Review: BROTHERS

Oh Brudders, Why Art Thou?

2 stars

Mini Review:

If there's anything one comes back home with, after watching them Jejus beliuving Brudders, is that Akshay Kumar is Hawt. Doosra bhai sirf Hot Headed. Baki picture ... Predictable hai men, jaisa ki Colaba ka shopping.

Main Review:

Akshay Kumar is hawt. A family man, a school-teacher, but so hawt. He has tattooes as well. But his hawtness is hidden by his gareebi and tragedy.

Siddarth is all hot headed, and leg shaking and ear-ring but no tattooes. Shouldn't the badass lad sport tattooes? Never mind. He has drunken daddy.

Trouble is, the movie does not make us care about either the badass son or the drunk daddy, and you begin to notice how daddy's fingers shake like Elvis sometimes and they're sober other times. We start noticing ki Jejus! Kitna Crucifix hai is ghar ka andar? 

Every room, every wall has either a crucifix or a picture of Jejus and not ones that sort of bless people, but depressingly sad ones... Even the memories are candle-lighting at crucifixes with mom. There are crucifixes and altars in neighborhood corners. Everyone wears a rosary to prove they are Christian. Heck, if you look closely, there's a crucifix jammed into a pipe by a door. Isn't it enough their names are David and Monty? 

Everything talks about how they live hand-to-mouth because daddy is drunk, but they have Corelle dinner set in the cupboard that drunk daddy tries to move back to the original place...

This kind of stereotyping is as bad as having a green wall in a Muslim household or a tulsi plant in a Hindu one... But Akshay is hawt. Bas. 

I saw more emotion in ABCD! And better fights in Van Damme's Bloodsport (has a 'kumite' full contact martial art contest). Never miss it when it plays on TV. Here is contest is predictable.

BUT SO MUCH FUN! Raj Zutshi and his co-anchor called Sachin offer us the funniest accents in commentary ever! You start parroting them in less than 30 seconds!

And I want to feel hatred. Without that how can we watch people being beaten to pulp? I would've felt more hatred had drunk daddy come home to beat mommy every day. I would have taken sides. And it is important we take sides or understand what drives the heroes to beat other people to pulp. But forget that.

Because Akshay Kumar is so hawt. And when the two brothers fight, it gets so smarmy you close your eyes because they might begin kissing wearing mouth guards. 

Hmm... Now that would have been a gamechanger, bloodied and bruised lads in Venum brand chaddis kissing each other...

Meanwhile Kiran Kumar has been doing the Armaan Kohli with yellow eyes  and his Jaani Dushman act. You wish he'd show up to liven the proceedings.

But we come home wondering who was babysitting that annoying child recovering from dialysis when daddy was practically kissing bhai in the ring, when drunk daddy was wandering about in Twilight Zone and Mommy was being cross between Talia Shire in Rocky and Agatha from Grand Budapest Hotel... 

Between the Brudders, there's Nine Crores plus won so who cares about the story... You know the makers are praying for earning more...


P.S: Kareena Kapoor's name is Mary, and she does not wear a crucifix.

Review: Shaun The Sheep Movie

Shear Fun!

3 and 1/2 stars


Mini Reviewe:

The sheep are out of their fold and loose in the big city. Their adventures are so delightful you come away with a smile plastered on your face, humming, 'He's Shaun The Sheep, Shaun the Sheep, He's Not Afraid To Take The Intellectual Leap!' 

Main Reviewe:

Yes, you will be compelled to make sheepish puns in your head as you watch Shaun and his woolly headed pals wreak mayhem in the city.

They are so funny and they manage to bring you all kinds of references to all kinds of movies. From Baymax Big Hero, to movies where hero/heroine sneak into a clothing store and change clothes to avoid being detected...

You will laugh as I did, loudly, when the mean Trumper flirts with sheep dressed as girl and hands her the handbag, or how doctors discover Farmer's memory loss... Your brain will be saying, 'No, no, no no! Don't go there!' in anticipation of a disaster, but you'll giggle when the disaster has been averted.

It's a kiddie cartoon that has been entertaining kids for years. But if you are as movie crazy as most of us, and know your pop culture, then the movie is more fun for grown ups. It's not Disney cute for grownups. It's really clever.

Where else would you find a connect with Inception? How can you miss the time 11.55 on the alarm clock? Look out for it. I was happy with the Inception like repetition of the routine because it set me up to expect something to change...

Then there's the fleeting, very fleeting Banksy wall... It kept me going through the predictable comedy bits when the extra large sheep gets stuck in a pipe, or when the twin dance on the roof...

Do not, do not miss the yellow hazard suits... the hazmat suits they are called... made famous by the tv show Breaking Bad. That's clever. So is a spoof of jailbreak scenes we have seen over years in Hollywood, my favorite being this. 

Since they are British, the double decker bus and the Beatles spoof is expected... but what they do with the Farmer as new pop icon poster is mindblowing...

I've said too much already... go have fun discovering the gems hidden in the ha-ha-hay-hay haystack of laughs that is Shaun The Sheep. Meanwhile, i'm going to sing the clever ditty. 

Review: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION

Tom Cruise goes from 0 - 60 in 30 seconds! 
Unmissable experience!

3 and 1/2 stars

Mini Review:

There are action stars and there are action stars, but for some reason Tom Cruise seems to get things right most of the times. And in this movie the team from IMF does a super, super job. And there's a girl too who's not a damsel in distress. Unmissable!

Main Review:

Let me tell you right away, that I found the last Mission Impossible with Anil Kapoor and Tom Cruise hanging out of the 90th or some top floor from Burj Khaleefa (all hair in place!) was impossible to bear.

So I settled down with cheesiest corn to watch more of it on screen. But within 30 seconds, I was with Simon Pegg, watching Tom Cruise take the movie from 'is this another boring action movie to full-on crazy, riveting action.

And it doesn't stop!

It's always fun to watch Alec Baldwin go into speech mode without opening his mouth too much. This time he's attempting to break up the IMF because of their 'blatant wantonness', and he hates Ethan for what he says is mostly luck...

Ethan of course is missing from HQ and chasing this shadow organisation...

You should watch the movie instead of reading reviews which will wax eloquent about the action: 'fucking unbelievable, man!', 'fucking great', 'fuck! fuck! fuck! fucking awesome!'

What I would like to tell you why I fell in love with the movie:

Casablanca.

Yes, Casablanca the movie which has Bogey and Ingrid Bergman.

'What?' You ask! You know I'm a bit nutty about movies, but Casablanca?

Yes. The heroine is called Ilsa Faust and she meets Ethan in Casablanca. Ilsa and Casablanca? Of course they know the connect. And her motives are just as suspect as Bogey suspected then. Ilsa looks like Ingrid Bergman in some frames and the similarity keeps you interested. 

Bogey remembers the color of his Ilsa's dress, and here Ethan is made to look ate her shoes. The women in the audience sigh collectively not just because of the shoes, but the also for the fact that she can use a knife, and she's not wearing an apron and cutting cabbage for coleslaw

And Faust? Where does that come from? 

Ilsa has made a Faustian deal with the devil called Lane. Oooh! The more I see the connections, the more I enjoy the movie, which has all the cool oxygen-less stunts, motorbike stunts and everything we have come to expect from the Mission Impossible movies. 

And Lane, as all baddies are is creep central. He speaks in this fuzzy, razor voice, and his character is made scary by how everyone reacts to him, talks about him.

And last but not the least, Tom Cruise might be getting on in age, but looks so good, dammit! You need to book your tickets, now!



p.s.: I thought i was rather clever to have noticed one big blooper in the movie, but IMDB has recorded it already. We shall tweet about it later!