Movie Review: 'The Dark Knight Rises'

The Dark Knight Rises. It rises to the fine filming and super story-telling but doesn’t rise to the expectations - this is what I would say in one line. The movie takes its own time with some not-so-needed stuff and extends till 2 hours and 45 minutes, allowing you to frequently realize your left-over pop corn, which shouldn’t happen in a Batman movie.

From the climax of The Dark Knight, this movie leaps forward by 8 years. Time screws everyone and Batman is no exception. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), the Batman has gone into oblivion, having taken the heat of Harvey Dent’s murder. He is seen having unshaven whiskers, limping in his age-old mansion with a stick support. He looks feeble and pitiable and doesn’t look even remotely close to someone who once had a charisma of a super hero. Bruce lives a life of a recluse with his only companion, his elderly butler, Alfred (Michael Caine). If I am to exaggerate a bit then I’d say that you would hardly find any age difference between both, at least initially. Moreover, when Bruce tells him that the world doesn’t need Batman anymore, you would sadly agree with him.

The bad boy, Bane (Tom Hardy) however is a beefy mammoth with a mask and is really good in his performance. It is no big deal for him to thrash Batman like a laundry man does to clothes on a rock. Once I actually wished during Bane’s enjoyment of Batman’s bonking if the Hulk were there to crush Bane to dust and help Batman get up on his feet. Trust me, even sexy Catwoman, Selena Kyle (Anne Hathaway) would have given a good fight to Bane with her exceptionally flexible moves.

Now with all the respect to Batman’s commitment to service his city Gotham and his proven previous achievements with his out-of-the-world stunts, I have no hesitation in saying that Batman looks really hopeless this time for his sheer lack of energy and smartness. He saves Gotham from the earth-shattering nuclear explosion as it was purely director Christopher Nolan's wish to make him do that as a revered hero. The eye-catchers however are – couple of bike stunts as one must expect, Anne Hathaway’s beguiling charm, the jaw-dropping scene when Bane escapes from an air-plane, finely shot scene of converting football ground into a dry valley while leaving the audience in the stadium dumbstruck. Last but not the least, I very dearly missed my hero, Heath Ledger, played as a joker in the last sequel who was an unbearable pain in the Batman’s back.

Overall, it is a very good movie but I am really disappointed for the lack of super-heroism in Batman. And I am not a buyer of that nonsense crap that it is due to his age, so please spare me. You can undoubtedly go and take a treat of some mind-blowing action stuff.

Movie Review: 'Cocktail'

It’s a typical Indian love-triangle story wherein whoever goes saintly and does sacrifice, is rewarded at last. It’s the same old wine in a new bottle with an attractive label. New bottle is freshness in approach and attractive label is script-supportive eye-candy.

The movie starts with a seasoned flirt, Gautam (Saif) leering at an air-hostess like a trapped dog at a bone. He is a successful charmer staying in London and has always managed to get beautiful babes to play with at his will. He is a man who doesn’t spare ladies even during his professional times. This real jerk of the first order bumps into a lovely lady, Meera (Diana) who is a fresh-faced Indian beauty with all traditional Indian values and understanding. He tries his luck with her but she ducks him and gets rid of him like one does to cow dung stuck to his shoes. Gautam on one hand is a kind of guy who often exhibits himself as a proud womanizer, who doesn’t believe in melodrama and frequently shows during the movie that he’s quite aware of all forms of it. Meera on the other hand is a ditched wife in a strange city. She stumbles across Veronica (Deepika) in a ladies’ room and gets a bedroom for herself in Veronica’s house. Veronica is supremely out-of-order daughter of a rich father, preferring to wear only tops in the house, is a wild party animal and the sexiest siren around. Meera and Veronica, despite their polar-opposite dispositions become best pals.

When known from Meera about the desperation Gautam has for girls, Veronica gives that salivating dog a chance and finds a good guy in him. Promptly she brings him in her house and gives him the access to her bed. Gautam lives the best boon that can ever be experienced on earth - staying with two sexy ladies in his sinking youth; sleeping with Veronica and trying to get mixed up with Meera who is already married. As a menacing monster, Gautam's mom (Dimple Kapadia) pops up surprisingly along with her brother (Boman Irani) to get her son married. To take her into confidence that her ageing prince has already chosen an Indian girl who is cut out for his family, Saif convinces Meera to be his girl. During the drama, Gautam gets clarity that he is a jerk with a heart. Meera ignores Gautam all the times before finally falling for him by his charms and for a change, genuine compliments. Parallelly, Veronica realizes of her growing love for Gautam and admits to him. But he, shameless as always, flatly denies of it and goes for Meera. Veronica goes typical heart-broken lover way but at the end, she makes herself ready to hoot for his ex-bedmate and ex-roommate.

I am happy to see Deepika emitting a lot of performance as a leggy bombshell with her wanton attitude. Most times, Saif does justice to his joker-stuff, mainly in the first half and is actually funny. Bratty character is well-suited to Saif’s personality and a bit ill-suited to his age but he justifies his character fairly well with some real acting. Dimple's work is okay and not worth mentioning. Boman as usual is a fun as Saif's maternal uncle. Even though Deepika is a show-stopper, Diana looks stunningly beautiful and does a very good job. Her flying hair strands across her smiley, innocent face during ‘Tumhi ho bandhu’ is a still that is capable of competing with any of Deepika’s generous skin-show feast. The movie doesn’t allow you to know more about the characters except their typical characteristics and their random mingling. So you can blame the script which looks half-heartedly written. The movie is a fun to watch in most pieces of it but plot-less story doesn’t hold them tightly enough and gives you whatever is cooked at the end.

Movie Review: 'Vicky Donor'

For a long time, I have not seen such a pleasantly casual movie. It’s hard to make comedy work especially when you want to deep dive into an unexplored comic zone with no proven heavyweights on your star cast. Coming to the point I’d say at the outset that the movie works successfully at par with my expectations if not above it and the entire credit goes to the novel script, funny dialogues and powerful acting. Generally, the movie trailers showcase the best of scenes of the film as teasers and when you see the film, you don’t find anything better than them. In this case, however, there is much more fun in the movie as it is no short of mirthful moments.

Vicky Arora, played by Ayushmann Khurrana is a freewheeling Delhi brat who seems to have spent his twenty-five years in playing cricket and music, being the family boy while flirting with the very neighbor girl whose house is parted by a wall which has a window to sneak in. The good thing about Vicky is that he happens to be the grandson of someone who did produce nineteen children and is the son of one of them has made him a healthy-sperm holder. Dr Baldev Chaddha, played by Annu Kapoor, a devoted hunter for healthy-sperm donor finds this gem of an aarya-putra, follows him, urges him and finally tortures him to the point that he gets ready to periodically donate his cum for Chaddha's infertility clinic with a good sum of money in return. In parallel, he gives desperate tries to flirt around a really cute Bengali babe, a banker by profession, Ashima Roy, played by Yami Gautam. Per script, this beauty somehow falls for this sperm-rich cheeky guy who convinces her to be doing well in his trading business, concealing that the commodity of the business is nothing but his jizz! The culture difference between the families of Bengalis and Delhiites is sheer joy to watch especially when they get on to marry each other. Now, post their marriage when Ashima is told that she wouldn’t ever be able to conceive, she goes through an emotional heartbreak and the insult to her injury turns out to be the revelation of her husband’s trading business secret. To make her open her eyes, Dr Chaddha, for the silver jubilee celebration of his clinic invites all the parents along with their kids. At this occasion, when invited Ashima sees all the happy parents with their happier kids, realizes that Vicky is not that type of jerk! I am sure that she might have struggled a great deal not to think that these kids are none other than the healthily grown-up sperms once spewed by her hubby for the sake of money. In the end, the couple happily adopts an orphan girl who has come to life due to Vicky’s then money-minded sperm donation and Dr Chaddha continues self-compensating for his help to the couple in terms of his demands from Vicky.

The best thing about this movie is – though it takes you to the shallow emotional pool, it just dips you and doesn’t try to drown you in it. It makes you realize the touchy side in a remarkably subtle way and passes on a societal message enveloped by the complete fun. There is no crying over spilt milk; it’s about moving on with the next-best alternative. It’s indeed a good if not an impressive watch, I'd say.

Movie Review: 'Paan Singh Tomar'

Just think of the last movie which while watching, you were wishing for it to never end. I had the same feeling while my eyes were firmly glued to the gripping story bundled in outstanding acting by all the characters I must say, with the special bow towards the versatile Irrfan Khan. The actor has singlehandedly taken the responsibility of pulling off the forgotten legend Paan Singh Tomar's life on his shoulders and done it immaculately well. Taking a nose-dive into the character, Irrfan opens the movie with being the notoriously known rebel Paan Singh Tomar allowing a journalist to take his interview. And while addressing to his questions, he unfolds the character from his early days of army through his becoming a national champion athlete to his turning to rebel.

For making his nation proud of him, Paan Singh joins the Indian army but his passion for running and love for food makes him change his profession and he eventually becomes a national champion in steeplechase run. Despite being a sharp shooter and having strong willingness to fight for a country, he has to end up being an athlete and not a soldier. In later years, his spat over property with his puffed-up cousin reaches to a level that along with his family he is threatened to be destroyed. He knocks the doors of the police but gets humiliated to a level that his medals and certificates are thrust out in rejection to help. But when this intensified to a level that his mother gets beaten, his son is bled by severe bashes and when the rivalry makes his family to leave his village, he has no choice to pick up the gun and go for it. He forms a pack of whoever willingly supported him and wanted to join the cause. He trains them hard and makes them capable of pack-deserving. He strengthens his power, fear and reach by getting funds by his rebellious activities such as kidnapping and makes himself ruthless enough to scare the people by his name. Finally he takes the pending revenge from his cousin who has by then turned Paan Singh–phobic.

It is an honest film made to give deserving tribute to the legend with desired seriousness infused by Tigmanshu Dhulia . Telling a serious and thought-provoking story such as this in an engaging way has truly been a successful attempt. The dialogues of the movie are catchy and it’s needless to say that when they are heard especially from the protagonist’s mouth, in his typical style, it’s a sheer joy of the moment. It is a movie which puts you straight in the rollercoaster of emotions in your comfy seat. The language throughout the film is though very much earthy, it excludes expletives and is pretty interesting.  Paan Singh’s love for running, his displayed voracity, his sharp shoots, his running-practice with horses are some of the major moments of fun.The relationship shown between Paan Singh and his wife is very beautiful which is shyly romantic as well as notably caring. It's a compelling tale of a rebel who doesn’t want to be tagged as ‘dacoit’ and when addressed as the same; he gets visibly upset and defines the difference with clear illustration. Irrfan has pushed the envelope so hard that it would become a tough nut to crack for others to come close. He has in a real sense given a true meaning to the word called ‘actor’ while putting most of his peers on to the other side of the broad category called ‘joker’.

I would strongly recommend you to go for this movie because at the end of it, it will leave you with a genuine pride for the legend himself, appreciation mainly for the actor and then for the director and lastly, anger-cum-pity for the system that turned the patriot into the rebel, tagged him as dacoit and ruined his life.

Movie Review: 'The Iron Lady'

There are many inspiring stories made in order to stir the inner soul to gear up for some appreciative work or to find the meaning of life, but this one is uniquely different. This is a movie which gives you a brief about Margaret Thatcher’s life and the bumpy political career of this all-confident and utterly-strong lady who is considered as the longest-serving British Prime Minister by far. The story is shown as the lady’s reminiscence of her gone-by years and missed moments due to her dedication to public service. I could say that while watching this movie, I could figure out Meryl Streep’s face in Margaret Thatcher rather than the other way round! She is so immensely sold to the character that especially in the few scenes of her old age, it actually makes you feel as if you’re watching Thatcher’s real video clips edited together and not a film on her. The age-showing soft wrinkles peeping out of the heavy makeup on her old face, the parallel veins trisecting the throat area, the right-skewed hair style, listening and sitting posture exactly replicate that of the Iron Lady’s. The toggling between young, mature and old age of the lady Prime Minister, a real ball of fire is especially nicely shown. The love, respect, affection and at times complaining arguments between the lady and her late husband Dennis are pretty charming and mostly touching. 
 

I enjoyed the movie in bits and pieces. Though I feel that given the script the movie was immaculately well done, the script itself had left the big room of showing the Iron Lady’s inspiring character in an impactful way. It could have included a few more scenes in order to blow the audience off with the ‘go-for-it’ feeling. I have to say this because the character of the movie, Margaret Thatcher is one of its kinds and other aspects are so fantastically in place that you feel something concrete is not emphasized to a degree which made the lady ‘The Iron Lady’. The movie sets an ultimate example of perfect characterization but lacks the necessary depth needed for that character to justify the title in a ‘wow’ way. Please go for this movie as it won’t urge you to shake things up like she did in her past but it will for sure leave you with respectful soft smile for the Iron Lady.

Movie Review: 'Money Ball'

Would you like a theory which tells you that scientific number crunching may lead you to successfully choose the professional players for any sport with highly likely chances of winning? Either you agree to this fully or partially, or you’re a Brad-struck fan then go for this movie which won’t disappoint you for sure. 
 

Brad Pitt as Billy Beane is a cool, moody coach cum key selector for the players for the Oklahoma Baseball club. The club is in a serious need of revamping for its consistent stereotyped failures or should I say, missed successes by thin margins. Billy comes across a rotund, smart-ass graduate guy named Peter Brand, working for some other club as Players’ Analyst. He gets impressed by him and then gets sold on his theory of buying runs while selecting players and eventually buys the Analyst himself to work for him. The key here is that the young guy has had made a mathematical matrix of numbers that help assessing the players’ consistency and judging players by their historical performances and this sounds not only pretty interesting and strangely undoubting as well. 

All the other members in the selection committee who’ve whitened their hair judging players over the decades for the Oklahoma team go against this insanely crazy Billy for his seemingly useless theory. On the other hand, Billy, a nerd when it comes to baseball, is a self-willed and who-gives-a-damn guy. He is so obsessed in his winning plans through this number-strategy that he hardly notices such opposition and whenever he does, he virtually thrashes the objectors with his cool grace. Unaffected by the grave opposition from all ranks of selection committee, Billy and Peter manage to sit together to reach their goal of buying the underdogs within the budget. They are busy analyzing the game to gauge the playing-patterns of the players and thereby deciding on the untapped potential to choose the underutilized and undervalued player at a cheaper rate. They not only successfully bring all of them on board despite the severe objections from others, but also are able to pull off the series of victory and break the record of all time.

I would like to make a special mention of Billy’s way of enjoying Baseball, which convincingly portrays his fierce passion with true love for the game and deep attachment for his team. The chemistry between Peter who is inspired by his boss’ uprightness and singleness and his boss is a good watch. Also, the bond between a staying-away daughter and Billy, a caring father even in his post-divorce time, is sweet enough not to take our eyes off them when they join the screen together. The movie doesn’t bore at all but it is certainly not riveting enough throughout its duration either.

Won prizes for 'Rascals' and 'Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu'

Again, Many thanks to Television Eighteen India Ltd. for this appreciation for my reviews on 'Rascals' and 'Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu'.