Gravity

How many screenplays do you know of that are written by a father and son team? If anyone out there knows the answer, do let me know.  My research shows that Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón have achieved a first of its kind.  Whats more, they could not have a better job.  Although the rest of the world seems to be panning the script, I thought, it was well written and effective (but then I am just a lowly amateur).

Man On A Ledge

Asger Leth – quite a different name right? He is new to this business with the exception of one arbit TV Series which sounds half French very honestly. Ghosts of Cité Soleil. That’s what it is called. Sounds weird right. But let me tell you that Asger Leth knows how to direct a thriller. I was slowly but surely taken into Man On A Ledge. The trailers seemed interesting enough and the movie turned out to be even better. Asger seems to be one who understands the genre of Thriller movies better than most new directors.

The essence of a Thriller being to begin slowly but surely. Set up the tempo by giving the audience a background of what exactly has happened. Also give the audience a sneak peek into what could happen. Throw in a couple of twists and turns in between this entire shebang to throw the audience just that little bit off track. And then again get them back just as they are about to give up on what is happening. And finish off in style with an ending that the audience could have predicted but yet couldn’t have because of the twists that you have thrown in. That is what one would call great narration. And Asger Leth seems to have been taught by someone who really knows how to create a thriller. All credit to Asger that he has been able to convert what he has learnt into very solid execution.

What helps Asger is also very good support from a cast which is made up of reasonably well known names but no huge stars with the exception of one Ed Harris who plays a negative role – probably the first time after The Rock (which was more of an anti hero). But he sure does deliver. He does have the strongest screen presence of the cast undeniably. Sam Worthington is quite solid as well as the protagonist. Does get over shadowed by Harris in the few scenes that they are with each other but that’s Harris’s experience which gets the better of Worthington.

Elizabeth Banks is probably the only weak link in the entire movie. She has performed reasonably well but in some scenes, where she is unable to pull off a convincing scene. Like when she tries to get a fingerprint off Nick Cassidy by pretending to be a smoker – oops scene very honestly. Doesn’t come off well at all. And a dialogue or 2 where the intensity just doesn’t come through. Other notable performances from Jamie Bell as Nick’s brother Joey and the sizzling Genesis Rodriguez as Angie. Genesis actually shows that there is some acting talent other than just sizzling hot looks.

Net net, Worth spending time and hard earned money for this 6.5 on 10. Deducted half a point for some basic consistency errors. But don’t worry. Most people will not get the errors. Worth watching.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4159021337/

The Way Back

Based on a true story on which a book has been written, The Way Back, is the story of a few mad men (that’s the only way I can describe them) who would have rather died free in the cold of Siberia than in a prison camp where they were being held. Not many (in fact I cant think of any) movies have been made on the not so fair calls taken by Stalin in the build up to the World War. Maybe it would be fair to say that Josep found himself on the right side of Roosevelt. The book used for the screenplay was called The Long Walk (you bet it was long!!!! – 4000 miles long!!!) by Sławomir Rawicz. But no one said that when you make a movie from a book with the word Long in the title, you have the right to get the movie to associate with the same adjective. Director Peter Weir (Truman Show, Master and Commander) seems to have got it wrong this time around with clichés such as unnecessary long shots of 6 people walking down the desert and arid plains of Mongolia or with his complete lack of continuity between several shots. Unless of course the print that was sent across to India wasn’t the final cut.


Nevertheless, getting on with it. The Way Back is the story of 8 people who are locked up by Stalin in a prison camp in Siberia. Its around 1939 and Hitler has occupied one part of Poland and Stalin the other. The Polish are however stuck right in the middle and are obviously not too pleased with it. This is when Janusz (Jim Sturgess) gets imprisoned for anti Stalin activities. Here he meets an American who has gone as cold as the weather in Siberia and goes by the name of Smith (Ed Harris) and a first name of Mister. He also gets acquainted with five other men – Valka (Colin Farrell) a hardened Russian Criminal, Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean) an artist who survives at the camp by making erotic sketches, Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky) a young boy who suffers from night blindness, Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård) a Latvian Priest and Zoran (Dragos Bucur) an accountant from the erstwhile Yugoslavia. And then there is an actor, Khabarov (Mark Strong) whose only way of surviving in the madness of the prison is to weave fantasies about how it is possible to escape from the camp. But then he meets Janusz who takes the concept too seriously and when he finds an opportunity, the 8 of them decide to take advantage of a blizzard to escape. And so begins the long long walk which they plan to take from Siberia to Mongolia. Along the way, they also pick up Irena (Saoirse Ronan) who claims to have run away from another camp after her parents were murdered by Russians.

The Way Back is an extremely poignant and slow tale of how 9 human beings challenge their limits and walk through Siberia, along Lake Baikal onto the plains of Russia, Mongolia, Tibet and eventually into India. Most of the scenes are of course not shot on location with Bulgaria and Morocco taking up most of the shooting with a small portion towards the end being shot in India. Not that I am taking away any points from the team for choice of location but most of the build up didn’t seem to be finished too well. For e.g., towards the end of the movie, the accents start dropping distinctly and most of the actors of different nationalities start moving towards their natural accents. I was also surprised to learn that the movie had been nominated for an Oscar for Make Up. It was good alright but good enough for an Oscar nomination? Debatable. Or maybe I need to really take that movie appreciation course that I have been putting off for a long long time. The performances by most of the cast are however quite strong with Ed Harris leading the way as the reserved Mr. Smith. Saoirse (pronounced Seer Sha) Ronan stands out again and she is only helped along the way by being the only woman in the group of nine. On the whole, you can watch it if you are fine with watching an extremely slow tear jerker. I give this 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1465030937/