Review: GRINGO

Poor Cousin Of Blazing Saddles.

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Remember when a new Black sheriff rides into an all White town in Blazing Saddles? You can imagine all kinds of fun even when you haven't seen the film. Alas, Gringo had the potential. It does make you smile but doesn't make you fall off your chair. The humor is not dark enough, the story goes round in circles and even though the cast is enviable, the final product isn't.

Main Review: 

Here's the clip from Blazing Saddles: 

So when the Mexican druglord says, 'How difficult can it be to spot a gringo negra in Mexico' you know this could get really funny. It brings a smile to your face, but it does not push the envelope towards dark comedy not does it do slapstick right. It just remains somewhere in the middle, waffling.

The cast is enviable: Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Thandie Newton and David Oyelowo in the title role, you'd think something good will come out of it. 

All you see Joel Edgerton do is fuck Charlize Theron in the office (it's done so badly there's no other word to describe the act as just that. Plus, you know if Hollywood cannot get even this right, there is something wrong with the movie.). They are so obviously in the wrong, you pity them. The Druglord's men are so bumbling, you feel bad for them. And then you don't know why Amanda Seyfried's boyfriend is so ready to become a mule for the drug dealers without having any motive but money. It's 2018 for godssakes! Is he the only man to have not watched Narcos on Netflix? If they can get the big guys, you think they wouldn't get a guitar shop chap?

When it comes to David Oyelowo's character, there is nothing to suggest that he might be capable of dreaming up schemes, let alone stage the kidnapping. In fact, it is as the character Mitch who is supposed to be an expert extractor says, 'It's so stupid it could almost work.' 

That sort of summed up the movie for me. Could have been great fun. Just isn't.

watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvZdVK913I to see why Blazing Saddles was so much better...

Review: HATE STORY 4

Funny Dialog Breaks Sleaze

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

The fourth in the ‘Hate’ franchise, this film like its other tales
has lingerie, shaved manly chests, moans and suggestive

hip thrusts, whiny song or two, high heels, pancake

makeup, bearded men who snarl at each other, murders too

and foreign locations… The acting is so poor your nerves

will be jangled. Supposedly erotic, the on screen kisses

will put you off kissing for ever.

Main Review:

Even though it is the fourth in the series, there is practically

nothing erotic about the film except Urvashi Rautela’s dance at

the club to a Himesh Reshammiya’s ‘Aashiq Banaya’ remix. You

suddenly notice her ample samples and thighs clad in leather are

a throwback to old style Bollywood where heroines were well-fed

and had child-bearing hips.

Alas, there’s nothing motherly about this Taasha, who wants to

dream of becoming a ‘sitara’ and I hope she got paid lots of

money for mouthing dialog like, ‘Mahabharata was fought

between brothers because of one woman, I am that Draupadi

between you two brothers!’ and even before you gasp for air

at her poor grasp of mythology, she says, ‘Who did you think

I was, Draupadi? There were five who shared her ‘jism’, you

are two.’

But the stuff for legends is not this. The angry wife who catches

the bearded, shaven chested man one - the husband Aryan

(played by an eternally red-eyed Vivan Bathena who has to do

little but snarl) en flagrante delicto, with has pricelessly funny

dialog: Sheets can be changed, but not the ‘mashooka’ wrapped

in the sheet.

Wait, what?

You mop the spilled coffee off your shirt, and then she adds,

‘I’m the twist in the plot!.’ And then she gets shot.

The second bearded brother Rajveer is a photographer and of

course he cannot contain his manhood in his skinny pants. He

falls smack in love with the statuesque Taasha and imagines the

moans and lingerie and the kisses. You also have to suffer

similar manly bare body and lingerie clad body of wife in a

song sequence doing things that make Homer Simpson chug

down beer look sexier in comparison.

There’s a revenge story embedded in there somewhere, but it

is covered in really bad dialog that defies translation: ‘Tere

warna se darna hota toh main beech mein nahi aata’

Then there’s, ‘I’m somebody that was nobody and know every

thing about my body…’ or something just as intelligent. But who

notices words when there’s women’s bodies to be shown in

various states of undress (I lost count after he pushed the bra

strap off her shoulder for the fifth time). And you fall off the seat

when the end shows the women in pastel chickenkari

embroidered salwaar kameez praying to a dead lad’s picture

when the revenge is complete. The movie is audacious in first

objectifying the women, and ending the film by quoting statistics

about violence against women.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: 3 STOREYS

Jaani Pehchani Kahaaniyaan Hain...

2 stars

Mini Review:

3 Storeys are three stories about people who live in a Mumbai

Chawl (old fashioned project housing). It’s almost refreshing

and yet not really. Someone from the ensemble cast overdoes

it. It’s almost good, and then it isn’t because you’ve read the

story somewhere. It’s an idea that’s not new and yet, a decent

effort. Would have been smarter move to put it straight to

Netflix or Amazon.

Main Review:

The female narrator says that she finds stories in the eyes of the

people who live around her and proceeds to tell three of them.

The characters all live in a chawl in Bombay. The first story

revolves around a Flory Mendonca and her blind love for her

son Anton. Had the story been set on the ground floor, the end

would have been more powerful and believable. But the story

is just made ridiculous because Renuka Shahane, who is fine

actor, overacts. Her ‘Catholic Aunty’ trope stops working when

she keeps saying ‘Jesus’ all the time, her walk is obviously

‘acting’, and her cheeks stuffed with cotton look obviously

fake, as does her ghastly wig. To top it, her co-star is Pulkit

Samrat who just cannot stop channeling his inner Salman

Khan, which is ridiculous.

The second story is a desperate adaptation of An Affair To

Remember (1957, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr) played

out by Sharman Joshi who plays Shanker Verma and Masumeh

Makhija (she is surprisingly very very good) who plays Varsha

Joshi. Since the story is set in Bombay, the two lovers decide to

meet after a year after lad has made something of himself.
Their paths intersect years later... This story is painful to watch
because a song is added, Varsha It’s all very trite.

The third story is that of young love which the mother of the girl

and the father of the boy vehemently oppose, making you wonder

why they get so violent even though the very stereotypical ‘mini

India’ that the chawl is, accepts the young love. It’s all very
excruciating, but the worst part is to watch chawl members
behave like the nosy neighbors they must be, because, Ghetto.

The star of the show is Richa Chadha, who plays the story-teller.

The end is practically brilliant. It suddenly turns the painfully

predictable stories worth the two coffees you drank to stay awake

during the film. It is an experiment, which would work better

when watched on Netflix in the relative comfort of one’s bed,

where snoring would not be considered bad manners...

(edited on saturday march 10, deleted story details)
(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: DIL JUUNGLEE

Should Have Stayed Lost In The Jungle

0.5 stars

Mini Review:

If you manage to stay awake during the first half, which is

wasted entirely in establishing the ‘quirky-ness’ of the

characters, then you’ll wonder if the second half is from

another script altogether. But not even Taapsee Pannu’s

little chirpy gal turned corporate act nor Saqib Saleem’s

daft selfish lad in love act can save this film. When the two

fall into the Thames (or is it the sea?), you wish they will

never be rescued…  

Main Review:

A Delhi chap Sumit Uppal (Saqib Saleem, decent, but needed

a firm director) falls for his English teacher Koroli Nair (Taapsee

Pannu, who hams into her Gandhiji glasses and keeps a

scrapbook of her love). Their friends are so ghastly, you want to

put a paper-bag over their faces and duct-tape their mouths so

you don’t have to suffer them on screen. I mean we have seen

‘quirky’ friends of heroes and heroines in Bollywood, but no one

can justify these friends.

So the hero and the heroine decide to elope with their friends.

Yes, they elope along with their friends. Their car crashes into a

lake, and they have to trek through a forest infested with leeches.

Is this in India? Where? This ‘disaster’ is supposed to show us

that the hero and the heroine are not really made for each other.

The lad is selfish, and the girl has ditzy ideas about love. Before

you wonder who is forcing them to get married, it’s intermission

and the girl thankfully breaks off the marriage and walks away.

Suddenly we see a silly romance infested in her brains Koro

(or Karo) in a stupid wig turned into a corporate lady, in London,

managing her father’s business empire. The lad has turned into

a Bollywood actor and is playing Hanuman. The two are now

almost hitched to two other people. Of course they meet and

realise they are in love. But the audience wonders why she loves

someone who is still selfish and thinks money is more important

than love?

But one part of your brain is already dead. And no amount of

cute posing for selfies by the lead pair is going to convince you

that you made a good decision in buying a ticket to this ridiculous

film. If you are not asleep in the theatre, you are facepalming.

(This review appears on nowrunning dot com)

    

Review: VEERAY KI WEDDING

A Wedding Made In Hell

0.5 stars

Mini Review:

That there is a wedding, is given. And having Jimmy

Shergill in the film gives it the half star it has earned.

Jimmy bhai is earnest, but he has done this role so often,

this film offers nothing new. The music is decent, but

you’ve heard it all before. The characters of the shaadi are

so many, and so predictable, it would be better to stay in

and sleep.

Main Review:

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO MARRY VEER?

So there are two brothers Veer (Pulkit Samrat) and Veer Ka bhai

Balli (Jimmy Shergill). Both all brawn and all heart. Veer’s way of

‘Helping’ people is to punch and kick. And bhai wants to help him

become dulha. So you begin counting shaadi scenes. But first,

meet, Geet, no, not the Geet from Bhatinda and Jab We Met,

but Geet - pretty Kriti Kharbanda, who has all the personality of a

gota covered dish rag. Then there’s her dad and his dad and their

quirks and allergies, there’s are mummy-jis and mami-jis, and

firangi mama and his sidekick and assorted other relatives so

that it can look like a wedding party. Everyone is decked up and

is loud. Did you expect anything less?

Pulkit Samrat hits the lowest point of his career in this awful

aping of Salman Khan. Every time he shows up on screen, it

looks like he’s desperate. Desperate to prove he’s an action star.

Desperate to prove he can romance a girl. Desperate to prove he

can make you laugh. You just find yourself shaking your head in

sadness. You don’t want to wonder how Veer figures out which

ATM is being burgled and shows up at the nick of time to save the

world… And that was supposed to be his ‘intro’...

JIMMY SHERGILL DESERVES BETTER

My heart goes out to Mr. Super Earnest: Jimmy Shergill. He has

reprised this ‘bhai who never gets the girl’ role in so many Hindi

films: Tanu Weds Manu, Happy Bhag Jaayegi and even Saheb

Biwi aur Gangster, he must’ve simply walked into this set and

delivered any dialogue and would do it well. But hats off to the lad.

He’s believable, even though it feels like he’s played this role

several times. His Punjabi films have better plots: Hero Naam

Yaad Rakhi, Shareek and even the silly, funny Vaisakhi List

(where he breaks jail and runs only to discover he has been

pardoned). I guess Mr. Nice Guy needs to be offered better

roles than just the jilted lover.

The music of this film is generic Punjabi wedding playlist. Loud

enough to keep you awake, but not good enough to get you to

dance in the aisles. The straw that breaks this limping shaadi ki

ghodi are the terrible comic sounds that accompany everything

‘humorous’. No. Satish Kaushik is not funny at all. His lactose

intolerance will make you puke.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: LADY BIRD

'I hate you, Mom!'
'No you don't!'
'Yes I do!'
'Never Mind, I made your favorite...'
'Ooh! Cheesecake! I love you!'
'Clean up your room first!'
'I hate you mom!'

3.5 stars

Mini Review: 

On a very basic level, this movie is just that. About the love-hate relationship between mothers and daughters. But then there's growing up, and falling in love and loving a place called home, and the yearning to fly away and then learning to come back... The heartbreaks are so many, it elevates the film from the story of a mere annoying, thankless teenager and her pathetic, irritated mother to something sublime. It's about coming home.

Main Review:

Meet Christine "Lady Bird" McPhearson, Soarise Ronan (pronounced 'Ser-sha' like 'Intertia') in a brilliant brilliant title role. She want to get away from boring old Sacramento to somewhere where there's culture on the streets, like New York, or New Hampshire where writers live in woods... And her mother is happy to point out that 'I doubt you're good enough to get admission in those colleges.'

Her dad Larry McPhearson has a small role in the mother daughter saga, but has the best dialog line in the movie, and I think all girls should write that down for a reference of a lifetime. He says, 'You're not going to get in the car with a guy that honks, are ya?'

And you want to hug the dad for knowing his place in the universe: I'm like Keith Richards. Am just happy to be anywhere.

And every girl must have a friend like Jules with whom you can share just about anything: I had sex, Lady Bird says, but then I discovered I liked dry humping more. Jules is the kind of friend who is funny, sad, kind, loving and encouraging and shares everything from crushes and homework...

Everyone has crushes on the wrong guys. Whether it is Danny or Kyle. And everyone has been blinded by pretty girls who are rich and who seem to have everything together. Their skin shines too...And it has a nun at school, you wish you had when you went to a school run by nuns. Sister Sarah Joan says, 'Six inches to the Holy Spirit!' and you giggle helplessly in your seat. She is also the one who points out to Lady Bird, 'Isn't love and paying attention, the same thing?'

But does everyone have a mother like Laurie Metcalf who plays Marion McPhearson? Do you have the courage to have a conversation with mom?

• Lady Bird: Why can't you say I look nice?

• Mom: I thought you didn't even care what I think.

• Lady Bird: I still want you to think I look good.

• Mom: Okay, I'm sorry. I was telling you the truth, do you want me to lie?

• Lady Bird: No, I mean, I just, I wish that you liked me.

• Marion McPherson: Of course I love you.

• Lady Bird: But do you like me?

It is exhausting to be the mother of a child like Lady Bird. But Laurie Metcalf, as Bollywood would describe it, is shown in a 'makeupless avataar' allowing only her frustrations show her immense talent. 

My favourite moment of the mother-daughter kindling relationship comes when Lady Bird comes home, her head in the clouds from her first love, has to face a mother who does not notice anything but the clothes strewn in the room.

'Do we have to do this tonight? Lady Bird asks...

This film has so much dialog that has been taken from my own life, it is ingrained in my head. The film is for anyone and everyone who had a tough time growing up, and could not relate to family... Alas it has been painted on a canvas that is only Sacramento and not larger than life for the Oscars, but it will win at least the best supporting female actor for Metcalf. 

Review: PARI

Pari Is Scary!

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

The hallmark of a good scary movie is that the scares come at you from all sides, fast and furious and do not allow you to breathe. This movie is slow to create the scary world, and even though you enjoy it, it takes too long to actually make you gasp for air. But what an awesome beginning for Anushka Sharma and Parambrata Chatterjee.

Main Review:

For a Bollywood film, Pari is way ahead of all other scary films we have seen over the last many years. Most scary films end up being laughed at. So You walk into this film with reservation. The Deadpoolesque hospital scene in the beginning makes you groan a bit. But then the story takes off. And you say, 'Wah! Shabaash! Kya daraya hai!' 

A car accident and then the guilt make a great place to start. 

Parambrata Chatterjee, whom you saw in Kahani, makes an impression as a shy man who has an active conscience that Pari likes.

Is that a good thing or bad? Who are the creepy men who seem to be chasing Pari with incense sticks...

When you create a fictional world with new demons and their stories, the movie has to make us believe. Some things in the film you just don't believe. Is the bucketful of water good or bad for Pari? Is Rajat Kapoor and his scary assistants (again, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, a familiar face, makes us believe in the creepy and the scary) up to any good? What is just not easy to swallow is how Parambrata accepts Pari as she is. No one questions why she is the way she was found, not even the police are curious as to why she has been living the way she does. Parambrata does ask how she reached home, but he does not question her motives. How does she manage to learn the strategic words from watching TV and not learn anything else? But the goings on and the special effects are superb. So you too begin to see Pari, played brilliantly by Anushka Sharma, who deserves kudos for experimenting with the kind of films she's making.

Of course no Bollywood film is complete without a couple of inadvertent laughs. That is provided by the annoying Piyali (the girl Parambrata is about to marry). Her dialog delivery is so flat and tedious you want someone to kill her. But she lives long enough to make the phrase 'yoga karein' the funniest thing in cinema this year...

The movie is slow, very slow. The pace manages to kill any fears rising up from the inside. And the film uses the same scare tactics as most horror films do: the ghost/scary object appears behind whoever is on the screen. But the biggest plus this movie has is the absence of sound. There are no creaking doors, ghostly haunting sounds, sudden loud sounds that make you obviously jump out of your skin. This movie has plenty to scare you on its own. Just wish they had kept the suspense going... We could look forward to a sequel then...




(this review appears on www.nowrunning.com ) 

Review: RED SPARROW

This Bird Is Stuffed With Cliches,
But Has Some Tasty Moments...

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Jennifer Lawrence fans will murder me, but the film is so filled with cliches, the clever revenge plot is drowned by audience sighs. And the Russian Seduction School is so laughable you wish they had borrowed some style from Atomic Blonde. The trailer is chilling, but the film is two hours and twenty minutes long and more of a yawn fest because you figure out who the mole is an hour into the film...

Main Review:

They Haz Accents. Because, Rashhiya. 

Yes, the Wakandans speak weird English, but why are all Russians speaking that heavily accented English? 

Once you get over that, you swallow your disbelief and watch a rather well-built Jennifer Lawrence pretend to be a prima ballerina of nothing less than the Bolshoi Ballet! Nothing waif like about her, not even the name: Dominika Egorova. Even Natalie Portman and her messed up head and Mila Kunis manage to look ethereal and fragile in Black Swan. 

Jennifer Lawrence has this entitled expression through the film which does not make us feel an ounce of empathy for her. She comes across as manipulative and mean. So much has been written about the nudity in this movie, one looks at the body dispassionately, almost as if she were a cartoon/ video game female on screen. Again, her figure at the swimming pool and her body when she seduces the Russian minister don't match at all. And her walk... her walk! If ham-handed can be described as a walk, hers would be it! There is no dancer-like fluidity about anything she does.

Story Is More Entangled Than Noodles. Stick to Borscht.

The story is needlessly complicated. Of all people Ciaran Hinds and Jeremy Irons play Russian generals who want another general dead. They use Vanya, the creepy uncle to Dominika, to get the job done. Dominika is trapped into helping Uncle Vanya, and then sent off to Sparrow school where poor matron (Charlotte Rampling) has to say silly things like, 'Take off your clothes. Your loyalty is to the state. Your body belongs to the state.'

So Dominika is taught to seduce by finding out the weakest spot and get whatever the state needs. Didn't spy movies just use blackmail for that? The Sparrow school seems like such a waste of time because there's something else driving Dominika. Revenge. She has an invalid mother who needs care, and Vanya needs to feel that he has Dominika cornered. Of course there are Americans, the spy with a heart of gold Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) and a drunk female 'chief of staff' Mary Louise Parker, the CIA bosses who tell Nate to play by the rule. It's all so cliched, you yawn and yawn and yawn even when Dominika seduces Nate it is predictable. 

The revenge thread is the only thing worth the time, but it is covered with so much slime of other stuff, you check your messages, you step out for coffee and because you pay attention to the dialogue and where the movie is being filmed, you figure out long before the Russians do as to who the mole is. The needless drama about mole-exchange is predictable too.

So what is interesting in the movie? 

The torture guy Matorin. Matorin is played with a goosebump inducing precision by the German actor Sebastian Hulk. We saw him in Inglouris Basterds and Hitmen: Agent 47. His torture of Nate nash with Jennifer Lawrence and the knife fight after is brilliantly choreographed. Although the torture is shown rather explicitly in the film, it is perhaps the only thing that hollows your stomach. 

Otherwise, even a nude Jennifer Lawrence cannot save this boring film whose goose... I mean sparrow was cooked by all the cliches.