Showing posts with label Movie review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movie review. Show all posts
Cast: Neil Patrick Harris, Hank Azaria, Jayme Mays
Voiceovers: Jonathan Winters, Anton Yelchin, Fred Armisen
Director: Raja Gosnell; Rating: ***
There are films which smack in the beginning, often even before the crisis is established, and make you predict the end. As an experienced viewer, you are aware this is the case with 95 percent films and that it is not the destination, but the film's journey that truly matters. The journey through Smurf land is filled with clean, well humoured moments that will charm families.
Trying to escape the stupidly evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) six little, blue, happy creatures called The Smurfs are transported from their magical land to New York. They land in the home of marketing executive Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris). With the wizard close on their heels, the Smurfs have to find a way to get back home, and quick.
One of the strongest elements that a film with a predictable story needs to have is some unbelievably adorable characters. This film has a 'Smurf' full of these cuteness.
The usual suspects, the six Smurfs are obviously cute. Yet, the funniest one of the lot is the evil, laughing kitty. Never after the cute cat in Shrek, has there been such an adorable feline in filmdom. Pair him with a dumb-witted master who is supposed to be a wizard, and you have a laugh riot blowing.
The sub-plots and twists in the tale are expected and though there is a very high overdose of 'smurfy' terms, its delicate handling by director Raja Gosness ensures this does not get to you.
Though a film that stays literally true to the one created by the writer of Smurfs, Peyo, (like in a popular animated series of the '80s and a film) would have been wonderful, this one - a mix of live action and animation - works as well.
There have been a decent number of films with the mix of live action and animation in recent times like "Alvin and the Chipmunks", "Garfield", and "Hop", all three directed by one man - Tim Hill. Yet, this is the best of the lot and a welcome addition to a sub-genre that saw its peak in the '50s but seems to have lost its sheen in recent times despite advances in CGI.
"The Smurfs" is a fun film meant purely as a family entertainer with the cuteness of a "Home Alone" and "Babe" where everything is gimmicky and beyond proportions. And just like in these two films, the director knows his limits and 'where' and 'why' and most importantly, 'how' not to cross over those limits.
Voiceovers: Jonathan Winters, Anton Yelchin, Fred Armisen
Director: Raja Gosnell; Rating: ***
There are films which smack in the beginning, often even before the crisis is established, and make you predict the end. As an experienced viewer, you are aware this is the case with 95 percent films and that it is not the destination, but the film's journey that truly matters. The journey through Smurf land is filled with clean, well humoured moments that will charm families.
Trying to escape the stupidly evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) six little, blue, happy creatures called The Smurfs are transported from their magical land to New York. They land in the home of marketing executive Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris). With the wizard close on their heels, the Smurfs have to find a way to get back home, and quick.
One of the strongest elements that a film with a predictable story needs to have is some unbelievably adorable characters. This film has a 'Smurf' full of these cuteness.
The usual suspects, the six Smurfs are obviously cute. Yet, the funniest one of the lot is the evil, laughing kitty. Never after the cute cat in Shrek, has there been such an adorable feline in filmdom. Pair him with a dumb-witted master who is supposed to be a wizard, and you have a laugh riot blowing.
The sub-plots and twists in the tale are expected and though there is a very high overdose of 'smurfy' terms, its delicate handling by director Raja Gosness ensures this does not get to you.
Though a film that stays literally true to the one created by the writer of Smurfs, Peyo, (like in a popular animated series of the '80s and a film) would have been wonderful, this one - a mix of live action and animation - works as well.
There have been a decent number of films with the mix of live action and animation in recent times like "Alvin and the Chipmunks", "Garfield", and "Hop", all three directed by one man - Tim Hill. Yet, this is the best of the lot and a welcome addition to a sub-genre that saw its peak in the '50s but seems to have lost its sheen in recent times despite advances in CGI.
"The Smurfs" is a fun film meant purely as a family entertainer with the cuteness of a "Home Alone" and "Babe" where everything is gimmicky and beyond proportions. And just like in these two films, the director knows his limits and 'where' and 'why' and most importantly, 'how' not to cross over those limits.
'Captain America: The First Avenger' - linear, predictable but fun
0 comments Posted by Baserolo at 1:28 AM
Director: Joe Johnston
Rating: ***1/2
The powers that maybe in the US have always understood the hold of the arts over its citizens and so used it for their own benefit. A comic book superhero was thus born in the 1940s, whose name had the name of the country and who almost wore the nation's flag.
The superhero, Captain America, featured in many comic books, short films and other promotional materials. He served patriotism on a star-spangled red and blue shield platter, sold war bonds and was thus actually instrumental in winning the war for America.
Quite coincidentally of course, as the debt-ridden US is going through financially warring times, Captain America marks his resurrection, for the umpteenth time, this time on the silver screen.
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a lanky and weak young man who is perennially bullied. Yet he desperately wants to serve the country by enlisting in the army during the Second World War. He is rejected, till a scientist recognises his good heart and injects him with a serum that turns him into, well, literally a superhero.
It's but a matter of time before our lad saves the world.
The original character of Captain America had some interesting but predictable metaphors injected into it.
The skimpy little boy perennially bullied was supposed to be the world terrorised by fascism. The serum was America joining the war. And obviously, Captain America wearing the star spangled banner and winning the war was meant to depict America finally leading the world to victory.
The filmmakers realised that 70 years on this metaphor is no longer valid. Hence, though set during the Second World War the film creates a bigger enemy under Hitler's shadow in Hydra, who becomes Red Skull, a character from the comics.
It's a move that makes the film work.
Though linear, predictable and simplistic in its treatment, much like superhero films of yore, the attention to detail in aspects like special effect, cinematography and steady pace keeps the film ticking along to a decent finale.
Credit goes to director Joe Johnston who turns a simple script into a decent film. He has good experience serving him - having directed "The Rocketeer" two decades back, which besides inspiration, provided a lot of visual reference points to another Marvel film franchisee, "Ironman".
After America had won the war, people overdosed on patriotism, rejected Captain America and the comic book died down.
A resurrection failed miserably, till "The Avengers" comic series in the mid-60s made him the leader of a pack of superheroes. The world, unlike during his first birth, did not need saving anymore. Today however, the world does need a saviour, what with the American economy in tatters.
Thus in this resurrected avatar, the captain's prime job would be to save America. From whom, you'd ask? Well, obviously, from the bully stalking the planet - America itself.
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Prateik Babbar, Manoj BajpaiDirector: Prakash Jha
Rating: ** 1/2
Choose an explosive title for your movie, hire a clever PR agent and then pick up some controversies along the way.
At a time, when politicians and the rest of our moral brigade are just waiting for the slightest opportunity to shout themselves hoarse if they find something or someone 'offending' their sensibilities, there couldn't have been a better way of getting a movie wanted as well as unwanted attention.
When Jha made films like Mrityudand and Gangajal, you could sense a genuine intention behind them. With Aarakshan, I am not so sure.
Do I even need to mention that Aarakshan deals with, or is supposed to deal with, reservation for Dalits and other 'pichchde jaati ke log'? Everyone in India (even those who aren't Bollywood buffs) knows by now what all the noise has been about.
But here comes the twist ”while you go in expecting an explosive movie on the issue of caste-based reservation, you end up listening to a lambi bhashan on the commercialisation of education!
Deepak Kumar (Saif Ali Khan) doesn't use his second name, so you have to assume he belongs to the Dalit community, and Dr. Prabhakar Anand (Amitabh Bachchan) dotes on him and his brilliance. Anand is the principal of the college and is a strict disciplinarian with rigid rules against corruption.
Some of the trustees aren't too happy with the stubborn principal. Anand, saviour of the downtrodden, gets into trouble when some people take advantage of his generosity.
Anand's daughter Purbi (Deepika Padukone) is in love with Deepak, but breaks all ties with him when he has an argument with her dad. Sushant (Prateik Babbar) is Purbi's college mate and he wants to fight against reservation in education.
This film, which deals with education more than reservation, holds your interest in the first half, but meanders aimlessly in the second half. Some of the scenes, especially the climax, are unwittingly hilarious.
But I must make a mention of a few rare scenes and dialogues that are likeable. Like the scene between Anand and his wife (Tanvi Azmi), when she presents her layman view on reservation.
As for the performances, Amitabh Bachchan is more than excellent. His transition from a person in authority to a helpless teacher shines above everything and anyone.
One can't really imagine anyone else doing that role as well as Mr Bachchan. Saif has made a sincere attempt and is more or less convincing, but his character is sketchy.
Deepika is pretty good, but I wish she didn't deliver dialogues like she has just mugged them up in her dad's classroom. Prateik is a huge disappointment. This guy needs better direction. Manoj Bajpai's mediocre performance as a greedy and power- hungry teacher comes as a surprise.
Given how extensively the film talks about the commercialisation of education, I think someone should take up the cause of commercialisation of inflammatory issues.
While Jha has succeeded in garnering enough attention for Aarakshan as a result, he has failed to give this sensitive issue its due. That, in my opinion, is not a good thing either.
Movie Review of Cowboys & Aliens : When you saw the trailer of Cowboys & Aliens, you must have thought that it is going to be one cracker of a movie… I thought the same! After all, the story rides on such a unique concept - cowboys fighting it out with the aliens! But unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver! The movie revolves around a man (Daniel Craig…we will reveal his character’s name later; you will understand why so) who wakes up with an injury in the middle of a Mexican desert, without any memory and a strange bracelet around his wrist! While trying to figure out things, he reaches the nearest town called Absolution. Somehow, he gets involved in a fight with the local rich man’s son, Percy (played by Paul Dano). He (Daniel Craig) is then arrested by the local sheriff, because, although he has lost his memory, he is the most wanted criminal of the town by the name of Jake Lonegran! (Now you know why we didn’t reveal his name earlier!)
Then there is a mysterious girl Ella (played by Olivia Wilde), who helped the local sheriff in capturing Jake. The rich man’s son Percy is also arrested by the sheriff. Following which Percy’s father, the rich man, Colonel Dolarhyde (played by Harrison Ford) comes to the scene to teach the sheriff a lesson for arresting his son; and also take Jake’s case since Jake stole his (Dolarhyde’s) bullion. But the sudden arrival of space ships, followed by abduction of people from the town by the aliens, nullifies Dolarhyde’s plan.
What comes to their rescue is Jake’s bracelet, as he learns to use it as a weapon and destroys a spaceship (though the alien manages to flee). Slowly and steadily, Jake and Dolarhyde mend their differences and shake hands and decide to fight against the aliens and get back their abducted natives.
The problem here is not the concept of the movie, but the treatment given to the script. Jon Favreau’s direction fails to captivate the viewer’s attention for a long time span. Though the movie starts off well, with all the mystery surrounding Jake, the way the story unfolds doesn’t leave you much impressed. There are too many strange happenings in the film which somehow make the movie a tough one to grasp! Also, Jon Favreau takes too long to reveal the real identity of Jake. The reason for the aliens attacking the Mexican desert, also, does not leave you in a state of thrill (which it should have).
SPOILER ALERT… Ella turning out to be a non-human is perhaps the only element of the script that leaves an impact upon you.
Speaking about the performances by the actors, our very own James Bond, Daniel Craig (as Jake Lonegran), gives us a great performance as the quickgun but stoic protagonist. Daniel’s show is perhaps the only saviour of this lifeless film. Though Harrison Ford (as Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde) is the second lead, he does total justice to his character. Olivia Wilde (as Ella) looks stunningly beautiful but has little to offer to the script. Adam Beach (as one of the native Indians who help Jake retain his lost memory) impressed us with his performance.
The background score by Harry Gregson-Williams is an exciting one. After watching the trailer itself one realises that whatever be the case, the background score will not be disappointing.
Over all Cowboys & Aliens is a below par movie and a waste of a unique concept. The movie will not catch anyone’s attention: neither the cowboys’ nor the aliens’!
Just for Daniel’s great performance, we give half-a-star extra and give Cowboys & Aliens 2 stars out of 5!
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Movie Review of Gandhi To Hitler
This Friday’s release Gandhi To Hitler demands an unconditional suspension of belief. So if a you see an actor whose every facial twitch reminds you of some dreamy Mungerilal now dressed up as the World War 2 monstrosity, Adolf Hitler, try not to wince. And if you spot a Russian or French soldier awfully tanned like some louts from apna Verar, try not to laugh. For all its claim to document the contrast of two ideologies and for all its attempt to tout itself as “A Masterpiece on World Peace” (the film’s tagline), Gandhi To Hitler is painfully farcical and downright ludicrous.
The intention of director Rakesh Ranjan Kumar is to underscore the futility of war by comparing and contrasting Mahatma Gandhi’s peaceful ways to the genocidal streak of the megalomaniacal Fuhrer. The plot is based on two letters written by Gandhi to Hitler, trying to impress upon the latter the importance of non-violence in a bid to prevent the war.
We are transported to the underground bunker in the bombed-out Germany where Hitler (Raghuvir Yadav), his well-coiffured ladylove Eva Braun (Neha Dhupia) and a bunch of loyal orderlies like Joseph Goebbels (Nalin Singh) and the Reich minister Albert Speer (Nasir Abdullah) are fuming, fretting and counting their last sparse blessings before giving up the ghost.
The action keeps shifting from inside the bunker to a few Indian soldiers in the warzone in Germany and to a relatively peaceful milieu in the British occupied India where Gandhi ji is heard preaching peace and non violence in congregations. Another contrasting angle is thrown in the form of a track involving the Azad Hind Fauj and its founder Subhash Chandra Bose advocating blood-for-ajadi among lanky foot soldiers. And spliced in between all this clutter is the actual footage of World War 2.
The script is a disaster, equally matched by shoddy performances by the actors, the otherwise tolerable Raghuvir Yadav included. But the most deplorable is the decision to cast Indian actors as the Germans, Russians and French. If this was Rakesh Ranjan Kumar’s idea of experimenting with truth, it falls flat on its face. To put mildly, it gives the film a farcical look and one wonders if the director should have gone the whole hog and rather cast a foreigner to play Gandhi.
In short, Gandhi To Hitler is best avoided.
Rating: 1 star out of 5
The intention of director Rakesh Ranjan Kumar is to underscore the futility of war by comparing and contrasting Mahatma Gandhi’s peaceful ways to the genocidal streak of the megalomaniacal Fuhrer. The plot is based on two letters written by Gandhi to Hitler, trying to impress upon the latter the importance of non-violence in a bid to prevent the war.
We are transported to the underground bunker in the bombed-out Germany where Hitler (Raghuvir Yadav), his well-coiffured ladylove Eva Braun (Neha Dhupia) and a bunch of loyal orderlies like Joseph Goebbels (Nalin Singh) and the Reich minister Albert Speer (Nasir Abdullah) are fuming, fretting and counting their last sparse blessings before giving up the ghost.
The action keeps shifting from inside the bunker to a few Indian soldiers in the warzone in Germany and to a relatively peaceful milieu in the British occupied India where Gandhi ji is heard preaching peace and non violence in congregations. Another contrasting angle is thrown in the form of a track involving the Azad Hind Fauj and its founder Subhash Chandra Bose advocating blood-for-ajadi among lanky foot soldiers. And spliced in between all this clutter is the actual footage of World War 2.
The script is a disaster, equally matched by shoddy performances by the actors, the otherwise tolerable Raghuvir Yadav included. But the most deplorable is the decision to cast Indian actors as the Germans, Russians and French. If this was Rakesh Ranjan Kumar’s idea of experimenting with truth, it falls flat on its face. To put mildly, it gives the film a farcical look and one wonders if the director should have gone the whole hog and rather cast a foreigner to play Gandhi.
In short, Gandhi To Hitler is best avoided.
Rating: 1 star out of 5
The film, as you all must know by now, deals with the burning issue of honour killings in villages whenever young girls and boys marry within the same gotra. What’s murder for the modern world is, however, purgation for the Khaps of the villages still steeped in age-old customs and social mores.
Om Puri plays the one such authoritarian Khap of a village. His son (Mohnish Bahl) didn’t approve of his dad’s regressive mindset and separated years ago to pursue social activism.
At the start itself, director Ajai Sinha lays out the cards with a gruesome honour killing of a couple trying to elope. Then we are treated to an internet romance between a couple (Uvika Chaudhary and Sartaj) who fall in love, only to find out that they hail from the same clan. To make matters worse, the girl is the daughter of the same headstrong Khap (Om Puri) who is dead against same gotra marriage. How will this Khap react when chickens come home to roost?
The treatment given by director Ajai Sinha to the subject is facile at best. Weaving a threadbare plot from newspaper headlines and peppering it with the routine songs and a candyfloss love story robs the film of the gravity that it might have had if in the hands of an adept director like a Kashyap or Bhardwaj. On top of it, the director also tries to absolve the Khaps with a long monologue (courtesy Alok Nath) about keeping the gene pool clean by banning same gotra marriages.
The songs are absolutely unwanted and performance strictly tolerable.
Khap, in a nutshell, trivializes a serious issue with its formulaic treatment.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Starring Ajay Devgn, Prakash Raj, Kajal AggarwalDirected by Rohit Shetty
Rating: ** ½
This cop is a killer. He implements the laws applicable to the khaki-vardi with a passion that makes corruption seem like a mosquito that a human repellant can exterminate. His ways are unconventional. And he seethes and fumes when faced with diabolic corruption.
Last we saw, it was Rajeev Khandelwal playing the anti-establishment cop’s role in the brilliant Shaitaan. This time it’s a huge star getting into khakee. Meet Ajay Devgn as Bajirao Singham an honest-to-goodness cop who believes he has been given the law-enforcer’s job and he better take it seriously.
Hurling through a cavalcade of regionally-flush references Singham is the kind of rustic boorish kinetic action thriller where a cleaner social order is seen to be brought about by the power of the fist. Give or take a gun. Or a Devgn.
Devgn playing the one-man army invests the clichéd role with a kind of cultural specificity which allows him the leeway to get verbally regional without losing a pan-India flavour. That’s the magic of mass entertainment cinema that this film celebrates with panoramic verve.
We don’t need to comprehend Marathi to get the powerful subtexts of Devgan’s virulent attack on corruption. Fortunately Devgn isn’t the kind of actor who needs to scream to make himself heard. He effectually offsets Prakash Raj’s theatrical villainy bordering on bigtime hamming.
It is significant that the entire cast comprises Marathi actors, giving to the frenetic rustic proceedings a sense of arrogant chauvinism. Only the villain palayed by Prakash Raj is a South Indian actor of tremendous histrionic range. Give him anything to do. And he does with impassioned concentration.
A lot of the lines that the politician-villain is compelled to utter bordered on self-parody. Chunks of the action and drama are cannibalized from the Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘angry’ series , without the bridled indignance of the central character.
Yes, Singham is frustrated and embittered by the corruption that’s crept into the socio-political system. But he lacks the vitality to transmute the cop’s impotent rage into a potent cinematic language. e don’t feel for his concern for a clean social order. We just wonder whom he will thrash next, and how.
Partly, it is to do with the kind of shallowness that Singham’s love interest portrays. Jaya Bhaduri in Zanjeer and Smita Patil in Ardh Satya made a brief but telling impact on the way the enraged hero looked at the seedy world. Newcomer Kajal Aggarwal is a bundle of shallow take-away expressions, the cinematic equivalent of a home-delivered pizza, without the spicy toppings.
What sustains the narrative’s velocity is Devgn’s uncalculated moves as an action hero. He brings a kind of reckless inevitability into every blow that he delivers on the goons. There are some entertaining supporting performances, Sachin Khedeker as the heroin’e cellphone-fixated father is a hoot.
In all fairness the action sequences (Jai Singh Nijjar) are entertaining and humorous. The fights don’t take themselves seriously.
However the homilies on a need for integrity in the civil services seem like unwanted concessions to self-importance in a film that seems to revel in a kind of free-floating message on how to stay clean in a cesspool of corruption. Yup, Rohit Shetty packs in a punch.
You can’t but smile at the infinite pleasure which the director partakes from the age-old language of commercial Hindi cinema in all its flamboyant glory.
Singham is a cops film with balls.
Actors: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akthar, Abhay Deol, Katrina KaifDirector: Zoya Akhtar
Rating: ***1/2
First the good news. "Zindagi…" is one of the most nuanced, evenly paced and well executed films in commercial Indian cinema.
This cross between "Dil Chahta Hai" and "Sideways" is funny and honest, but it is marred by one fundamental flaw - it has nothing important to say.
Yes, to a select few, neo-rich one percent of its audience who find nirvana swimming under Spanish seas or for whom freedom is feeling the wind in your hand from a high speed car, the message is loud and clear - you only live once so live it full.
But one has to wonder, should a commercial film be made keeping just one percent of the audience in mind?
Yes, it is a message that everyone else needs as well, but should that message ride on a pleasure trip through Spanish landscape where there is beauty but no 'zindagi' or should it have been closer home, in the squalor and madness and 'life' of this nation.
Three old friends - Arjun (Hritik Roshan), Imran (Farhan Akthar) and Kabir (Abhay Deol) - go on a three-week bachelor's road trip through Spain before Kabir's marriage, only to come face to face with their own fears and insecurities. Globally there are too many road-trip films for Zoya Akhtar to bring anything new to the cinematic table.
What she could have done was to have enough emotional pull for the viewer to empathise with the characters.
But would you empathise with the fatherly, marriage-related and heartbreak problems of three rich men who really have everything going for them? Besides its one percent audience, the rest would find the existential angst of these three men, a creation of their own vanity.
Yet, besides its many flaws, dishonesty is not one of them. It's an honest film about the type of people the filmmaker interacts with daily. Sadly, that is perhaps the only cross section of society that Zoya Akhtar has known in her urban living.
The problem with the film is thus the problem in the worldview of its maker, which is extremely limited in scope.
And that is a shame because Zoya is a nuanced and refined filmmaker. She could do wonders with a story that is real and about real men and women.
"Zindagi…" thus actually ends up being like a big-budget film with the heart and audience of a small-budget indie. And that mismatch will perhaps do the film in at the box office.Cinematically though, Zoya does try desperately to transcend the obvious, to mean the message rather than say it, like say a "Sideways" or "Lost in Translation" does. And though she knocks on the door of this transcendence, she is unable to pass through.
Commercial filmmakers in the past, either came from the grassroots like a Mehboob or Guru Dutt, or were concerned about it like Raj Kapoor.
Their films hence reflected - sometimes directly - and often in the films written by Zoya's father Javed Akthar, allegorically, the angst, pain and the struggle for survival of the nation's teeming masses.
Sadly, as their world ended up becoming cocooned from life around, the connection their kids had with reality, became limited. The result are some really well made films, but ones with 'zindagi' only in their titles, not in their guts.
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Prashant Narayanan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Sulagna Panigrahi
Directors: Mohit Suri
Rating: ***
The sequel to "Murder" is nothing like the first part of the frenetic franchise. And Jacqueline Fernandez who has been built up in "Murder 2" as the next Mallika Sherawat is nothing like the overrated Mallika…. Thank God for that! Fernandez exudes an unbridled sunniness even when pouting in the bare minimum. Alas, she doesn't have much to do in "Murder 2" except swathe the dark drama in a spot of sunshine.
God knows this film about the devil-unleashed, surprisingly written by a woman (Shagufta Rafique) needs that little of sunshine. It is a desperately dark film. The characters are wretchedly unhappy. No matter which side of the moral line they are positioned they are standing screaming into the abyss that is suburban life. These people need serious help.
This then, is the world Mahesh Bhatt has bequeathed to us. Take it and bleed it.
Director Mohit Suri who earlier took us on a jolting trip through the world of prostitution, pimps and desperate cops in "Kalyug" takes the same route again. On this occasion the journey is far more ruthless and rigorously implemented to create horror repugnance and hatred for a word that we've created for coming generations.
In the typical Mahesh Bhatt style "Murder 2" doesn't waste time in back-projections and story build-up. He goes straight for the kill.
With trenchant immediacy director Mohit Suri (back in "Kalyug" form after the misfire that was his last film "Crook") tells us the story of a psychopathic killer who kills prostitutes with the pleasure that makes your stomach churn and look anxiously towards the future about your daughter who is just stepping into the big wide world.
Who knows if the man sitting next to her in the movie theatre is a closet-nutcase with a collection of hacksaws in his house, and not to carve up the Christmas turkey.
Prashant Narayanan as the psychopath plays the character at such an even pitch he makes your blood freeze in fear and revulsion. Here's a man who could be that ghoul who butchered all those kids in the Nethra killings and then ate them up without a burp.
The 'hero' in "Murder 2" is a burn-out suspended cop who makes money out of criminals, stays sullen and haunted throughout the film except when he goes for the kiss, and offers his girlfriend a wad of notes after making love. To buy the fridge, he says. Naturally the lady freezes.
Force of habit, we say. Hashmi has done this kind of a role repeatedly. The kissing and vigorous bedroom activities are quickly taken care of in the first 15 minutes. Wouldn't want the lovers of the serial kisser to feel they're being cheated in favour of the serial killer.
The wacked-out killer in "Murder 2" doesn't eat his victims. He just cuts them down to sighs…and groans and shrieks of pain and records their dying voices to get his rockers off….
The plot seems original. The narration is clenched and the characters driven by a desperate urge to assert themselves before death rings their doorbell.
The savagery with which the college-going call girl (Sulagna Panigrahi) is brought to her gruesome death becomes a metaphor for the loss of innocence and the triumph of diabolism that is often garbed in designer labels these days.
"Murder 2" is not a pleasant film to view. The psychopath's killings are done in graphic detail. The storytelling offers no respite from the brutality. Most of the time we are looking at happenings that we would rather not see. But see, we must.
"Murder 2" is a mirror of our amoral venomous times when no relationship is sacred anymore. Mohit Suri remains in command of the murky material and traumatized characters. While most episodes hold together in a riveting rhythm of life's most unsavoury truths, the sequences featuring Prashant Naraynan work better than the rest of the film. He lends the proceedings a credibility that is unsettling.
Directors: Mohit Suri
Rating: ***
The sequel to "Murder" is nothing like the first part of the frenetic franchise. And Jacqueline Fernandez who has been built up in "Murder 2" as the next Mallika Sherawat is nothing like the overrated Mallika…. Thank God for that! Fernandez exudes an unbridled sunniness even when pouting in the bare minimum. Alas, she doesn't have much to do in "Murder 2" except swathe the dark drama in a spot of sunshine.
God knows this film about the devil-unleashed, surprisingly written by a woman (Shagufta Rafique) needs that little of sunshine. It is a desperately dark film. The characters are wretchedly unhappy. No matter which side of the moral line they are positioned they are standing screaming into the abyss that is suburban life. These people need serious help.
This then, is the world Mahesh Bhatt has bequeathed to us. Take it and bleed it.
Director Mohit Suri who earlier took us on a jolting trip through the world of prostitution, pimps and desperate cops in "Kalyug" takes the same route again. On this occasion the journey is far more ruthless and rigorously implemented to create horror repugnance and hatred for a word that we've created for coming generations.
In the typical Mahesh Bhatt style "Murder 2" doesn't waste time in back-projections and story build-up. He goes straight for the kill.
With trenchant immediacy director Mohit Suri (back in "Kalyug" form after the misfire that was his last film "Crook") tells us the story of a psychopathic killer who kills prostitutes with the pleasure that makes your stomach churn and look anxiously towards the future about your daughter who is just stepping into the big wide world.
Who knows if the man sitting next to her in the movie theatre is a closet-nutcase with a collection of hacksaws in his house, and not to carve up the Christmas turkey.
Prashant Narayanan as the psychopath plays the character at such an even pitch he makes your blood freeze in fear and revulsion. Here's a man who could be that ghoul who butchered all those kids in the Nethra killings and then ate them up without a burp.
The 'hero' in "Murder 2" is a burn-out suspended cop who makes money out of criminals, stays sullen and haunted throughout the film except when he goes for the kiss, and offers his girlfriend a wad of notes after making love. To buy the fridge, he says. Naturally the lady freezes.
Force of habit, we say. Hashmi has done this kind of a role repeatedly. The kissing and vigorous bedroom activities are quickly taken care of in the first 15 minutes. Wouldn't want the lovers of the serial kisser to feel they're being cheated in favour of the serial killer.
The wacked-out killer in "Murder 2" doesn't eat his victims. He just cuts them down to sighs…and groans and shrieks of pain and records their dying voices to get his rockers off….
The plot seems original. The narration is clenched and the characters driven by a desperate urge to assert themselves before death rings their doorbell.
The savagery with which the college-going call girl (Sulagna Panigrahi) is brought to her gruesome death becomes a metaphor for the loss of innocence and the triumph of diabolism that is often garbed in designer labels these days.
"Murder 2" is not a pleasant film to view. The psychopath's killings are done in graphic detail. The storytelling offers no respite from the brutality. Most of the time we are looking at happenings that we would rather not see. But see, we must.
"Murder 2" is a mirror of our amoral venomous times when no relationship is sacred anymore. Mohit Suri remains in command of the murky material and traumatized characters. While most episodes hold together in a riveting rhythm of life's most unsavoury truths, the sequences featuring Prashant Naraynan work better than the rest of the film. He lends the proceedings a credibility that is unsettling.
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