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Reviews
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Well Begun and Left Half Done
The movie opens with some painful scenes. An army captain laments about how his life is not what he wanted it to be. He sits there in his room naked, drinks, smokes, cuts himself, has almost lost his mind, and doesn't quite know what to do next. Tragedy in uniform never was this well captured.
As for the movie, tragedy in film-making was never this well accomplished. While the first half battles beautifully and successfully for your attention, the second half makes its duty to make you run away. This I hardly expected from Francis Ford Coppola.
With a running time of 202 minutes, Apocalypse Now: Redux is all about the Vietnam war and the wretched cruel havoc that sliced through every American soldier who happened to be part of the operation. While it details the slow but sure degradation of the senses of these soldiers, it weaves together the tale of a Special Forces guy tasked with a mission to assassinate another Special Forces guy who -fed up with all the bloodshed-has turned insane and wages a war of his own deep in the jungles of Cambodia.
I have no complaints about the first half. It's splendid and no matter how many superlatives you use, you just cannot do justice to its description. The visuals are stunning. There's never a moment the cameraman lost his control on his art. The battle scenes are dipped in sunsets reeking of gold that swerve all over the screen and make it a delight to watch. The beauty of the shores and backwaters of the Philippines is passed off as Vietnam and the action scenes swirl in majestic hues of green and ocean blue. The battle scenes themselves are black comedy personified: The commanding officer (Robert Duvall) bothers more about his surfing than the danger his men face. And he decides to play Wagner in the midst of the noise that missiles and machine guns orchestrate.
Coppola scripts and captures a truly fearful ambiance as the search unit makes it way down or up the river and the thrills are thrown in with just the right pace. But once the thrills are done with and the monologue starts off, inevitably, the film drags itself to the bottom of the river and mumbles to itself.
This is the veritable second half in which begins the deterioration.
The whole enterprise thereafter seems to have been shot on whims and fancies that ultimately decided to head nowhere. Even as the search party does reach its destination, you can sense the director doesn't quite know how to tie up his portmanteau and say goodbye.
So he dilly dallies. He throws in decapitated bodies, severed heads, mumbo-jumbo about the Vietnam war - all passed off as excuses why the rogue became a rogue after all. There was no need for an explanation, really. The agonies the army went through were established earlier on in the movie. So Marlon Brando repeating it all while the cameraman adds touches of arty cinema is quite irritating to watch.
I think Coppola got carried away - and it's easy for the artistic to fall for that - and ultimately was so in love with whatever he shot, he did not want to do away with anything. Either that or he shot the movie when he was high. In fact, I think Brando was on weed himself.
He's horrible as the alleged insane rogue. Apparently, he had put on weight and so, he's forever in the shadows. So you see none of the physical enigma that he is famous for. Worse is the fact that he doesn't look mean and doesn't even scare you - his love for decapitated bodies and severed heads notwithstanding. Brando is deadpan - almost like wood.
The aura that Coppola draws around Brando's character giggles and vanishes in thin air as Brando himself makes it to the screen. There's no command, no hint of power, scarcely a mean look, and he looks quite uninterested in making an effort to do his job. Let's say he chose to be a lump of meat embroidered with acres of fat and thought his name will shoot down all criticism of his act.
Harrison Ford is wasted in a two-minute role that could have been easily edited out. Why he allowed himself into this venture I have no clue. Perhaps the star cast attracted him into the venture, or maybe it was the money. Whatever it was, the role he landed needed skills that could have come with any Dick, Tom, or Harrylina!
A young Laurence Fishburne makes quite an impression as a 17-year old sailor and Martin Sheen's expressions make you feel the angst and depression his character toys with every second of the movie.
The soundtrack is in synch with the scenes and The Doors have been used extensively in the finale. However, the end comes as if it's served as a complimentary side dish to placate your annoyance with the entire course. And so you end up appreciating neither the music nor the scenes woven around it for you just want to finish your meal before you fall asleep.
All said and done, the movie brings out the tragedy of Vietnam with a flair necessary for such a saga. All the frustration is well filmed and the idiocy of the generals in charge makes for some nice black comedy. If only Coppola had to stick to subtlety as he did in the first half and not let himself get dragged into a rather Bollywoodish explosion of drama, Apocalypse now: Redux would not have limped in dreadful slow motion to the finishing line.
Kites (2010)
This Saucer Doesn't Catch The Spill
You do not have to be a psychotic student of rocket science to deduce that Kites is all set to bomb. In fact, it bombed the day its posters released. Oh really, I mean that! Take a look at them: You see Hrithik Roshan walking in the desert like a thakela* aadmi**, you see Barbara - well, not in the mori*** - but against the sky looking nowhere in particular. And yes, you see one big dazzling spot of light behind Hritik and that's supposed to be the thirsty Mexican Sun.
That description sounds boring no? But then that's what the production is: Spectacularly boring. To make matters even clearer, the trailers turned up - complete with Barbara semi-naked in the Mexican desert, trying hard to cover her naked ignorance of facial expressions and Hrithik Roshan showing off an accent and - of course - his dancing skills. Evidently, that fellow just can not believe his luck that he is born Indian. He's been peddling himself off as some Greek guy from the Mediterranean region with so much aggression, I have a hard time believing his luck is so damn rotten.
Anyway, the trailers came and went and all they did was cause men to slip on the drool that flowed out of their mouths; courtesy Moriji. The action scenes looked so blah, Bond's martini must have hardly been shaken, forget stirred. But even then no one in the production team bothered to sit up and do some damage control.
"Well," they said to themselves, "We have the Roshans, we have the naked babe, we have so much money, we have two versions of the movie - one for the dumb and one for the dumber - it's a recipe that will make millions!"
Sigh! Indians! Reliance! And their stupid ways of making movies! They never never learn. I'll be surprised if Kites even recovers production costs. The manner in which they have splashed money and prints all over USA, it's as if someone in the US branch of marketing knows what a colossal mess this is and is trying hard to get some, if not all, in that country to watch this Indo-Mexican cockatoo of a tail.
As for India, the verdict is in. Yes, Hrithik can dance - no denying that. Yes, Barbara Mori is Playboy material - no denying that either. And yes, Anurag Basu has used all the tricks in his book to make a sadela**** thakela 18th century plot look appealing. But no, we have seen it all (Yawn!), seen better (Yawn Yawn!), and yes! We aren't that dumb to not fall asleep!
*thakela = sad, tired (Hindi); **aadmi = man (Hindi); ***mori = bathroom (Marathi); ****sadela = rotten (Hindi)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Mamma Mia! What a Mess!
The premise:
Woman owns a hotel and has a Daughter. Daughter's to marry and wants to know who her father is. Amidst all this, you throw in Greece, ABBA, and the diary of the Woman into the Daughter's hand.
Go see it for:
* ABBA: Mamma Mia, Honey Honey, Take a Chance on Me, Dancing Queen, Our Last Summer, etc, - the film's as close you can get to an anthology of ABBA's works.
* Greece: Shot in vivid, resplendent colour, the island comes alive in the most vivacious manner ever.
Don't bother about:
* The plot line: It's thinner than Sheer! So every emotion is yelled out, and every tear is made into an ocean. Even then, you know you're seeing something thinner than Sheer!
* Meryl Streep: Yes she's a great actress. Yes, she's superb. Yes, she's my favourite too. But this role? Very disappointing!
Watch it with:
* The first date, the retro-date, the rockstar friend, and of course the parents.
Anything else?
Oh yes, only Colin Firth can remember his last summer well - with the notes and melody. The rest - Streep including - should not have gone ahead and sung such a flamboyant mess!
Prime (2005)
A light breezy afternoon of a movie with some delicious takes on life!
The premise:
In this tragicomedy, a psychotherapist finds out her 23-year old son is dating her 37-year old patient. And the headstrong mother in her goes into an overdrive. Well, almost.
Go see it for:
* Meryl Streep - the mother: She has just the right frowns when her son tells her about his girl er.. woman rather. And she retorts just as a mother would when he begins to take things in his own hand.
* Meryl Streep - the therapist: She's even better. Watch her trying to cling to composure as she gets to know intimate details about her son. And observe her erupt silently in spurts and then disguise it all as professionalism. All this, with an ease that makes her job look deceptively simple.
* Uma Thurman: This body beautiful makes for a patient wonderful. As the 37-year old divorcée, she injects just the right pessimism, just enough zest, and just enough verve into her role.
* The plot: Let's say it's a slice of life that's without the icing and the chocolate. You don't want it because it's not nice to look at, but you have to taste it for it's life all the same.
Don't bother about:
Bryan Greenberg: He's handsome. He can barely act. He's goodlooking. He can barely talk. He's a bloke. Actually, he's apt for the role. For the role doesn't demand much.
Watch it with:
* The date majoring in psychology: Chances are 1:- The date will be impressed or 2:- The date will whip out Freud and a dozen textbooks to tell you why the treatment was wrong. Well, either shut up and blush (if chance 1 materializes) or make him/her shut up and watch(if chance 2 comes true).
* Mothers: But do be prepared to hear : "See? See? see what she's saying! After all, we know!"
Anything else? Oh yes, Sandra Bullock almost played Uma Thurman's character. However, she wanted script changes. Ben (the director) did not agree. So she walked out. And that indeed is a pity.