Drishyam (Malayalam) (2013)

It took me over a year to watch Drishyam (Malayalam) and I do hope that this review will prevent the rest of you from waiting so long.  Drishyam isn’t a brilliant movie by far in several aspects chief amongst them being its pace in the first half.  But make no mistake.  It is a very very good story and it has some superb performances that come together quite beautifully.

Georgekutty (Mohanlal) is a Cable TV Operator in a small village called Rajakkad in Idukki district.  Its up in the hills – the western ghats – of Kerala right in between infinite shades of green.  Georgekutty is married to Rani (Meena) and has 2 daughters Anjumol (Ansiba Hassan) and Anumol (Baby Ester).  Georgekutty is an orphan who studied only upto Grade 4 and has slowly but surely become reasonably successful.

Jeethu Joseph spends a whole amount of time – nearly an hour and 15 minutes – to build up the story about the middle class respectable life in Rajakkad. He builds the equation between Georgekutty and the local the corrupt cop Sahadevan (Kalabhavan Shajon). A little too much time before coming to the actual plot – one of blackmail, murder and a desperate Inspector General stacked up against a 4^th class pass whose only education comes from the world of cinema.

You will have to be extremely patient with Drishyam because for over an hour, you cannot quite figure out what is about to happen.  Even after you figure it out, Jeetu Joseph doesn’t pick up the pace dramatically till about 15-20 minutes from the end when it all comes together.  So be patient because you will not be disappointed at the end of it all.

The performances are simply superb – as usual from Mallu cinema.  A big part of the performances comes from the casting.  Mohanlal not only looks like your average ordinary middle class fellow from Rajakkad but carries it off with a conviction of your average ordinary middle class fellow from Rajakkad. 

The only minor error in casting – that is more than compensated by performance – was that of Asha Sarath as IG Geetha Prabhakar because she just looked too young to be a mother of a high school boy and the IG of Police.  But the woman can act I tell you!!!  But the pick of the lot had to be Kalabhavan Shajon as the despicable cop who will not shy away from hitting an 11 year old girl.  Class act this man!!!

You could watch Drishyam in one of many ways as under

1. Download at http://kat.cr/drishyam-2013-malayalam-brrip-1080p-x264-aac-5-1-e-subs-mbrhdrg-2gb-t10045310.html
2. Buy a BD version on amazon - http://www.amazon.in/Drishyam-Mohanlal/dp/B00KBN25FO/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1434780768&sr=1-2&keywords=drishyam
3. Watch on your mobile on hotstar - http://www.hotstar.com/#!/watch-drishyam-online-1000051783-m (but this doesn’t have subtitles)
4. Wait for the Hindi version that is scheduled to release on 31^st July 2015 – its an identical remake from the looks of it

Either ways – enzoy!!! 7.5 on 10.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMASubc1y_k

Zid

With a name like Barbie Handa, a career in cinema would have been restricted to a side actress who would not find mention in even the credits (I really don’t mean to be nasty).  But unfortunately for Barbie, a change of name of Mannara and her immense contacts in the industry (Barbie is the 3^rd cousin of Piggy Chops) will do little for her fortunes.

Rosewood Lane

There are badly made thrillers and then there are badly made thrillers. Rosewood Lane falls into any one of those 2 categories. Directed by Victor Sava (Jeepers Creepers / Rites of Passage), Rosewood Lane is a meek attempt at a serial killer / stalker brand of movie with all the predictabilities that you can imagine.

Rock Paper Dice Enter

"In our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess," – Dalai Lama

That is the opening line of Rock Paper Dice Enter – an independent film (if I could call it that) from a bunch of people who not so predictably call themselves Rock Paper films. Unfortunately, most of the audience is left wondering about the significance of the statement and the makers probably give a sneak view into what they meant right towards the end – too sneak a view for my comfort.

The Game

If I were get around to making a list of my favourite directors, David Andrew Leo Fincher would definitely be on that list without a shadow of doubt.  In his 3^rd movie (after Alien³ (1992) and Se7en (1995), Fincher comes up with yet another brilliant concept.  I remember having seen The Game around 15-16 years back to the date and I was completely blown away.

Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw) (Japanese)

My knowledge about cinema (or clearly, the lack of it) came to the fore when I was walking into the show of Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw), a Japanese movie, at Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines.  A co-viewer and coincidentally, fellow reviewer asked me, “You’ve come to see Miike”.  I can assure you that my expression was worse than that of a toddler being asked to identify the capital of Swaziland.

Dhoom 3

I left home this morning around 8:35 am for an 8:30 am show - you see PVR Cinemas usually plays upto 17 minutes of advertisements into the show time. So an 8:30 show will usually start @ 8:47. And if it is a Yash Raj film (or any big banner one for that matter), it would not have started before 8:55. But more importantly, I had Blackie and Whitey (the dogs in my building) looking @ me eagerly, as if to say, "what's the point of you going for a Dhoom movie. Spend time with us. It may be more exciting".

Jackpot (Hindi) (2013)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Mickey Virus

For the rest of the week, I will be catching up with reviews that are horribly delayed thanks to a really tough 3 weeks.  But now that I have the time, we will have a minor flurry of them starting with a decent movie called Mickey Virus that I had the opportunity to catch up with on my way back from Pilani in the capital a couple of weeks back.

Escape Plan

Now tell me the truth.  How many of you have been desperately waiting for Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger sharing a significant amount of screen time together.  Not just an excuse with a corny dialogue thrown in (read Expendables) but one where these two cult figures have major lead roles.  So much that the Tamil remake is being called “Kedi Rambo Killaadi Arnold” – I couldn’t stop laughing!!!

Captain Phillips

If Tom Hanks joins Daniel Day Lewis as the only other man to have won 3 Academy Awards as a Best Actor then it would be primarily because of his performance in the last 5 minutes as Captain Phillips.  How would you play a scene where you have little or no bodily damage but are in shock / panic?  This is exactly the kind of material that is going to be used at cinema schools where acting is a course.

Runner, Runner

And the eternal debate that I have had in my world continues – What is better? Ben Affleck the actor or Ben Affleck the director.  I must say that as of now, the latter is firmly entrenched as preferred option.  But with Runner, Runner, in what is probably his first negative role, he takes a small step towards scoring a few points with the former.

Although Ivan Block (Affleck) has much lesser screen time than he could have been given, Affleck does leave an impression that this negative thing may be just right up his alley.  There are moments that Affleck overshadows Timberlake albeit few of them. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Richie Furst (Timberlake) is an affiliate (business partner) for an offshore online gambling company. His role is to recruit as many people as he can into the habit.  Why is he doing it? Because he has worked a few years before Wall Street tanked and left him flat broke.  Because of his previous income statements, he cannot get a scholarship to Princeton despite having the brains for it.

Now there is a small glitch in this entire operation.  You cannot be promoting gambling on campus right? Also, when Furst loses all his money to an apparent software glitch, he takes the ballsy way out.  He travels to Costa Rica to confront Block and tell him about the glitch.  Block is impressed and offers him a multi-million dollar job.  Princeton obviously goes out of the window.

The good part about Runner, Runner is that it is an extremely fast paced movie.  And yet, it isn’t the most frenetic movie that you would have seen.  Brad Furman (Lincoln Lawyer) sets a good solid pace right upfront and continues with the same pace all through.  It felt really good when you look at your watch and find out that you are already an hour and 15 mins into the movie when you thought it was about 35-40 minutes.

But on most other counts, the story and narration is just about average.  Timberlake is good and I believe that he is a far better actor than a singer.  A good actor at that.  Gemma Arterton on the other hand can make no further progress than being good looking furniture and even there the freckles show.  There isn’t much of a supporting cast to speak about.

Overall, Runner, Runner, is a fun movie to watch but do you need to spend hard earned movie for the big screen.  I would guess not.  Watchable but wait for it to come onto Tata Sky or rent out a DVD or download or do whatever it is that you guys do.  6 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2239211801/?ref_=tt_ov_vi

Warning 3D

The only person who could possibly answer a basic question is Gurmmeet Singh, the director of the movie.  Why was the movie called Warning? Who warned whom? Was someone supposed to warn someone else? Was I supposed to hear some sort of warning?  There was some red board with the word on it somewhere during the movie.  But other than that why not call it what it was – A SHIPWRECK!!!

Raqt - Ek Rishta

One reason I love blogging / writing is that it gives me an opportunity to research and thereby learn quite a bit.  Before I started writing about this particular movie, I decided to run a google search for the word R A Q T.  If you search for the meaning in Urdu then you get 2 possible options – pathetic and deplorable.  Both words can be used easily to describe the movie in question.

JohnDay

The posters claim, “An Edge of the seat thriller from the makers of A Wednesday”.  The similarity with A Wednesday unfortunately ends with the fact that Naseeruddin Shah was part of both movies.  The premise and story of JohnDay is significantly different from that of A Wednesday.

The Frozen Ground

The posters claimed with a lot of conviction that this is the best serial killer movie since Se7en.  A wise man once said, “Never judge a movie by its poster” – I am quite certain he was a victim of many an experience like The Frozen Ground.  I was looking forward to a serial killer movie that would blow my pants off for a really long time.  But it will take much more than TFG to displace the likes of Se7en.

Spiando Marina / The Smile of The Fox

If Marina Valdez (Debora Caprioglio) had any idea of the impact she was to make on a bunch of teenagers with raging hormones somewhere in South Maharashtra, she would have put in more heart and soul into the role.  The Smile of the Fox (Spiando Marina) is a B grade movie from over 20 years back that a lot of my batchmates saw with great relish when we were half as old or young as what we are today.

Shortcut Romeo

Consider a husband who has a 13000 crore business believes in meditating in front of a wall size picture of a bearded swami baba. After that, he doesn't quite bother about his sex-starved wife - one that is described by our hero Suraj (Neil Nitin Mukesh) as Makkan jaisi jawaani (crudely translated as sizzling hot). Usually the result is infidelity of some kinds. No?

Now You See Me

The dictionary defines magic as the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature. Now if that doesn’t confuse you then you have a tremendous command over the language.

The Call

Apologies in advance for the delay in posting this review.  I should have done so earlier. Would have managed to push at least a few of you to see a movie that I personally thought was well made and edge of the seat.  A good serial killer movie after quite a while.  Regretably out of the theatres already.  Look for the DVD if you can.