Movie review Rabbit Hole

Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Starcast: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart

Rabbit Hole: Controlled drama without melodrama!!

Rating:3.5/5

Rabbit hole excels on so many levels and due to so many reasons. It is a refreshing change-of-pace from the usual fare, constantly surprising the audience with its unusual approach. It is an engrossing observation of a dysfunctional family, the problems they face and the life they lead. It is a brilliant character study of a couple who is totally broken and rotten from inside.

Life of a happy couple is turned upside down after they lose their four year old son in a car accident. Actors here give highly realistic performances that fit perfectly with this demanding plot. Nicole Kidman as Becca steals the show with her best performance since 'Eyes Wide Shut'. Aaron Eckhart (as Howie) also gives a terrific performance as the grieving husband and father.

Comfort level between couple reduces to a considerable level due to the massacre because of which Howie gets allured towards another woman & on the other hand, Becca chases the boy who rammed car into her son & talks endlessly with him. Tug-of-war through tongue between Howie’s mother & Becca is also hard hitting which crystal clearly show us how people actually live their life after losing their dearest ones. 

The best aspect of Rabbit Hole is how you begin by knowing very little about these characters but end up knowing them as if they were your own neighbors. You progressively learn what happened to their son and other details within their past that fit perfectly together without feeling as they are giving the audience answers. The dialogue also lends itself to this method and, surprisingly, never feels directed to the audience.

This is one of those films for which I'm ready to take blame for what I don't like. Watch it and weep. And wonder at an extraordinary story told without veering into the maudlin. It's a compactly controlled drama without any melodrama.

Movie review 7 Khoon Maaf

Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Starcast: Priyanka Chopra, Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Naseeruddin Shah, Vivaan Shah, Usha Uthup, Irrfan Khan, Anu Kapoor, Alexandr Dyachenko

7 Khoon Maaf: Not intended for masses!!

Rating: 2.5/5

There will be two kinds of reactions from audience after watching Vishal Bhardwaj’s 7 Khoon Maaf. 1 – What was that, a movie? 2 – What the hell was that? I belong to second category.

To bind 7 different stories in a 2 hour film is not a cake walk; it needs mettle to execute such difficult drama. Vishal in a unique style of his own one by one shows us the murders of 7 weird men who come across Susanna’s life. There are 3 other characters that are attached with Susanna; they are house keepers who help her directly or indirectly in assassination of her husbands. And the last character is Arun (played by Vivaan Shah); our protagonist who is dearest to Susanna, like her son & who partially narrates the story to us.

In the first half, we see the conviction & imagination of director who in a gripping manner advances the storyline with rich visuals & thrilling sequences. After the end of 3 stories, you are now almost aware what’s going to happen next & Vishal here fails because in the second half film loses its steam, humor disappears & it felt like film was literally asking us to check our cell phones for new texts. I guess that was not enough for Vishal, so he introduced us to bland lengthy scenes comprising of monotonous situations to make us yawn & yes, he succeeded in that also.

Film is shooted in an uncompromising manner. There are scenes which are provocative like the one in which we are asked to take a glimpse of Viagra packet and the other one in which Susanna getting tortured by Wasiullah Khan (played by Irrfan Khan).

Background score was haunting, but songs were less appealing. A try to rise above the standards of bollywood films would have been appreciable but here, many things fall short of which as a whole drags down the film. Male characters & dialogues are not appropriately written. Was editor involved in this film? Honestly, I don’t think so. Priyanka Chopra as Susanna does a magnificent job & might bag an award for it. From the male league, only Anu kapoor (Keemat lal) as a witty policeman gratifies, others might not have not understood their character; detrimental credit goes to writer. 

Vishal only knows for whom he has made this film. This will be a particular film which will dissatisfy both, viewers & critics.     

Movie review The Mechanic

The Mechanic: Half-throttle!

Rating: 2.5/5

Directed by Simon West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), The Mechanic is a remake of a 1972 Michael Winner thriller that starred Charles Bronson and Airwolf's Jan-Michael Vincent.

Jason Statham, a super specialist of standard Hollywood B grade action movies anchors ‘The Mechanic’ along with Ben Foster. Lethal hit-man Jason Statham teaches his trade to an apprentice (Ben Foster) who has a connection to one of his previous victims, that’s what the plot is all about.  His trade is about killing people brutally in a smart manner, a sort of contract killer.

The Mechanic is better than Transporter’s second & third outings. After few minutes, just when you are about to shout what is going on, why nothing is happening? Suddenly, bullet head shots, thrilling chase sequences, merciless killings & throttling pace of the movie engages you and yes, it engages to such an extent that you exactly don’t care about the storyline & dialogues. Best moment of the film is a head-on collision between bus & car, you got to see that, very well executed.

You don’t go to a Jason Statham movie for the brilliant plot any more than you go to see a Kevin James movie for the compelling drama. Foster & Statham  invest their earnest performances and they rise above the script and make this movie a watchable one. 

The mechanic strictly follows the mechanism of “B” action-movie. Expect Statham doing Statham in a less humorous way, nothing else!! 

Trailer of THE MECHANIC (1972): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ3t8TDtLg0 

Trailer of THE MECHANIC (2011): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39L8egLr518

Movie Review Patiala House

'Patiala House': A regrettable film!

Rating: 1.5/5 

Patiala House is anticipated as a comeback film for Akshay Kumar, but dejectedly, Khiladi Kumar’s saga of providing tasteless films continues. Instead of worshipping cricket which could have been the heart of this film, Patiala House worships melodrama, a melodrama which is inherently excruciating.

Patiala house is the villa where everyone’s living their life but no one’s living their dreams. Everybody wants to do something unique, but they are not able to do so, as the eldest & most obedient son of the family, Parghat Singh Kahlo (played by Akshay) is not accompanying them by living his very own dream of playing Cricket for England as a pace-bowler. Being an Indian, to play in England team is against the will of family’s leading person, Parghat's father (played by Rishi Kapoor). So it is Parghat's story of how he wins faith of his self-esteemed father.  

He is a good chef & a champion action hero but he doesn’t possess any bowling skills. Director shows the Akshay’s ignorance about bowling by employing hazy & unimpressive special effects which show us how in a cake-walk manner, ball directly crashes stumps. Sadly, that’s the weakest point of this movie. Akshay never lives his character; it felt like he was forced to live it. Those who live their characters are Anushka Sharma & Rishi Kapoor, but poor storyline & tattered dialogues restrict them to blossom.

Film tries to radiant father-son relationship, orthodox mentality, individual’s dream & willingness to break-free, with cricket at its background theme. But sorrowfully unlike Udaan, film never succeeds to make its audience cheer for its protagonist. Cricket-matches seemed thoroughly predictable & fake, irrespective of major cricketers like Andrew Symonds & Nasser Hussain participating in it.

Instead of stepping into Patiala House for a bucketful of monotony, witness street cricket in your locality, at least it will have some thrill & joy unlike this one. 

Yeh Saali Zindagi: Striking film !

Rating: 4/5

Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Saali Zindagi set in core Delhi is a dark film of numerous imaginatively constructed characters. Film is loud, descriptive & original, comprising of countless abusive dialogues but auspiciously, they are so smart that they will make you say to the writer of the film, ‘please, take a bow, you genius’.

Arun (played by Irrfan Khan) is a professionally intellectual person who simultaneously gets pissed off by his boss (played by saurabh shukla) and also by a girl whom he has fallen in love with. His love interest is Priti (played by Chitrangada Singh) who is in love with some other guy whose marriage is already fixed with another girl.

Another plot is of Kuldeep (played by Arunoday Singh) who is in awe for making money after getting out from Tihar Jail so that he could save his sinking marriage. He goes to his policeman friend Satbeer (played by Sushant Singh) of Tihar Jail to show him the fast-way to make money. Only way shown by him was kidnapping which Kuldeep accepts & kicks-off with his witty & mindless gang. Now, kidnapping is co-related with his jail mate who was once a Don of his time and who also had an astringent relation with his real brother who lives in overseas. Now, in clash between both brothers for money, Kuldeep plays a pivotal role.

It’s wholly puzzling unless you watch it; in short it’s a lot about lot. Film keeps you on toes throughout with myriad twists-turns flooded with witty dialogues and spectacular screenplay. Musically also, film never compromises. Background score succeeds in appealing.

Coming to the acting division, on one hand, there’s Arunoday who along with first-rate acting shows us how he can kiss better than Emraan Hashmi and also how he can climb houses better than spider-man. On the other hand it’s Irrfan Khan who once again proves how excellent he is at acting, every dialogue uttered by him leaves a solid impression. Delightful Chitrangada Singh gets a neat chance to show her acting skills & she performs well with conviction. Now the list of actors here is lengthy but honestly, each and every actor irrespective of his screen presence’s duration performs fantastically.

Yeh Saali Zindagi as a whole is a striking film, go for it !!


 

This post is an entry to the Reel-Life Bloggers contest organized by wogma.com and reviewgang.com

Sanctum: Extreme people, extreme danger, terrifying adventure !

Rating: 3/5

First & foremost let me clarify this to you; James Cameron is not the part of Sanctum’s production, direction & writing. He has executed some of the 3d effects and the film uses his unique 3d photography technique of Avatar, that’s why his name is flashing in the poster & trailer of the film. Sanctum’s makers are not confident enough, so they are generating hype of a king size i.e.  From the makers of AVATAR & TITANIC.

A team of underwater cave divers is on a perfidious outing to the largest, most gorgeous and least accessible cave system on Earth - the Esa-ala Caves of New Guinea. Master diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) has seen the sights of South Pacific's wonder. But when a tropical storm forces them deeper into the caves, they must come to blows with raging water, deadly terrain and creeping panic as they search for an escape route to the sea. Frank's team, including 17-year-old son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) and financier Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffud), are forced to radically alter plans. Soon, they are confronted with the unavoidable question: can any of them survive, or will they be trapped forever?

Hollywood film-makers are in delightful mood of serving films, based on Adventures. Film stands no where in comparison of 127 Hours. This one’s missing many elements; basic facets of film-making. There are instances which will make you believe the tension of the protagonists but they are few. Death counts, keeps us surprising.

Father (Richard Roxburgh) & Son (Rhys Wakefield) go hand-in-hand to escape from the darkest & deepest cave. They discover each other there, but that was totally slapdash fixation from the writer. Acting is nothing to speak of here, and what was the requirement for hand-to-hand fight in an escapade/underwater adventure film I don’t understand and I doubt it even its makers wouldn’t have understand that.

There are few gorgeously cinematographed & anxiety offering scenes, only for that I recommend you to witness to this movie. Don’t watch it in 3d (comprises of minimum effects), catch it in 2d. Film has already been shelved by critics, but don’t bother about it, it’s watchable !

DTBHJ: Honest & endearing, but with flaws !

Rating: 2.5/5

Being at inception stage of comedy films, Bhandarkar tries hard to gratify audience and thanks to the lead person of the movie, it turns out to be an entirely watch able film with pardonable few pits in between.

Alike we are tired of watching stupid Akshay Kumar films; Naren (played by Ajay Devgn) is tired of his marriage in the film. He works as Loan Manager in Bank, who gets a sexy chick, June Pinto (played by Shazahn Padamsee) in the form of intern in office on whom, he is having infinite crush and so, goes for a divorce without even a bit of hesitation.

Abhay (played by Emraan) and Milind (played by Omi Vaidya) join Naren at his new residence and within no time, their journey to discover love kicks-off. 

Emraan Hashmi (as Milind) is served with run-of-the-mill playboy character. He is a gym trainer, who simultaneously goes in relationship with mother & daughter (played by Tisca Chopra & Shruti Hassan) which complicates his life, as the elder one is ATM for him & with younger one, he has dreamt of, his entire future life.

After a king-size start with 3 idiots, Omi returns with this film playing a trouble-free character (Milind kelkar) who works in matrimonial site, who is having a blind & profound conviction in true-love and who also is an expert in making people scratch their head and pull their hairs with his frivolous poetries. Gungun (played by Shraddha Das) as R.J, incessantly uses him to get into unaffordable parties to bag a film-role.

Another feather in actor’s cap, yes I am talking about last year’s most consistent performer, Ajay Devgn. As middle aged divorced man, Devgn throws simple but splendid performance and he is the one who pulls this movie up.

Film delivers plenty of laughs but in the halfway writer runs short of content and messes the film irreparably. It’s also the editing which seemed as disappointing. It felt like Emraan’s track was persistently asking us to leave the hall for few minutes. It was gratuitously stretched and particularly this track was written in a juvenile manner. Film irrefutably justifies its title; credit goes to the very-well executed climax, that’s really intellectual one.

Bhandarkar’s honest attempt and Devgn’s endearing act is watch worthy !!