s0ulf00d Reviews

Andhadhun (2018)

Shallow

[1/10 · 27 October 2018]

If plot twist after plot twist after plot twist after plot twist after plot twist ad infinitum keeps you entertained even when the so-called plot has not been sufficiently laid out - go for it. Me? I got tired of the twists.

The characters are given classy dialogues but depth is sacrificed at the expense of a plot twisted around itself in a dozen knots. Dilliwala Ayushmann Khurrana makes no attempt to let go of his dilli heritage. For example, when he's angry, his trademark annoyance expressed in rapidfire spitting of sentences is same across all his movies. Didn't look for a moment that he belonged to Pune.

Acting by others in the main cast is mediocre at best. The only character who shone in acting is the betrayed wife of the police officer. Her expressions and responses are extraordinarily well done in every single frame! Hats off to her. Too bad her role was paltry. Her amazing acting was the only highlight of this movie.

It's a film written for the forever finger swiping smartphone generation that outsources cerebral functioning to apps loaded on their screens. With their phones on silent, any appreciation of depth or meaning in life is lost on to them. All they care for is to swipe from one twist to the other.

Wazir (I) (2016)

When will mainstream Bollywood rise above this mediocrity?

[4/10 · 19 January 2016]

Amitabh Bachchan and scriptwriters of his films will go down in history as having inspired a nation of 100 billion to view revenge as the ultimate form of justice.

Wazir is yet another mediocre revenge drama in a long line of Bollywood films that seek to justify and glorify violence and crime (sometimes violence for its own sake). In the case of this film, and others like it, seeking revenge is justified as the protagonist does not receive it through traditional means.

If one were to bring up one's child by inculcating in him the same values, he would most certainly end up in jail. Maybe even before entering adulthood. That should give us some glimpse into what kind of society we are inspiring to create.

I yearn for the kind of thoughtful and soul stirring cinema that Anand Gandhi and Khushboo Ranka showed us is possible with The Ship of Theseus. When will mainstream Bollywood deliver another film which rises to that standard?

St. Vincent (2014)

Making a hero out of a slob - best avoided

[3/10 · 23 March 2015]

Meet Bill Murray, a slob. Also an alcoholic who gambles with borrowed money, entertains a prostitute, does not mind stealing, drinks and drives, and talks down to everyone.

When his new neighbour, a single mother, requests him to take care of her kid for a few hours, the first thing he asks is how much will she pay him. The rest of the first half shows Murray "babysitting" the kid by taking him everywhere he goes, having fun while gambling with the kids' money, and imparting training on how to hit back a school bully.

By the end of the movie the writer wishes to convince us that this is not just acceptable behaviour but is characteristic of a Saint because Murray served in Vietnam war where he saved a lot of people, because he met his institutionalised wife once every week until she died, and because, well, he paid for his behaviour by suffering a stroke.

Right. Well it didn't work with me. Even though the film was predictable I actually had a difficult time believing what the writer was trying to say.

I've seen a lot of Hollywood trash that celebrate mediocrity, violence and sex. It's the first time when I've come across atrocious behaviour being idolised in this manner.

I watched 'St. Vincent' almost back to back with 'Chef'. Chef was also released the same year, it's also about the relationship between a man and a kid of same age, and also got the same IMDb rating (7.3) as this film. But what a contrast!

In Chef, the main protagonist is hard working, independent, passionate about his work, stands up for what he believes in, and has integrity. Fun, in this film, is doing the work you enjoy and love doing. These are some of the values that the kid learns. They have a great time throughout.

If you haven't seen St. Vincent, it's best avoided.

PK (2014)

A satire stretched too far - Aamir & Hirani lose their edge

[4/10 · 22 December 2014]

Maybe my wife and I are the only ones who felt disappointed with P.K. When she watches the film she's looking purely at its "entertainment" value. I'll admit, for me a film should make sense also. P.K. didn't work at either level. Both of us absolutely loved all Raju Hirani films in the past. We expected this film to be good too but didn't go with very high expectations and had not read up much. After watching the film her rating is 3 and mine is 5 so I settled for 4.

The first half was barely tolerable for her but I was not to lose hope easily, I thought the second half will probably carry the film through. The second half did arrest our attention more, yet it let us down on the whole. It was definitely not "experience of a lifetime", as one reviewer commented.

The number of small gripes is too many to mention here. Here's a sample - repetitive jokes on lead character's name; way too much Bhojpuri; a person of Parsi accent is shown as a fanatic Church going Christian who throws Aamir out of the Church (how could this have slipped through, I have no clue. Parsis are Zoroastrians. BTW, we are neither Parsi nor overly religious). We found the religion ass-whacking being stretched too far and too long in the film. The whole alien thing was tiring too - a sculpted body for an alien didn't make sense; an evolved alien specie that communicates telepathically is shown to have the same range of emotions as humans, that didn't make sense either.

But those are all small gripes. What I found most significant though is that the film fails on a more fundamental level on its core theme. Hirani picks easy targets with religious heads and fundamentalists like the earlier film (OMG). Also like that film he successfully points out the apparent meaninglessness of religious rituals but does not force people to look inwards to self-reflect. Nor does he address the more difficult question of a substitute to religion. (More serious seekers may find the answer elsewhere, for example, in the amazing Anastasia book-series by Russian author Vladimir Megre)

In final analysis P.K. is a lame attempt at mass appeal. It fails at both entertainment and providing meaning. A big departure from Munna Bhai films and 3 idiots.

Let me predict that the film will also see a sharp decline in box office collections after the initial hype is over.

What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire (2007)

Tough but full of insights. Watch on YouTube

[10/10 · 8 November 2013]

This film is tough to watch. It is information dense and the narrative is fast-paced throughout the two-hour length. Watching it by re-playing bits of it, pausing in-between to read about the people interviewed and the books they've written will take better part of an entire day.

But it is that good. Even if you think you know about these issues inside out, you should still watch. I made the mistake of letting it sit on my computer for a long time. Even after starting to watch a couple of times, I lost interest after a few minutes as I was put off by the lack of pauses that allow you to assimilate what was just said and also because I did not find any new information in the first 20 min of it or so.

It is only in my third attempt that I managed to watch it in full and realised that it goes much deeper than other films. The first 18-20 min is about the personal struggle of the film maker. The conflict that comes from trying to live an ordinary life with a back-of-the-mind awareness that at some level things are deeply wrong. It's the double life we all live, those of us who understand the severity and scale of these crises but do not know what to do about it.

The next 40 min or so is about the crises, categorised here into peak oil, climate change, mass extinction and population overshoot. Then it goes deeper into the ancient origins of the problems, the part that was most revealing. It then explains how modern science and technology perpetrated the "fantasy of no limits", gave us a false sense of control, argued that technology is not neutral, and that technology fixes do not always work in the long run.

There's much more. You'll have to watch it for yourself. A word of thanks to the film makers for making this documentary and making it available on YouTube.

Bombay Talkies (2013)

Not worth it

[5/10 · 5 May 2013]

As we have seen in the past, multiple unconnected stories never compare well to the dedicated 2 hour film format. Still rated it five for the excellent and realistic work by Anurag Kashyap and Dipankar Bannerjee. Really liked Dibakar Banerjee's story in particular. Always a delight to watch Nawazuddin Siddiqui play a role to perfection. Zoya Akhtar's story is feel good but lacks authority. Film opened with Karan Johar's segment, a painful watch. Not only is there little attention to detail but the script appears confused and doesn't carry itself through at all (besides has nothing to do with 'celebrating Indian cinema'). Overall Bombay talkies is not worth spending good money for. Unfortunate because of the stellar performance by Nawazuddin. I'm surprised at the positive reviews.

The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000)

A celebration

[10/10 · 4 July 2002]

I wish the director of the movie was a good friend and that I could pick up the phone and tell him what a marvelous film it is. I love The Vertical Ray of the Sun and purely for the reasons of aesthetics. Although I agree that the story-line leaves something to be desired but that's not important to me. I loved the brilliant art direction of Vertical Ray. This film could be a masterpiece.

The use of colors and imagery of the setting is done in a manner so astonishingly beautiful that one wonders if such a film could be made. That such a place indeed does exist. The Vertical Ray of the Sun draws its strength not from cleverness, titillation or intimidation but from its beauty, simplicity and goodness.

The most "illuminous" scene, as one reviewer puts it, is the one between Lien and Khanh when she tells him with her eyes lowered and with a wonderful smile on her face that she's pregnant. Another thing I loved about it is that it brought me closer to the 'Far' East. I live in India and Vertical Ray was perhaps my first movie from that part of the world. It was wonderful watching another country mirror the same values that we hold so close to our heart. Like that prayer scene... the respect they show for elders, the whole family living together. This makes me like these characters immensely.

Having said that, the film could have done with a few less affairs. I have no problem with the love scenes. I think they have been portrayed with exceptional beauty. What I found a little unpalatable is the fact that a middle-class Asian family was shown uncharacteristically active while pursuing happiness outside the conventional boundaries. I understand that the Director, though from Vietnam lived in France most of his life. I think we face this problem even in India. I'm talking about filmmakers who live in the west and come back every year or so to make movies on OUR lives, interpreting it the way they want it. Anyway, that's a tiny little thing.

I found a revealing quote from the art director on aesthetics of the movie: "Taking a cue from the director, a context, or a story, you begin to think in terms of red, green, yellow or blue... the choice of sets, their conception, their arrangement takes on a particular resonance and the design becomes an actor in its own right." Vertical Ray of The Sun is a celebration.