A Serious Man

A snowy night in a European town and an introduction to a dybbuk is how the movie begins.  You are then plunged into the sorry life of Larry Gopnik, who is a physicist struggling for tenure while in the middle of  divorce proceedings. There are quirky scenarios typical of a Coen brothers film like that of Larry dealing with a Chinese student who could be bribing him. Throw in a few more interesting fringe characters like Larry's brother who is writing a "probability map of the universe" and you have a regular Coen brother offering. And there in lies the problem; it is just regular!

Rating: * *

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Sin City: A Dame to Kill for

The original Sin City was a brilliant film that stunningly brought to life the neo-noir graphic novel series of the same name by Frank Miller. So when the follow up was released by the same directorial duo the assumption was that it would continue in the same vein. The film in many ways does do that by reappraising most of the original cast. Miller has thrown in a few stories from Vol 2 and tried to mesh them in a similar fashion as in its predecessor. In other ways the handling of story lines is poor and almost as if the hope was the CGI would be distracting enough to make up for it.

Rating: * +

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Beasts of No Nation

A film meant to be a powerful telling of the wars in Africa and how it is ravaging the youth there. A time meant for the children to be educated instead is spent learning how to become a killing machine. Throw in Idris Alba to play the lead role of a commandant of a guerrilla, one expects a dark and gripping tale. However the story of young Abu who is throw apart from his family by war into the hands of the guerrillas only leaves you mildly interested in the events that unfold in the movie in spite of the message being important and one that everyone should pay heed to.

Rating: * +

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The Assassin

Hsaio-hsien Hou tackles a wuxia tale in his latest offering that centers around an assassin, who targets corrupt government officials. Interestingly her orders are given by a woman monk. When mercy creeps into her and she wavers from her role she is sent off an assignment closer to her heart. In spite of being based on a wuxia story which is usually simple and action packed, Hou twists it to his will to show a poignant thoughtful drama that is not all wire tricks.

Rating:* * +

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Sicario

The movie opens with Agent Kate Mercer, a up and coming straight laced FBI agent, finding a horde corpses when raiding  a den of kidnappers. The ensuing explosion points at something more than a kidnapping den. She is then drafted into a CIA / DoD task force investigating the event. Part of this team is Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) whose identity and allegiance all seem very murky. A taunt action thriller that never leaves you bored but there are times you wish Emily Blunt's character was played by a man and treated the same way. Somehow I feel that it would have been more effective. But that is just a minor nitpick in a well crafted thriller.

Rating: * * +

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The Informant

Mark Whitacre was a high flying executive at Archer Daniels Midland, when he decides to blow the whistle on the company's nefarious price fixing of lysine, an additive used in the livestock industry. He teams up with the FBI and walks around wearing a wire and surreptitiously filming secret meetings. But the pressure of leading a double life starts to show as his character starts to fray at the edges resulting in tragicomic situations. Matt Damon shines in this role and you are left in an enjoyable muddle of trying to figure out reality from Whitacre's imagination.

Rating: * * *
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Interstellar

There are some movies that are hard to review. It doesn't mean that such movies are of high quality. It is just that writing about it can reveal too much and take away from the pleasure if the movie was one for the ages. This is one such movie and I will do my best not give too much away about this one.

The Earth is ravaged by blight and humanity's hope for survival looks bleak. It is evident from the posters and trailers that some space travel is involved in search of a solution. Throw a wormhole into the picture and the possibilities are endless. As you watch the film you hope for another Contact but as your excitement grows the finale kind of leaves you a little deflated. Maybe the weight of expectations flattened the balloon.

Rating: * * + 

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Fantastic Four

Marvel's Fantastic Four franchise is given a reboot in this latest installment. The story starts from ground zero with Reed Richards and Ben Grimm being tweener friends working on crazy science projects. They are discovered by Professor Franklin Storm and you are introduced to his kids, Sue and Johnny. Throw Victor von Doom and an experiment gone wrong into the mix and you are left with the beginnings of the Fantastic Four storyline. Unfortunately the reboot and retelling of the story is not very engaging and you leave the theater feeling underwhelmed.

Rating: * + 

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OMG - Oh My God!

Kanji Lalji Mehta is an atheist who owns an antique store in Mumbai. When an earthquake hits the city, it leaves his store in shambles and.the "Act of God" clauses leaves his insurance claim in the dust. Mr. Mehta then decides to file a law suite against God which causes an uproar in the city and drags a few prominent God men and woman in to the court. A satirical comedy that makes fun of the state of religion in India and one that could touched the genius scale if it had been given the 90s Srinivasan treatment 

Rating: * +

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Birdman

Riggan Thompson used to rule the film industry as Birdman but since then has done little of note. Now he is trying to rekindle his acting career by adapting a Raymond Carver play to Broadway.  The movie chronicles this process through dress rehearsals and opening night. The acting is top notch with Michael Keaton and Edward Norton grabbing most of the limelight. Alejandro González Iñárritu has used a technique that makes it seem the film is one long shot. The end result is akin to playing a first person shoot out except that the film is a drama. The dialogues flow ceaselessly giving not a moment of stillness in the movie. At the end you are left a little nauseous thanks to the roving camera and cranky due to the noisy screenplay!

Rating: * +

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Ida

Ida, a catholic nun on the verge of taking her vows, discovers her Jewish history and life outside of the convent. Which in post-war Poland, might not seem to be any more aspirational than whats within the four walls of her convent. Between the past and the present, Ida needs to make her choice for the future. Sparse in dialogue, colour and motion, Ida manages to say a great deal - like in 80 minutes or so. Very nice.

Rating: * * + 


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Avengers: Age of Ultron

This installment in the Marvelverse starts with Team Avengers raiding a Hydra base and being introduced to Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff. The mission is successful in that they are reunited with Loki's scepter. Stark and Banner discover artificial intelligence buried in it and use it to come up with a global defense program. The program comes to life and decides rightly that humans are the biggest threat. What ensues is the usual inner bickering in the team and some good ass kicking as the Avengers struggle to defeat the Ultron menace. Definitely enjoyable for people who hate Abbas Kiarostami films.

Rating: * * +

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The World of Kanako

Take darkness and make it darker must have been the intent of director Tetsuya Nakashima with this morbid film. Akihiro Fujishima is a former detective who has issues to put it mildly. When his ex-wife calls him frantically about their teenage daughter, Kanako, who seems to be missing, he dives in with a kind of mad relish that leaves you cringing. The film is a rush of flash backs and the present, each revealing parts of the puzzle, none of which is gentle. Stay away if you are looking for calm night of rest.

Rating: * * +

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Thor: The Dark World

Loki is locked up and Thor with is warrior friends are forging a peace across the nine realms following the rebuilding of the Bifrost after the previous debacle. But the calm is not allowed to build as Dark Elves, who are thought to be obliterated eons ago are re-awoken by an unwitting Earthling. You are then treated to some heavy CGI magic and loads of hammer wielding Thor action resulting in an enjoyable shallow action flick. 

Rating: * * +

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Taxidermia

You follow three generations of Hungarian men during the course of this movie. A penis obsessed military orderly to a speed eating champion and culminating with a carcass stuffer. The story is supposedly a cross between horror and comedy that hides a sociopolitical retelling of Hungarian history. The history bit is very hard to glean and it is more akin to a morbid "turn away from the screen" in disgust rather than horror.

Rating: *

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Unlucky Plaza

Slowly and steadily, Nek Nek (a.k.a Ken Kwek) has obviously been fine tuning his movie writing / making abilities - delivering this super smooth production of a dog day afternoon in Singapore as a Filipino restaurant owner driven to his wits end, contemplates his end game with a bunch of atypical (or not) Singaporean characters. Realisation hits Onassis that they are all trapped, in this fine city, and that something eventually has to give. 

Fine performances from all quarters enhances everything and pushes Unlucky Plaza onto the forefront of Singaporean films. 

Rating: * * * 

Boyhood

A coming of age story of young Mason Jr whose mother flits from one messed up partner to another dragging the young boy and sister along. Take The Wonder Years, convert the Arnold family in to a dysfunctional one with a single mother, shoot it over ten years with the actors aging gradually and you will end up with this movie. However the Tv series had a certain depth and charm to it that is missing here. It feels that the use of time rather than make up and different actors to show aging is the only thing that this film has going for it.

Rating: * *

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Killing Them Softly

When a couple of buffoons hold up a high stakes underworld card game, it is predictable how it would end. The mob puts a highly paid hitman to set right the situation. And when you have cast that includes Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini, you except even this simple storyline to pack a punch. However you are left with an insipid journey that turges towards the inevitable end.

Rating: * +

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The Thieves

An all ensemble cast forms the backbone of this heist film which was the top grossing South Korea film in 2012. The target of the theft is a diamond owned by a top Chinese mobster in Macao. Two teams from China and South Korea, with intertwined pasts and romances,  join forces to pull it off. It is very obvious that the film has been heavily influenced by the Ocean's Eleven series of movies but you still have to execute well to make it a watchable movie. Director Dong-hoon Choi has done exactly that as you spend couple of hours watching beautiful people acting cool and pulling off insane stunts. Neeraj Pandey can learn much from this film.

Rating: * * +

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Special 26

One of the biggest cons in Indian history is the inspiration for this film. Couple that with the director, Neeraj Pandey, being of the A Wednesday pedigree the expectations were very high for this film. As the movie opens to a CBI raid at a politician's palace, you are riveted to the screen. Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpai square off as robber and cop, and the setup is complete. Then the ball is dropped as the long shots of the men doing the Reservoir Dog walk with melodramatic background music just grates on your nerves. However the con itself is interesting enough to keep you watching until the end highlighting a missed opportunity to make a good film.

Rating: * +
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Hollow

A woman jumps off a bridge and a young girl drowns in the same river. A week later the young girl's corpse is found and magically reanimated. She of course is possessed and things start going bump at night and even the day. The director tries to use the horror genre to show us the underbelly of prostitution and human trafficking in Vietnam and is all over the place. When you add people throwing up dirty river water, you are confused if there is a comedy element involved here too. A sad letdown from the director who gave us Journey from the Fall.

Rating: * +

Partners In Crime

The dead body of a school girl from a wealthy family is discovered by three of her school mates on a rainy evening. The boys with widely varying personalities find themselves bonding over the incident as they start hunting around for clues to her demise. Initially the it felt like a coming of age film turning in to detective noir, but you soon realize the director is taking us somewhere more dark and sinister. Schoolyard bullying and the loneliness of children are the actual topics examined here under the guise of a murder mystery.

Rating: * * +

A Touch of Sin

What does a man do when he is teetering on the edge of his breaking point as he fights the injustice around him? Does he stoically fight on or just go berserk? This kind of scenario is what the film opens to and forms just one section of it. It eerily reminds one of Edmond but as the other sections unfold you realize Zhang Ke is as usual a filming a commentary on the social climate in China. Except unlike his prior films that are haunted with melancholy and realism, he gets his point across with explosions of violence here.

Rating: * * *

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Entre Nos

The stereotype of Colombian women falling for men who treat them badly continues in this movie. Mariana and her kids are abandoned by her husband soon after they immigrate to New York city. Stranded in a foreign city and unable to speak English, she struggles to make ends meet. The film shows a dispassionate view of the situation while highlighting Mariana's grit to persevere. There have been better films highlighting women and immigration but if the situation resonates with you then it is worth a watch.

Rating: * *

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Headshot

Detective noir cloaked in the gloom of smoldering cigarette butts and damsels in distress are the backdrop for this film. The movie opens with a hit going wrong for hitman, Tul, as he finds his life literally turned upside down. As Tul tries to come to grips with his inverted vision, you are introduced to his "normal" past life. In a stupor you are slowly immersed in to his life as a film eerily reminiscent of Wanted, is flashed across the screen. Take away the lack of originality of the concept and add in the Pen-ek twist, you find yourself enjoying a thriller like the drama that was Last Life in the Universe.

Rating: * * *

Let the Right One In

Oskar is a wimpy 12 year old who is mercilessly bullied at school. As a result he spends most of his free time making plans to exact revenge on his tormentors. It is in this world that he befriends his mysterious new neighbor, Eli, who seems to be of his same age. The window you are shown in to Eli's life leaves with you no doubt about her nature. But is her kind and yearning companionship towards Oskar that carries the film. In spite of the good acting, direction and script, the movie left me feeling hollow. Maybe the weight of expectations sunk it...

Rating: * *

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The Constant Gardner

The sudden death of his young wife Tess turns, staid diplomat Justin Quayle into a detective. He painstakingly traces the path his wife took and rediscovers the dangers enroute as you are introduced into the murky world of the cut throat pharmaceutical industry. If you have read the book the movie is based, have no fear of having a face put to the characters. John Le Carre continues to have luck when it comes to his writings being made into moving pictures. However, you do lose a few molecules of complexity that inhibit his novel. But in spite of the loss, the movie is time worth spent.

Rating: * * *

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The imitation game

 

Alan Turing's story was a fascinating one I remember. A British mathematician who unravelled the German Nazi code and hastened the end of WWII - while his heroics could not be told to the public, he was found legally guilty many years later of being a homosexual - a tragedy in many ways.

The film, despite the Cumberbatch effectiveness, could have done with more of the David Fincher sharpness. Cheesy in most parts, it could have been much more. The support cast doesn't help - Keira Knightly while she means well, does nothing to enhance the story telling. Blame the director. 

The + is for Alan Turing.

Rating: * * +

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The Rover

 

As I watched the movie, I thought to myself that this would be the kind of movie that I would write and make. From the characters, to the guns, and the drugs, the apocalyptic social situation, the dialogues (or lack of), the photography, the apparent lack of motive, the beautiful landscape that is Australia and the choice of the lead actor - Guy Pearce. It couldn't have meant much to many others, and therein is a possible lesson for me. But the bright spark comes from an unlikely source - the supporting lead played by Robert Pattinson. Who would have thought he could provide credibility to an indie type indulgence. 

Rating: * * *

Silver Linings Playbook

Bit too much of the silver linings stuff. Though David O. Russell puts together a compelling cute comedy, it falls way short of other films that he has done. Oscar for Jennifer Lawrence for this? Talent certainly, but give her time man.  Bradley Cooper shrugs off his good lucks to strike it out and which he carries through in the American Hustle. I was kind of glad when it ended - but dont get me wrong, it was cute.  

Rating: * *