The Best of Me

There is soppy cinema and there is really really really soppy cinema.  Michael Hoffman’s The Best of Me falls in the latter category – and quite comfortably at that.  Hoffman’s track record includes the George Clooney RomCom called One Fine Day.  He now forays into mainstream romance with a writer who is without doubt the King of Sop – Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, Message in a Bottle).

The Bourne Supremacy

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) wakes up yet another day from what can only be described as a nightmare for him – flashes from the past. While this is not new to Jason, he does find some comfort in the fact that he is not alone. He has Marie (Franka Potente) who he caught up with towards the end of Identity.

Made of Honor

My first memory of Patrick Dempsey was when he was all of 25 years young in a movie called Run (remember that movie starring Sanjay Dutt & Urmila titled Daud? Now you know that even the name was ripped off). That was over 20 years back. But most of you would know him as McDreamy a.k.a. Dr.Sheperd from Grey’s Anatomy. Well, for those who fall in the latter category, let me assure you that Dempsey’s repertoire extends far beyond the walls of Seattle Grace Hospital.

Made of Honor (MoH) is one of Dempsey’s more recent movies. He plays the role of the Casanova – Tom, who is best friends with Hannah (Michelle Monaghan). Yep. They have never heard of that Salman Khan one liner – Ek Jawan Ladka aur Ek Jawan Ladki kabhi dost nahin ho sakte (A young man and a young girl can never be “just friends”).

Or hasn’t he? Over a casual conversation with his friends, Tom realizes that the years that he has spent with Hannah, since their college days, are actually a good enough indication that he should consider moving from being just friends to much more. All of this, when Hannah is in Scotland for some personal work for over a month.

Tom lands up @ the airport specifically with the intent of telling that it is time to move to the next level. But instead, he is introduced to Colin (Kevin McKidd) – a Scottish Lord, an owner of a distillery and a lot of land in Scotland, with a line of royalty of sorts in the family and most importantly, Hannah’s fiancé. The wedding is in 15 days. And guess who is going to be the MoH and therefore best placed to break up a wedding?

Paul Weiland has been a Television director for most of his life and his claim to fame can be only some parts of the Mr. Bean series. So, I guess it was expected to have a TV like feel and nothing spectacular in terms of direction. With that expectation you would not fall short. In fact with that expectation, MoH is a very reasonable movie. Average on most counts and feel good at the end of it all.

The movie does have some interesting points (cannot call them high points). Patrick Dempsey juggling China, Kevin McKidd dunking in a basketball game, and of course the Scottish strongman tradition (amongst several others) where Tom fails miserably to say the least. But the best has to be Grandma Pearl and her pleasure beads. And of course – riding a horse into the altar as part of the climax. 6 on 10 for all of these.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3081896217/

Machine Gun Preacher

Marc Forster has given us quite a few movies over the years which are memorable. Not in the league of a cult movie but just about enough to leave a lasting impression. Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace, Monster’s Ball and that really cool movie called Stranger Than Fiction which I had rated as a 7 on 10. So it came to me as a bit of a surprise that the in the first half of Machine Gun Preacher, I felt a bit let down and as my movie mate in Bangalore, Kevin Mendonca, stated, “Not able to connect with it”. I think somewhere Forster took just a tad too long to get to the actual crux of the topic which was the orphanage in the war zone between South Sudan and Northern Uganda. Forster peels off layer by layer of the Sam Childers (Gerard Butler) onion. Could he have made it a bit faster and a bit more tight – I would guess so. I have seen most of his movies and haven’t found them to be ones that meander about aimlessly. Maybe he had a solid creative reason for taking it slow but I thought he could have ct about 15 to 20 minutes of the movie which lasts eventually for over 2 hours. Makes a world of a difference to the audience and critics alike.

The posters may belie your expectations about Machine Gun Preacher. I had seen the trailer a while back and could not recollect the South Sudan part till I walked into the hall. It was an eventuality before they made a movie on the South Sudan formation was the thought that crossed my mind. But it turns out that MGP was about anything but random conflict between nations. It is the true story of one man’s steely determination to not give up on the one thing that finally gives his life some purpose. From his days of being a biker gangster and drug dealer, Sam Childers came back home to a wife, Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) who has quit stripping to be a born again Christian. But Sam wanted nothing to do with it. He decided to stick to his gangster ways till he killed a hitchhiker in self defence and eventually finds the path to god. He visited Africa to do some social work but the experience influenced him like nothing else in his life and drove him towards starting the orphanage.

Trauma to the Lips, A child killing his mother, land mines blowing kids legs away, Children being burnt to death, snipers who are no more than 10 years old – Marc Forster has tried to make it as real as he possibly could. The version on screen these days seems to be heavily and obviously censored. As the movie moves along, it distinctly grows on you and you begin to relate with Childer’s statement towards the end, “If your child was abducted by a mad man or a terrorist and if I could tell you that I would get her home, would it matter to you how I got her back”? 7 on 10 yet again for Forster’s capability to keep the movie as true to life as possible and Gerard Butler’s solid portrayal of Childers.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3407191065/

Source Code

I have always been a firm believer in the concept of a parallel universe…. Actually parallel universes. Everything that we do can lead to millions of possibilities and there are millions of such possibilities that are existent somewhere in the fourth dimension. That somewhere is a place unfathomable to woman, man or child with the limited intelligence that we are bestowed with by the person upstairs. And every once in a while a movie will come along that will reiterate it to us and leave nearly 90% of the audience in a state that can be only described as – confused. You can add Source Code to that not so long list of movies and be prepared to be thoroughly confused for a while before you can actually figure out what exactly is happening. This is not a spoler. Just an advance warning for whats in store for you.


Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is dead. Or is he? Well for all practical purposes he seems to be. His last assignment was flying a chopper in Afghanistan where it would seem he has been KIA – Killed in Action for those who are unaware. But that’s not to be. He does wake up. But he wakes up in a train that’s headed towards Chicago as he finds out when he wakes up. He finds himself right in front of the gorgeous Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) who seems to think that he is not Captain Stevens but someone completely different – a George Troxel if my memory serves me right (I may be wrong here but the name is honestly irrelevant). He slowly but surely tries to get his bearings right but is unable to understand how he got into the train in the first place. He tries to put up with the conversation that Christina is having with him but kind of gives up after a while. A few minutes later, the train explodes that’s to a bomb and takes a passing Frieght Train also along with it.

Suddenly, Captain Stevens finds himself suspended from the ceiling in some kind of a capsule or a pod for lack of any other word. He has a screen in front of him on which an officer (of the air force probably) Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) is trying to calm him down. Stevens, it would seem is part of a programme code named Beleaguered Castle. Before he can find out much about his whereabouts he is buzzed back into the train and finds himself at the beginning of it all. But this time he is told that he has 8 minutes to find out about the bomb, its whereabouts, disarm it and if possible help apprehend the bomber because the next one is supposed to go off in Chicago City. Stevens is part of a programme called Source Code which used the capabilities of the human mind that can retain everything upto 8 minutes even after the physical body has given up.

Duncan Jones’ first major attempt into cinema is one where he tries to desperately build a concept like Nolan did with Inception. An interesting concept for certain but the execution is far from Nolanesque and Jones doesn’t quite give you any hope to expect anything superlative in the near future either. The shuttling back and forth between the pod and train give you a minor headache for certain. Jake Gyllenhaal continues to show signs of desperation in his performance. He has always seemed so confused to me. Michelle Monaghan doesn’t have much of a role. Vera Farmiga is calm and composed as always and it only helps that her role demands that from her. She has to be the single most gorgeous 38 year old in this world right? Definitely the saving grace of an otherwise quite average movie. Interesting concept but not very well executed. I give it a 5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3948911129/

Due Date

Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) is a successful executive expecting his first child. He is in Atlanta and needs to get home i.e. Los Angeles by Friday because his wife, Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) is having a C Section. He wakes up to take his flight on Tuesday morning after a slightly disturbing dream. He is about to get out of the car when a random car cuts in from the right and crashes into the car door. Thankfully no one is hurt. But out walks a visibly stoned / drunk Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) who as nonchalantly as possible asks Peter if he is fine and then moves on to board his flight.

Peter is visibly shaken but is more preoccupied with the thought of his first born and proceeds to board the flight. As he is moving through security, he realizes that one of the packages has been exchanged with Ethan. The worse news is that he is now carrying a marijuana pipe. Nevertheless, he manages to wriggle himself out of the sticky situation. But his troubles have just about begun. As luck would have it, Ethan is on the same flight and has been bumped upto first class and is now seated behind Peter much to Peter’s chagrin.

Some random conversation about terrorists ensues and it prompts a US Marshall to pull out a firearm on Peter and shoot him. Thankfully with a rubber bullet. Both Peter and Ethan are off loaded. Things seem to be going only downhill. As luck would have it, all of this wasn’t enough. Both of them are put onto a “No Fly” list. So they have no choice but to drive down to LA. In the melee, Peter couldn’t pick up his bags and wallet from the aircraft and finds himself without any money or id. Out of a lack of choice, he accepts Ethan’s offer to take him along.

Todd Philips’ 6th full length feature film to date. Considering that he made the likes of a Starsky and Hutch, the not so slick (but not so slapstick either) humour should have been expected I guess. But then, the same guy also gave us one of the best comedies made to date – The Hangover. But then Todd – one is only as good as his last movie. So the Hangover from The Hangover seems to have sailed you through Due Date as well. There were enough and more in the audience who were extremely thrilled with the movie and went out feeling satisfied – if that makes you feel better. But from my side, this was way below par. Especially after you have set the bar so high with The Hangover.

Robert Downey Jr. is as usual ice cold with his performance. Very smartly executed role from his end. And Zach “Tounge Twister” Galifianakis is superb with his performance as the aspirational Hollywood actor with a fondness for Two and a Half Men & is carrying his Dad’s ashes in a coffee tin because he thinks it is still vacuum sealed. No one else actually has a role in the movie. Jamie Foxx is wasted in his 3.5 mins of screen time. So is Juliette Lewis. Due Date is definitely entertaining but nowhere close to The Hangover. So don’t go expecting the quality of humour or execution that you saw there. Overall a 6 on 10. Definitely the best movie over the weekend.