The Place Beyond The Pines

I had seen Blue Valentine when it released a couple of years back and was quite wary about The Place Beyond The Pines.  Derek Cianfrance gave me the impression of being an arty farty director in his previous outing.  Michelle Williams of course did a fine job in that movie one and earned herself a nomination.

Hitch

V Day on Television would be incomplete without this one. Directed by Andy Tennant who has made Romantic Comedies his core competence in a manner of speaking and has dished out eight full length features in this genre that have ranged from perfectly acceptable to damn good ones like Hitch. So much so that there were 3 of his movies playing yesterday over the mélange of movie channels that we have – Bounty Hunter, Sweet Home Alabama and the one we are going to talk about – Hitch. Surprisingly, he pipped Nancy Myers to the post who I think is the undisputed Queen of the Romantic Comedy and didn’t have a single movie playing yesterday surprisingly.


When Cressida Baylor (Robinne Lee) dumps Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens (Will Smith) while in college, the question he asks her is what most of us ask when we get dumped – WHY? WHAT DID I DO WRONG? The answer he gets from the new boyfriend – dude you are doing it right now. Alex Hitchens is a quick learner though and realizes that to be successful with the woman you got to have game. “Everyone girl can and wants to be swept off her feet. Its only upto you to find the right broom” (Now that’s a slick one liner. One of many that come up when you are watching Hitch). Hitch now runs a service called The Date Doctor – A very very successful service at that which runs purely on referral. The idea of the service – simple – get the girl to see what she is actually missing out in you. Make you more sellable without portraying the unreal you. And nope – he doesn’t do break ups. He does his own research – on both sides. And he has a 100% success rate on date. All the factors that get Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) to him. Albert wants to improve his chances of getting into a relationship with Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) – multi millionaress whose last boyfriend owned Sweden or something like that . Hitch takes up the task of finding the right broom for Brennaman but doesn’t understand what he is really getting into on his own personal front with gossip columnist Sara Melas (Eva Mendes). Easy to help others but equally difficult to help ourselves right? As he finds himself falling deeper and deeper into Sara, by making all the right moves, he is also reaching closer and closer to compromising the very essence that makes his service a successful one – secrecy. When a close friend of Sara, Casey Sedgewick (Julie Ann Emery) is dumped by her latest squeeze Vance Munson (Jeffrey Donovan) – apparently thanks to the Date Doctor – Sara takes it upon herself to expose the Date Doctor at all costs.

Hitch is one of the few RomComs that can be given a 7 on 10. Slickly made. Superb dialogues. Clean humour makes it great fun to watch. Well directed. Good use of music. Fabulous edits. Loads of attention to detail. Good solid performances by the entire cast - lead or otherwise. Do you really want me to continue? If you haven’t seen it yet then I strongly recommend that you don’t miss an opportunity to catch up with it the next time. If you have seen it already – watch it again coz you will definitely not get bored not matter how many times you would see it. Pure entertainment. A must watch for every Valentines Day for sure.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi418644761/

The Other Guys

Det. P K Highsmith (Samuel L Jackson) and Det. Christopher Janson (Dwayne Johnson) are New York’s finest. Yep they are the guys who get all the action. They are guys who get first priority on all cases. They are the guys who live life on the edge – and how. They are the guys who ensure that they destroy in excess of $16 million worth of property chasing a bunch of kids who have a couple of grams of marijuana worth a few dollars in their possession. They are the guys who get all the awards and all the medals and all the chicks and all the publicity and everyone else fades in the background.


And then there are the Other guys. The guys who don’t get any of the cases. Who are left with completing the documentation in the backend and closing all the reports that the 2 high flying detectives should be doing in the first place. They are Det. Allen Gamble (Will Ferrel) and Det. Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg). Gamble is the geek. He is the guy who has all the information about everything that seems irrelevant or trivial. He is the guy who goes by the book and can qualify to any geeky job. But not that of an NYPD Detective. Gamble is the kind of guy who prefers his desk job to anything else in the world. Why? Because he has a history. A deep dark history before he became a cop. One which got him into shit loads of trouble and also got him to meet his current super duper hot wife Dr. Sheila Gamble (Eva Mendes).

Hoitz on the other hand is the desperate NYPD Detective whose only claim to fame is that he shoots an NY Yankees star baseball player, Derek Jeter, while on security duty @ the Yankees stadium. It was of course an accident but one that gets him to being the laughing stock of everyone in the force. And relegated to being partners with the biggest geek on the house – Gamble. Hoitz is one hot blooded detective and is desperately trying to break the shackles and get out on the field. But the cases just don’t find their way to anyone but Highsmith and Janson – not till the 2 decide to jump off a building when chasing a bunch of criminals… er… one doesn’t survive a jump of 20 floors into pure concrete. Not unless u are a super hero.

Now the cases start flowing in and Gamble stumbles upon one that seems to be up his alley – that of a multi billion $ scam which involves David Ershon (Steve Coogan) of the Ershon corporation. An affair that no one seems to be interested in coz its not where the “Action” is you see. But our friend Gamble smells a dead stinky rat and cannot contain himself. It takes bit of being conned also by Hoitz who has pretty much had it with the lack of cases and picks up the first one that comes along his way along with Gamble. Complete Chaos ensues

The Other Guys is an attempt to get to the fore, a topic that has not been discussed much – that of financial scams in the recent past that have seriously eaten away into tax payers money. How it does that is upto you guys to find out. Will Ferrel is as cold and yet humourous as ever. Mark Wahlberg, for the first time appears in a role of a complete all out Loser. And I must say he does a pretty decent job. Sam Jackson and Dwayne Johnson just provide the spice. Eva Mendes is furniture – HOT FURNITURE …. OK MAKE THAT SIZZLING HOT FURNITURE. And rounding off the star cast is Michael Keaton as Captain Gene Mauch who keeps dropping one liners from TLC Songs. Director Adam MacKay only works with Will Ferrel it would seem. Taking the Director Actor Relationship to a whole new level u see.

Now I am not sure what to rate this movie as. The best description I can find for it is “Weird”. Mind u – Weird is not bad. It is just weird. Different. It is hilarious in parts and totally slap stick in other parts. The fact that it gives an interesting perspective on the scams that have hit the US of late makes it worth a watch I guess. Yep – I think it deserves 6 on 10. Never been much of a Will Ferrel fan but the past 2 movies that I have seen with him turned out to be good ones. One more and I would qualify as a convert I guess. Watch it if u can.