ilooklikesumit Reviews

Gulaal (2009)

Anurag Kashyap enthusiastic flick...

[9/10 · 24 July 2011]

"Gulaal" starring too many unknown faces like Raja Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Jesse Randhawa along with the brilliant Kay Kay Menon, is unusually bold for a fictionalization based on real events. Using the plot on pursuit of power, betrayal and hypocrisies, the movie explores those corners that have never been attempted before. The remarkable thing about this Anurag Kashyap directorial is the way different layers accumulated into one solid drama. Presenting diverse characters form John Lennon fan Piyush Mishra to a minor role of Tabu fan Mahie Gill, every character is well refined. Anurag Kashyap has shown the enthusiasm in each scene with experimental cinematography like continuous use of red filters and yellow light.

SPOILER ALERT:: Initiating from the college ragging, the movie takes several turns into various interesting issues. The scene of Ransa mocking Karan after being kidnapped and Karan killing him is terrific. Also Raja Chaudhary was stunning in a particular scene giving an awkward speech. But the final scene where blinded by his love for Kiran, the violent and aggressive Dilip reminds me of Travis Bickle getting outraged in the final scene of the "Taxi driver".

While each individual performance is of high standards, Kay Kay Menon shines as Dukey Bana, while Raja Chaudhary showed the innocence of Dilip very naturally. In a relatively small role, we have Piyush Mishra, as the eccentric poet Prithvi Bana successfully showing his presence. Also he gave the music for the movie which complements the movie in every way.

In the end we get a dish served with various character and cooked by the brilliant Anurag Kashyap who knows the world he's showing making this movie an engaging watch. A huge impact of theater can be seen in the movie due to Anurag Kashyap's theater background but still it's a great show that shouldn't be missed.

The Wrestler (2008)

Over the top of the Ring

[9/10 · 23 July 2011]

"The Wrestler" is a movie about time and being molded to the process that one has lived for most of life. Being a part of something empowers one so much that the real world hardly matters. Same happens to Randy "The Ram", He's felt himself powerless in the outer world when age and his heart problem halts his professional wrestling. The progress of this story, which is about how a men living his life over the top of the ring stepping outside of arena is wonderfully unfolded. The Wrestler is a not a hard movie or the theme too is something that has been tried many times before but never before the tale has been as gripping as this one.

SPOILER ALERT:: There are key moments in the film, as when Randy misses misses his dinner with Stephanie and apologizes, but Stephanie angrily cries and says that she never wants to see him again. Also the scene agitated Randy cuts his hand on the deli slicer machine and goes on a rampage in the store, before quitting. And Specially, the final scene where He climbs the top rope and stands up and salutes the crowd in tears as the screen abruptly cuts to black.

The director, Darren Aronofsky draws the this warm tale with honesty, keeping things as real as possible did a splendid job. This could have easily a lame movie if it wasn't this director since its real hard to make a movie with simplicity still having depth of an ocean.

Mickey Rouke was impressively enjoying this role. He was so real and brought so much of intensity to the role. Ditto for Marissa Tomei who complimented Mickey Rouke in every scene with her performance.

"The Wrestler" is a lot of life, warmth in the friendship that builds up between Randy and Pam. The hardcore match in the match was exciting and a real thrill. But mostly the film takes a sensitive look at the fish out of water phenomenon.

Twelve (2010)

A Potential Story depicted wrongly

[5/10 · 22 July 2011]

Joel Schumacher a name behind some terribly fun stuff and too many out of the track movies. While I actually liked his badly reviewed "The Number 23", this new offering from Shumacher is a bore. The plot of the movie is something with high potential though too many movies relying on the similar theme about teen frustrations, drugs et cetera et cetera have been attempted many times before. But what lacked here is the proper narration of the story. The huge problem is it takes too much time to introduce its characters to stabilize the movie and most of these are played by too many lame actors. Also the constant background narration by Kiefer Sutherland has been a bump in the flow of the movie. While in movies like Fight Club, the background narration added thrill and were used in the esthetically, here these narration were actually bumps and slowed down pace of the movie. A creative cinematography and nice editing was also lacking. So, At the end of the movie all slow paced movie with zero intensity.