Ghost Rider : Spirit of Vengeance

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 17th February, 2012 (India)
Time : 95 minutes
Director : Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor; Writer : Scott M Gimple, Seth Hoffman, David S Goyer; Music : David Sardy
Starring : Nicholas Cage, Ciaran Hinds, Violante Placido, Fergus Riordan, Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth, Christopher Lambert

A real yawn inducing film with a wafer thin plot, sleepwalking in place of acting and nothing new in terms of presentation with visuals similar to the previous film.

The devil, Ciaran, is interested in a boy, his son, Fergus. The mother, Violante, and Cage try to protect him and keep Ciaran at bay, aided and abeted by Idris. Ciaran also has a helper, Johnny, who changes form midway through the film.

Once the novelty of Cage transforming into a skeleton on fire & riding a bike goes away, there is precious little the film has to offer. And we see the above visual so many times, in close up and from afar, that there is zero excitement left post the halfway point.

The end, when it arrives, is weak & tame. Nicholas Cage looks old and bored (don’t know which is worse). The others fail to excite. The music, in the rock realm throughout, desperately tries to rouse some enthusiasm but only ends up grating on the nerves.

The film seems to have been made simply because a sequel made commercial sense even though it lacks a core, enticing idea. The entire movie is shot in a grey, black palette and that very much sums up your mood as you leave the hall.

Woman In Black

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 17th February, 2012 (India)
Time : 95 minutes
Director : James Watkins; Writer : Jane Goldman, based on the novel by Susan Hill; Music : Marco Beltrami
Starring : Daniel Radcliffe, Janet McTeer, Ciaran Hinds, Sophie Stuckie, Misha Handley, Jessica Raine

Daniel Radcliffe, a widower for the last four years, is still unable to come to grips with his wifes death. Even his charming four year old son is unable to bring a smile to his face. A lawyer by profession, his work is also suffering and he is sent to a village to sort out what seems to be a routine succession of a house left behind by a lady.

However, he is clearly & strangely unwelcome in the village. The house seems haunted. Kids seem to die young, by committing suicide. And it all seems to be linked to an often seen apparition of a woman in black.

Daniel Radcliffe is impressive. Having only seen the first Harry Potter, have only seen him as a kid. Here, he looks grown up but not totally. There is still a little bit of a child in him which helps him retain his endearing qualities. The story itself goes along predictable lines, scaring in bits, building tension right from the beginning.

I am not a fan of the occult. Prefer to stick with the rational, that which can be explained logically. I will struggle to explain or cope with the way this one ended. Nothing we’ve not seen before, nothing much to take away home.

Ekk Deewana Tha

Rating : 2/10
Release Date : 17th February, 2012
Time : 140 minutes
Director & Writer : Gautham Menon; Music : A R Rahman
Starring : Prateik, Amy Jackson, Babu Anthony, Manu Rishi, Sachin Khedekar

A Hindi remake of Gautham Menon’s Tamil film Vinnaithandi Varuvaayaa

There was a joke in the film about Amitabh Bachchan and Mohanlal. I found that funny.

There was a conversation between father and son towards the middle, with the father, Sachin Khedekar, coming across as quite chilled out despite being a ‘Maharashtrian Brahmin’. I found that interesting.

I found the rest of the film excruciatingly painful. Flawed in terms of its storyline, the characters, the dialogues and I even found issue with the make-up…

The film is about a young boy, falling in love with his ‘neighbour’. His landlords daughter, actually, who lives upstairs. Courting her essentially by stalking her. And trying to convince her to love him back by blurting his feelings for her at the drop of a hat. He doesn’t seem to believe in things like becoming friends first. Events that unfold are much in the same vein and he even finds a willing accomplice in his mentor, a cameraman, played by Manu Rishi.

Because of the stalker hero, in the entire first half we’re treated to the sight of Amy walking either towards the camera or away from it multiple times. Sometimes, for variety, while walking away she looks back. Sometimes she just walks straight on. And they vary her clothes too, to establish that she looks good in all sorts of dresses including jeans, salwar kameez and sarees.

In a film like this, based on improbable and implausible love, what is necessary is a lead pair so charming they make you forget the flaws in the story. A boy who endears himself as a lovable rogue. A woman who bedazzles so much that we are blinded to everything else around them. Both, Prateik (was that strawberry lipstick he wore during the film ?) and Amy (who's skin colour varied from shot to shot), fall way short of the mark here.
Manu and Sachin, in fact, were the only two who came away with any credit for acting.

Locales are nice, music is nice but cannot rise above the film. Its also not converted fully into a North Indian / Hindi film, retaining a distinctly South Indian flavour & sensibility that also doesn’t work.

Love, they say, is a many splendoured thing, alive with all the colours of the rainbow. The love shown here was anything but. Plodding, indecisive, monochromatic. Instead of inspiring you to greater heights, it only made you do silly things. Unfortunately this is one remake which didn’t work at all…

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu

Rating : 5/10
Release Date : 10th February, 2012
Time : 110 minutes
Director : Shakun Batra; Writers : Shakun Batra, Ayesha Devitre; Music : Amit Trivedi
Starring : Imran Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Ratna Pathak Shah, Ram Kapoor, Zenobia Shroff, Rajesh Khattar, Dana Lewis

‘Arre darna kya, just tickle his balls’

This is a film which tries to be in the cute space and suceeds to an extent but its biggest flaw is its lead pair, who, though good on their own, do not work as a pair at all. It also follows a reasonably predictable path, with a sense of déjà vu as you watch events unfold as it feels like you’ve seen it all before.

‘Baby, don’t swallow, chew your food 32 times’

Imran is dominated by his parents, hilariously played by Boman & Ratna, and leads a fairly regulated and uptight life which takes a turn for the worse when he loses his job. He meets a stranger, Kareena, who is completely the opposite, happy, bubbly, impulsive. One drunken night later they are married. And that’s when the fun begins. Or does it ?

‘Chopsticks main kya kharabi hai’

A mish mash of various films, Hollywood & Bollywood, there are some surprises, some interesting characters (Kareena’s father & grandmother, Imran’s mother), some funny dialogue but overall it remains flat. Most hilarious sequence for me was Imran’s date with the girl of his parents choice.

‘Sher se kya poochna kitni baar shikar kiya hai’

It’s a romance, its sweet, has its share of moments of fun & frothiness. However, whether he looks tiny in front of her or she looks too old for him is semantics. They don’t look like a pair & the thought of falling in love seems odd, implausible. I was in a minority in the hall but I actually liked the ending, unusual in Hindi films. With all the other trappings of Dharma Productions (the slickness, the songs, the locales), am sure it will appeal to the group that looks for entertainment around Valentines Day.

Agneepath

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 26th January, 2012
Time : ~155 minutes
Director : Karan Malhotra; Writers : Karan Malhotra, Illa Dutta Bedi based on the film of the same name by Mukul Anand; Music : Ajay Atul
Starring : Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Zarina Wahab, Om Puri, Zarina Wahab, Kanika Tiwari, Arish Bhiwandiwala, Chetan Pandit

The story is built on the simplest of emotions, revenge. A young boy loses his father in the most horrific of circumstances, strung up on the flimsiest of evidence in his own village. For the next fifteen years the boy is driven purely by, focused solely on vengeance. Even at the cost of separation from his young sister & mother, who doesn’t approve of his methods.

I enjoyed parts of this film.

The first half was slick, fast moving. It seemed the hero was not just using brawn but was also playing Machiavillean politics in Mumbai’s gang wars.

I got the stylisation.
The way the grimy city of Mumbai is depicted, replete with art deco slums.
Or the tiny island of Mandwa, with picture perfect views
The way colour is shown to splash during Ganpati. And the entire city is lit up & everyone turns up in their finery during the festival period.

The way Sanjay Dutt is made to look, oozing menace from every bald pore (though found his dialogue caricature-ish).
The way Rishi Kapoor is given the Muslim makeover, hennaed hair, stubble et all.
I liked Priyanka’s brief role, understood in part her relationship with our hero, the man for whom love is always secondary.
I really liked Hrithik. With all his Greek God looks, finely sculpted body, there always does seem to be a little boy somewhere around him. He can be intense in one scene, all anger and bloodshed yet look extremely vulnerable the next, misty eyed and aching for a loving touch.

What I didn’t get was the overall story. The end left me disappointed.
So what was the grand master plan for the revenge, the one he’d been cooking for fifteen years ? The way things panned out, it couldn’t have been how he conceived or wanted it to be ?
What was his relationship with the one honest cop in the system, Om Puri ? Why was he willing to ruin everything to protect him ? And vice versa.
The way he eventually went about things, the entire bit about the gang wars, the part since he had grown up, seemed unnecessary.
And I don’t get how our heroes seem to transform into superheroes. Most men would die or be close to it when they’ve had butcher knives poked in and out, been shot at or been tossed about like rag dolls. Our heroes seem to simply draw strength from such experiences.

Its grim, colourful, larger than life, tragic, touching and brawny at the same time. Watchable. But I guess I was hoping for something more, an extra layer beyond the blood thirst.

PS : slightly shamefully, for someone who confesses to be a hardcore AB fan, I don’t remember much of the original Agneepath. All I can plead in my defense is that its his earlier work that I am more enamoured by and can describe scene by scene. Be that as it may, am unable to compare the two.

Descendants

Rating : 8/10
Release Date : 26th January, 2012
Time : 115 minutes
Director : Alexander Payne; Writers : Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings; Music : Dondi Bastone
Starring : George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Mathew Lillard, Patricia Hastie, Beau Bridges, Judy Greer
George Clooney has a lot on his plate. His legal work, which he seems to take very seriously. His wife, who is in coma after a tragic speed boating accident. His younger daughter, who is in trouble at school and with some friends after some inappropriate remarks. His rebellious elder daughter, who’s in rehab, and doesn’t seem to enjoy being with the family. Some friends who turn out to be more his wife’s friends than his. And to top it all, he is a descendant of the Hawaiian royal family, the sole trustee of a large chunk of pristine land worth a fortune, and has to decide what to do with it while cousins with dollar signs in their eyes & the whole of Hawaii hover mercilessly around.

Its slow moving but what unfolds is a simple, touching, heart warming, histrionics free story. Lots to pick up on, if you read between the lines. What kind of upbringing do we want for our kids, what kind of inheritance do we want to leave for them ? How would we cope with betrayal ? Or loss ? How some women always remain daddy’s girl… Moments of humour are provided by the elder daughter’s Neandethral-esque boyfriend and the interactions with George’s father in law. The music is excellent, ethnic and enhances the film’s flavour.

I was transfixed by George Clooney. He seems to do such a wide variety of roles with ease, including being a pin up boy, a classic lead in the conventional sense. Yet he brings none of that to his persona when playing this very ordinary character, beset by ordinary problems. Barring of course the knotty land inheritance issue.

His elder daughter, played by Shailene, gets her part just right, 2 parts rebel, 2 parts concerned daughter and 1 part in need of comforting herself. The younger daughter is also able to cope with her character which needs cuteness, innocence and young adulthood in equal measure.

There is something charming about this film. Its about the common man, who has a shot at being very rich. About a husband who is wracked by guilt and betrayal within the cold embers of a dying marriage. About a father who is worried how he’s going to cope with two daughters. The last frame of the film was deeply reassuring for me. The way I would want it to be.

Good Night; Good Morning

Rating : 7/10 Release Date : 20th January, 2012 Time : 81 minutes Director : Sudhish Kamath; Writers : Sudhish Kamath & Shilpa Rathnam; Music : Gregory Generet Starring : Manu Narayan, Seema Rahmani, Vasant J Santosham, Raja Sen An unsuccessful pick up attempt in a New York hotel bar. An eight hour layover between flights. Drinks. Some drugs. New Year Eve. And a phone call that lasts through the night. Its witty, its romantic, its poignant, its rambling, its plagued by all the ills of a long mobile phone conversation (loss of signal, battery dying out) and most of all, it’s a very unusual yet plausible situation.

Manu, after being brushed off at a bar, is sufficiently intrigued to give Seema a call. She is in between flights and sufficiently at loose ends (and not sleepy) to be able to respond to such a call without calling the cops. The ensuing exchange extends to all possible topics, including simple ones like ‘whats your name’, ‘what do you do’, ‘what are your favourite fruits’ to more complicated ones like Bollywood, relationship with parents, girls, guys, past affairs and future prospects.

I liked the way the characters were built. Manu’s liking for melons (and face-saving knowledge of all their varieties), his inability to forget his past, his comfort in being a geek. Seema speaks like a lawyer, is aggressive, cant stand Bollywood stereotypes and is very comfortable talking about sex / nudity. In fact, even teases Manu for being unable to.

Both come across as self assured yet vulnerable. Romantic yet pragmatic. Funny yet empathetic. I liked the way Vasant & Raja provide some comic relief. Or some of the ‘imaginary sequences’ provide some relief to the conversation.

Possibly, there is a romantic inside all of us. A rebelliousness against being single. A desire to find ‘the one’. And, of course, the desire to be happy. Good Night, Good Morning, in part, explores all these aspects & desires and does it well. An interesting debut from Sudhish, look forward to more from him.