves the ‘Ten Rings’ and this kidnapping changes his life forever, both literally and figuratively.

In the process of preventing the shrapnel from choking his artery, he develops and uses an electromagnetic device which keeps his arteries clean, and while in captivity he realizes that his weapons are being used by both sides, the good and the bad. He then decides to get to the root of the matter, but then faces the small issue of evading his captors and getting back home. He then builds an armored suit capable of being reasonably useful in short-term offensive strategies as well and gets back home.

What unfolds in the rest of the movie is something to be seen and not talked about here. Suffice to say that this movie is peppered (pun intended) with enough thrills, chills, action sequences, and overall all the fun elements that make for a Hollywood superhero blockbuster. What however sets this movie apart from others in the genre is the fact that this delves into how and why Tony Stark actually goes ahead and becomes the Iron Man. This movie is more like ‘The Incredible Hulk’ which once again chronicles the gradual transformation of Bruce Banner into the Hulk.

And to me, the sheer brilliance of the director Jon Favreau and his team lies in the fact that although the process of Tony Stark reforming takes time, the corresponding screen-time does not get too boring. It probably has to do with the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is a master at depicting conflicted emotions and depicting a person who is trying hard to kill the demons inside his head.

The romantic angle with Ms Pepper Potts, Stark’s secretary works well for the movie, once again primarily due to the brilliant casting of Gwyneth Paltrow in this role. She brings that whiff of fresh air to this otherwise glamor starved movie. All in all, a must-watch movie for all die-hard action movie fans. The action sequences will leave you waiting for the second installment of this franchise.

LAMBScore for this movie -

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Watchmen - Movie Review

2009-08-28T10:25:00.004+05:30

Regular readers of the blog will remember that I was quite eagerly looking forward to catching "Watchmen" when it hit the silver screen, and man, did it live up to my expectations or what. Moving away from the norm of pitching the good guys versus the bad guys, this is one superhero movie which goes down the less taken path of exploring the inherent difficulties of being superheroes, ordinary peoples' perceptions of them, how society reacts to them, their regular lives, and the such. And this to me is what sets Watchmen apart from most other superhero movies that I have seen, with a few exceptions of course.

The opening credits of the movie chronicles the rise of the Minutemen, a group of vigilantes who came together to "finish what the law couldn't" and their subsequent demise due to violent deaths or insanity. It also shows how decades later, the Watchmen are formed and are involved in various historical events such as JFK's assassination, Vietnam war and how the Watchmen prove to be the decisive factor there. Richard Nixon, US President during the 1980s however outlaws superheroes and all but 3 of them are retired. 2 of them, Dr Manhattan and the Comedian are operating under government sanction, and the masked Rorschach who remains active illegally.

The movie begins with the sequence where the Comedian is killed, and Rorschach sets out to warn the other Watchmen of a conspiracy to eliminate all of them. When Dr Manhattan, who now lives with his lover The Silk Spectre disbelieves him, and the Nite Owl doesn't quite take him too seriously, Rorschach realizes that he is probably the only one who seriously believes in this theory of his.

As events unfold, Dr Manhattan is publicly accused of having given cancers to his former girlfriend and former colleagues, which forces him into exile on Mars. This provides the Soviet Union the impetus to invade Afghanistan, thus prompting escalation of nuclear tensions between the US and the USSR. What happens forth forms the rest of the movie.

While the above in itself can be called a 'nutshell review' of the movie, this is one movie which has to be seen at least 2 or 3 times to get the full import of. Notwithstanding the fact that this is an adaptation of a seminal comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore, stand-alone the movie is a work of art in itself. I am not even talking about the graphics and the CGI parts, which are well, present in almost every action movie today, but the handling of the subject and the script by Zack Snyder gives us a glimpse into the simmering genius that this guy actually is. The careful handling of the Comedian's character (who by the way turns out to be something that most of us realize he isn't), and the brutally truthful character of Rorschach when he is unmasked and the sequence in which he describes his origins, make for the most fascinating sequences in the movie.

To me, one put off about this movie was the fact that it tries to merge almost 4-5 parallel stories together in a playing time of barely 160 odd minutes, which means that the director has taken some liberties with the original storyline. But then, if you are making a Hollywood Summer Blockbuster, and more so, one that is so heavily anticipated, I guess you have to take some liberties.

All said and done, this movie is a must watch for any serious cinema afficionado, more so if you enjoy 'serious superhero' movies which delve deep into the superhero psyche so to say.

My LAMB Score for this movie -

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Departures - Japanese Movie Review

2009-07-24T09:04:00.002+05:30

One of the regular blogs I read - Rads has put up a crisp nice review of Academy Award winning Japanese movie - Departures. Read the review here.

Cheers.........Jam

Related links -
Wikipedia link to the movie
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The Man from Earth - Movie Review

2009-07-21T13:47:00.006+05:30

Every once in a while you come across these offbeat, relatively unheard of movies which simply take your breath away. The Man from Earth is one such movie which would rank really high in the 'taking breath away' department. The theme with which the movie deals with and the sheer simplicity with which this story has been told is something that will make this movie one of my all time favorite 'talk-about movies'. Going against my usual norm of knowing more about movies before I actually watch them (Courtest IMDB and Wikipedia), this was one movie for which I relied purely on a friend's recommendation to the Missus.

So there we were, the Missus and me having started off with this movie with a completely open mind, without any expectations from the movie itself. And believe me, the kind of discussions we have had about this movie after having watched it is nothing short of strenous exercise to the grey cells. This movie makes you think about life and time in ways that can only be experienced and not talked or written about. That being said, this movie is not for the faint of heart, and if you are someone who wants to stick to his beliefs no matter what, then you will hate this movie, for the sheer courage it displays in questioning the basics of your beliefs.

The movie deals with Prof John Oldman being thrown a surprise farewell party by his colleagues. The group consists of an archaeologist, a biologist, an Arts Prof, an anthropologist and a student. When John's friends force him to disclose the reasons for his sudden departure, he hesitatingly reveals to them that he is in fact a 14,000 yr old man, who has survived from the Upper Paleolithic period till current day. Initially, his friends play along with his 'game' and humor him with questions regarding his origins, his memories, trying to find chinks in his story so that they could call his bluff. But as the conversation goes on, John's steadfastness and forthrightness forces them to believe that there is more to his story than they initially thought.

John narrates how he travelled with Christopher Columbus, how he was friends with Van Gogh, how he was a Sumerian and then a Babylonian under Hammurabi. The final tipping point to this conversation was when John actually claims he was Jesus and how he never actually performed all the miracles as stated in the Bible. In fact, this particular discussion deeply disturbs one of the professors who was a devout Christian.

How the movie ends, and what happens of this conversation is quite interesting and any discussion around that in this post would render this review to a huge spoiler. Suffice to say that this movie is probably one of the best (if not 'the best') science fiction movies that I have ever seen. Yes, it doesn't have little green men, it doesn't even mention a planet other than Earth, and for sure it doesn't have huge multi-storeyed spaceships, but then this movie has so much food for thought that it beats all of these gizmos and gimmicks hands down. Trust me when I say this, if you watch this movie, this will stay with you for a long time to come.

Cheers..........Jam

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Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen - Movie Review

2009-07-21T09:16:00.004+05:30

Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen begins with Optimus Prime narrating how thousands of years ago, a race of ancient Transformers landed on Earth looking for energy sources such as the Sun. Known as the Primes, they used Sun Harvesters to drain stars out of their energy to power Cybertron's AllSpark. However, the Primes had an understanding that they would not drain stars which supported planets with life-forms such as Earth. But one of the Primes, henceforth called "The Fallen" constructed a Sun Harvester on Earth breaking this rule. The other Primes sacrificed their bodies to hide the Matrix - the key that activates the Harvester, from the Fallen.

The movie itself takes off with events immediately after the first movie. The Autobots have teamed with the US Military to form a crack team, NEST, aimed at killing the remaining Decepticons on Earth. While on a mission in Shanghai to destroy Sideways and Demolishor, they are given a warning "The Fallen will rise again". Now this particular action sequence shot in IMAX simply takes your breath away and is a precursor to the action-fest that this movie actually is. The Demolishor in particular is one scary Decepticon and it takes the combined efforts of more than one Autobot to get the better of this monster villain. All in all, a crazy, sexy first action sequence for this movie.

Back home Sam Witwicky is getting ready to go to college, but has to leave Bumblebee behind, which does not necessarily go down too well with the loyal Autobot. While packing his stuff, he finds an AllSpark splinter left behind from his earlier adventures, which he gives to the oh-so-hot Mikaela Jones for safekeeping. Without him realizing it, Sam's touching the splinter triggers in him the power to see the map to the Matrix. When in college, Sam starts seeing symbols (which are later revealed to be Cybertron script) in his head, while the rest of the world thinks he is going crazy. This particular sequence reminded me of the obsessive Richard Dreyfuss who keeps seeing a hill in his head in "Close Encounters of a Third Kind". In any case, Sam calls up Mikaela, who in the meantime has captured Wheelie, a Decepticon who tries to steal the shard from her.

What follows in the rest of the movie is pretty much this, Decepticons get the shard, bring back Megatron to life, who kills Optimus Prime, gets in touch with the Fallen to activate the Sun Harvester, while Sam and friends try to locate the Matrix to destroy it, to ultimate save the world. Suffice to say, good guys on the run, bad guys trying to destroy the world, some awesome action sequences thrown in, a pyramid almost razed to the ground. Now if that doesn't make for a good action movie, what does.

One sequence which I just have to mention when talking about this movie is the one in which the Decepticon Devastator is formed. Now this damn big monster of a Transformer is seen to be believed. And trust me when I say this, this had to be one of the best IMAX sequences ever. The sheer scale of this scene is something which I cannot forget for a long long time.
This is one movie which any action buff who also likes a bit of sci-fi in movies will absolutely love. However, this has to be seen in IMAX for the complete experience. I would surely give this movie at least one viewing, especially if you liked the first movie.

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Transformers - Movie Review

2009-07-09T10:00:00.003+05:30

The earliest memories I have of the Transformers, and more specifically of Optimus Prime was a shiny little toy that my cousin used to have when he was younger. He used to guard this particular toy more carefully than the others as this was the only one which have elbows and knees that could bend, a neck that could turn, and a hip that could actually bend. This made Optimus Prime (or Red and Blue robot, as we used to call him back in those days) extra special and extra powerful. So when I first heard of the Transformers movie and read about it, my memories were taken back to those special innocent days. However, me being the jackass that I am, I missed out on watching this movie at the IMAX theatre in Hyderabad in late 2007.

The movie begins with Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots narrating how his home world, Cybertron was destroyed due to lack of energy to sustain it. In the war for the All Spark, the Decepticons led by Megatron manage to destroy most of the Autobots and almost all of Cybertron. However, in his quest for the All Spark, Megatron crash lands on earth and is frozen in ice in the Arctic Circle. Captain Archibald Witwicky stumbles upon his exo-skeleton and accidentally activates Megatron's navigational system which imprints his co-ordinates in his eyeglasses. Sector 7, of the US Govt locates Megatron and the All Spark and moves both of them to the site of the Hoover Dam and builds the dam on top of them to mask the energy emissions.

In the present day, a group of Decepticons land on earth and assume disguises of various earch vehicles and attack a US base in Qatar to hack into the US Military network to locate the All Spark. This forms the first action sequence of the movie in which viewers are shown the actual capabilities of the Transfomers. An awesome desert action sequence involving a lot of great military vehicles, CGI generated robots and battle sequences pepper this great sequence. This battle also leads to the discovery of probably the only chink in the armor of the Decepticons, the high-heat sabot weapons.

One of the Decepticons finds the original eyeglasses up for auction at e-bay, put up there by Sam Witwicky, the great grandson of Archibald. This puts Sam in the middle of the battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons, with the bad robots pursuing him and the good ones trying to protect him. Sam's first car, Bumblebee turns out to be an Autobot disguised as a Chevrolet Camaro. What follows in the rest of the movie is how Optimus Prime and the Autobots thwart every attempt by the Decepticons to get the co-ordinates of the All Spark.
Almost near the end of the movie, the Decepticons manage to revive Megatron, and the action sequence that follows is nothing short of amazing. The fight between Megatron and Optimus Prime, without doubt the two best Transformers in this movie, is quite breath-taking and must be seen to be believed. Whether the Autobots manage to protect Sam and the All Spark forms the climax of the movie.

For anybody who likes action movies and likes nicely crafted sci-fi stories, this movie came as a breath of fresh air. Anybody who has liked the 'Giant Robot' TV series which played in Doordarshan in the 80s will absolutly love this movie. And the fact that somebody like Steven Spielberg has produced this movie speaks volumes for the Production Quality of this movie. All in all, an awesome movie, which is good fun for action lovers of any age and race.

Cheers.......Jam

Related links -
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Body of Lies - Movie Review

2009-05-25T07:02:00.002+05:30

'Body of lies' tries to retrace the operative methods of CIA Operative, Roger Ferris (played competently by Leonardo DiCaprio) who is posted in the Middle East and keeps shuttling between countries such as Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia working on various assignments. He is trying to track down a terrorist called Al-Saleem who has already succeeded in bombing locations in UK and is planning more such bombs in mainland Europe. Ferris' handler, Ed Hoffman (excellent performance by Russell Crowe) is keeping constant tabs on Ferris and keeps giving him lots of necessary information as well as ideas and thoughts on how to go about handling an issue.

However, Ferris does not look down too kindly upon Hoffman actively intervening in situations and double-guessing him. His rationale being that the operative on the field has to rely on his instincts and go with the flow, rather than operating in a situation where some of the action is controlled by people sitting halfway across the world. If anything, such a situation could put the on-field operative more in harm's way than anything else. Suffice to say that Ferris and Hoffman shared a relationship that was anything but cordial, but they almost always got the job done.

Ferris' search for Al-Saleem takes him to Jordan, when he befriends Hani Salaam (played well by Mark Strong), head of Jordanian General Intelligence Department. Hani takes Ferris into his confidence based on only one condition that Ferris remains truthful to him at all times, and does not lie to him at any cost. Here in Jordan, Ferris learns of Hani's considerable influence over field agents and operatives. Hani's unconventional methods and reliance on relationships as a coercive force impress Ferris, which when contrasted with Hoffman's methods which rely on speed more than accuracy seem to be more effective to Ferris.

Hoffman ends up ruining Ferris' relationship with Hani due to one of his operations where he puts the CIA behind Karami, one of Hani's men, which results in the CIA losing a good lead in Jordan and probably missing out on getting closer to Al-Saleem. This results in Hani forgiving Ferris only to the extent of time required for him to get out of Jordan with a strict warning never to be seen again in the country. Ferris goes back to the US and has a tiff with Hoffman accusing him of being high-handed, with the suggestion that going forward, he leaves field operations to operatives themselves.

While in the US, Ferris comes up with an innovative plan to draw out Al-Saleem into the open. Whether this works or not forms the rest of the movie, and is something to be seen in the movie to be enjoyed. Masterful performances by Russell Crowe and DiCaprio carry this movie forward. Plus the fact, that I am a sucker for spy movies which are well made also made this a particularly enjoyable movie for me.

Cheers.........Jam

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Charlie Wilson's War - Movie Review

2009-05-24T11:02:00.002+05:30

When the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" begins, the words "The following is based on true events" really piqued my interest in this movie. While I had unsuccessfully been trying for over a year and a half to pull out time to actually sit and watch this movie, the fact that it was playing on Star Movies over a Saturday night meant that I had to catch it there.

Little did I realize that I would pretty much be getting a history lesson in how the CIA actually went ahead and armed the Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviet Red Army in the early 80s and the role that Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson actually played in this whole story. While the first part about the CIA arming the Afghans was well, pretty much an open secret which I have known for quite a while, I didn't quite realize the part that one lone Congressman had played in this whole scenario.

The movie itself deals with how Charlie Wilson, a 'wheelin-dealin' (read socializing, womanizing) Texas Congressman is persuaded by his friend and romantic interest Joanne Herring (played wonderfully by Julia Roberts) to do more to help the Afghans. Well actually, it was not like Joanne had any special interest in the welfare of the Afghans, but she wanted to beat the Communist Russians at any cost. This puts Charlie in contact with Gust Avrakotos, a maverick genius CIA operative (awesome performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman) who pretty much teaches Charlie how to go about defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan.

What follows is a retelling of the next 8 odd years in which the CIA Covert Ops budget for Afghanistan goes up from around $5 mn to just a tad more than $1 bn, and how the Afghans, for lack of a better term, kick some Russian butts in the meantime. The movie does go into reasonable detail as to how Charlie manages to pull together Congressional support for this increased budget, how the Afghans learn to make the most of the weapons and the training provided to them, while retaining viewer interest in the goings-on throughout. All in all, a very enjoyable movie for anybody who wants to know a relatively unknown aspect of how the Mujahideen grew to be as strong as they did.

What works for me in this movie is the fact that it is based on true events, as I have always believed that true stories make for really good movie scripts, provided they are told interestingly enough. This movie is enriched by some wonderful performances from almost all the principal characters played by Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Om Puri. Now with actors like these, it would take a really horrible script for such a movie to go wrong anywhere.

Ensure you catch this movie sometime soon, as I would assume that Star Movies will have some re-runs of the same all of May for sure.

Cheers.........Jam

Related links -

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Wikipedia link to Charlie Wilson

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Lions for Lambs - Movie Review

2009-05-17T07:44:00.006+05:30

Lions for Lambs starts off with TV journalist Janice Roth (played wonderfully by Meryl Streep) coming into Senator Jasper Irving’s (Tom Cruise in a surprisingly underplayed but awesome role) office only to find out that the Senator has granted her a complete hour of his time for a one-on-one interview. She later finds out that the Senator wants to talk about his new war strategy in Afghanistan and get Roth to give some positive coverage so that the public is convinced that the plan is sound.

While this is happening in Washington DC, back in Afghanistan the new war strategy is put in place. Two soldiers Arian and Ernest are lost behind enemy lines when the chopper carrying them is hit by enemy fire. While one of them is seriously injured, the other has injured his leg and unable to walk. They just have one rifle and a pistol to protect themselves till the Rescue teams arrive. However, this takes longer than expected due to strong headwinds, and the fact that they are stuck on top of a reasonably inaccessible cliff.

The third parallel track of the movie deals with Dr Malley (played by the talented Robert Redford) summoning Todd Hayes, a talented, bright but disinterested student into his office. Malley offers Hayes a straight ‘B’ in his subjects for the rest of the term, provided Hayes promises to “do something” with himself for the rest of the year. When Hayes questions this logic, this leads to an interesting conversation where Malley reveals that both Arian and Ernest are ex-students of his who enlisted in the US Army because they truly believed that this was probably the only way right now where they could ‘make a difference’ and contribute their bit to making the world a better place to live in.

Malley goes on to tell Hayes how he tried to talk the two of them out of enlisting, and as to how in his opinion this particular war was a futile one. But then he is unable to convince the two youngsters, who have had rough childhoods and truly believe that this was probably the only thing that would probably make them ‘debt-free’ for the rest of their lives. They also believed by doing so, people would take them seriously and that it would be easier for them to be seriously heard if they were War Veterans.

What happens in the rest of the movie is something to be seen and not read in this review. Suffice to say Lions for Lambs is one movie which forces us to ask all the right questions. But the biggest issue with this movie is the fact that there is no semblance of an answer to any of these questions. While that by itself is not a big issue, the fact remains that this makes the movie more preachy than anything else. Although the technique of using 3 parallel sequences to tell the same story is not new, the way it is used in this movie is quite interesting. But then this also takes away a lot from the movie since all 3 sequences look and feel too different from each other to be logically connected.

Robert Redford is his competent best, Meryl Streep is probably at the peak of her acting abilities, but the surprise packet of this movie for me was Tom Cruise. He played the role of the Senator to the hilt. The way he tries to convince the TV journalist that this new strategy was “the strategy” that would ultimately result in the US troops coming out on top, and how this human and financial was necessary to put an end to 6 endless years of conflict, all of these make for awesome sequences in the movie. He plays the role of a politician to the T and it was quite refreshing to see him in a role which actually had so much substance to it.

Go watch this movie, at least to ask yourself the right questions, but don’t expect to find any answers in it.

Cheers………Jam

Paul Blart:Mall Cop - Movie Review

2009-05-07T09:22:00.004+05:30

Paul Blart is able to do everything that a New Jersey Police Department recruit can do………well, almost everything. In his n-th attempt at the selections, he completes almost the entire obstacle course collapsing around 2 feet before the finish line due to hypoglycemia. Now any movie which begins with roly-poly Kevin James (of “King of Queens” fame from Star World) almost successfully completing an obstacle course gives you a pre-cursor of how the rest of the movie is going to pan out.

Paul Blart works as a Security Guard at a mall in New Jersey. He is one guard who takes his role very seriously and is more than judicious at his duties. His only gripe in life is the fact that he has to keep stocking up on small sugar packets to keep his hypoglycemia (medical term for low blood sugar levels) in control. His life pretty much revolves around his job and his attempts into trying to get into NJPD, while his mother and his daughter are trying to hook him up with some nice girl from perfectmatch.com.

Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping nights of the year is coming up and Paul is all geared up for the maddening crowds. Everything goes peacefully, and just when Paul is about to get off his duties, he is asked a favor by his friend to help him close the arcade store. While Paul is focused on playing Rock Band – The Game on a console, a gang breaks into the mall and prepares to take the mall by force assuming it to be completely empty. This results in a situation where Paul is caught up bang in the middle of the heist completely unawares of the soup that he actually is in.

Whether and how Paul actually manages the situation is what makes up the rest of the movie. While this is a run-of-the-mill comedy-action movie, what makes it reasonably good are the characters, the simplicity of the storyline and the sheer speed with which the film-makers wrap up the movie.

If you have liked Kevin James in his television roles, you will surely love him in Paul Blart : Mall Cop. Go on catch the movie, you won’t regret it.

Cheers………..Jam

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