Wild Card (2015)

Some may say that Jason Statham is cut out for only one type of role that is probably immortalized by his best performance to date i.e. Frank Martin (Transporter).  I would tend to agree with them but having said that, Statham hasn’t let the people who call him a stereotype come in the way of what has been built into a brand of action with a solid fan following from across the world.  I am one of those fans.

Inside Llewyn Davis

All Coen Brothers fans in the house raise your hands!!!! And once you have done that, check your list of movies to confirm that you have seen Inside Llewyn Davis.  A few of us (about a 500 I am guessing) were lucky enough to see the movie at the Mumbai International Film Festival.  For the rest, PVR Director’s Rare has been kind enough to release it after several delays – 10^th January 2014 is the day.

Oldboy (2013) (English)

Oldboy started in 1996 as a Manga written by Garon Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi.  There were 8 volumes released over 2 years.  South Korean filmmaker Park Chan Wook made this into a trilogy that I am desperate to get my hands on - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) – Themes of Revenge, Violence and Salvation respectively.

Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik has 2 movies as a director before Killing them Softly. One of them had a really really long name called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (super fodder for a random round of Dumb Charades right?). That one was as long drawn and slow as the name was but it was also extremely carefully made with a lot of attention to detail. Killing Them Softly is no different. And I would assume that his first movie – Chopper – would have been the same.

Killing Them Softly is the story of one Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), a hired killer typically used by a surprisingly very organized mafia. So organized are the mafia that they have a representative for something like a board of directors who take specific calls through proper consideration – in other words, there are very few decisions that are actually taken. They are more of a figurehead.

Jackie is the right hand man of Dillon (Sam Shepard) who is currently unavailable to do the dirty work. Whats the dirty work? Doing away with Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) and Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta) along with their 2 bit cronies Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russel (Bill Mendelsohn).

Why does this have to be done? Because the four of them are responsible for robbing money from locally arranged mafia run card games. Who has lost money? Only those who were playing at the time but if not handled, the repercussions on the mafia would be huge – A risk that no one can afford to take.

So we go through a painfully slow 97 minutes where the entire story unfolds piece by piece backed with a background score that is not quite a score but very interestingly pieced audio clips of the 2008 campaign of President Obama and several clips of the financial melt-down. Very very quirky but then that’s Andrew Dominik for you in one word – quirky. After a while it actually grows on you.

One of the aspects that really will not go un-noticed would be the cinematography. There is a particular sequence where Frankie and Russell are having a conversation where everytime Russell’s point of view is shown pretty much like you would see something when you are really doped. Extremely well done I must say.

Overall, a very slow movie and as mentioned earlier, very painfully crafted. If that’s not your cup of tea then I suggest you strongly avoid it. As such it doesn’t have too much to be seen on the big screen. You can watch it on DVD. But it doesn’t take away from it, the fact that it is a very good movie indeed. 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3931415065/