balyan-rahul Reviews

Doctor Strange (2016)

Eastern mysticism wrapped in a spectacular super-hero story

[9/10 · 6 November 2016]

Highly entertaining, and has many layers to the story. There is a spiritual depth to it, and the visualization of eastern mysticism is extraordinary. It has just the right amount of humour and cynicism to make it palatable to the uninitiated without losing the core message.

The weakest link is the forced fitment of the other marvel heroes. Even though it is a small integration, it takes away from the core story-line. It felt like the film makers were themselves taken over by the dark side giving-in to their fears and greed, not something Dr strange would recommend himself.

Barring that, go for it... two thumbs up.

Dil Dhadakne Do (2015)

An uplifting movie which celebrates what it means to live and love

[8/10 · 8 June 2015]

Go watch the film. Pardon the makers for the bit of confusion in the 2nd half, but it is worth the time you give this film. It is uplifting, fun, charming, a bit absurd in parts, sad, heartbreaking - all of what makes us human, and it celebrates life in all its shades. You might come back with enough wisdom from the dog to sort some of your own personal issues.

This is not a slapstick, there are no heroes here, and there are no villains... just one big voyage of life where the story unfolds - the slice of life. The acting is top notch by all. Ranbir is amazing as always. Anil kapoor probably gives his best performance of his life i think - or at least one of the few performance of his i have ever liked.

Grab a bucket of pop-corns and switch out into the world that Zoya Akhtar has created - two thumbs up.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

In a boringly sane world, a bit of madness is something to celebrate

[8/10 · 16 March 2013]

I am coming late to this film – after it got 8 Oscar nominations (with all 4 acting category nominations), and after a 22 year old Jennifer Lawrence winning the best actress award. I found it to be heart-warming story which approaches love and life with disarming honesty and directness.

The setup is unconventional – a guy chasing his illusion of love in a confused state of mind, and a woman struggling to overcome her sexual addiction while surrounded by men who are preying on her weakness. They both are trying to come to grips with their lives while living with imperfect families, imperfect friends, having imperfect relationships – and soon one forgets who has the mental disorder here. The film doesn't try hard to fit any particular genre; it is more serious than a rom-com or a chick-flick, but does not make heavy weather of the struggles of its characters battling their mental illness. The soundtrack really stands out and lifts many key moments to the music ranging from from Led Zepplin, to Bob Dylan, to Stevie Wonder.

The acting by Jennifer Lawrence is deserving of the Oscar and her skills are far ahead of her young age. I was a bit disappointed by Robet De Niro, he seems to have lost the edge totally and is falling back on the sort of roles he has done in the past. Anupam Kher plays a convincing part and its great to see him get his due for his talent.

In a boringly sane world, a bit of madness is something to celebrate. Must watch – 8.5/10 (from www.rahulbalyan.com )

Aiyyaa (2012)

A brave experimental Bollywood movie for all those who may be getting a bit bored of all the normality in their life

[8/10 · 27 November 2012]

Caught up with Aiyaa this weekend. Every character in this movie is insane, and everything is overboard. And nothing from Bollywood before this has sent me into a 10 minutes long laughter fit than Maina (Anita Date), the craziest character ever invented by Bollywood. This film is the output of a really twisted Mind. Everyone overacts, but that seems to have been done deliberately and adds to the crazy feel of this.

This isn't typical Bollywood, and this isn't something Rani Mukerji or any Indian actress has done in the past. She does a Bindaas role, shakes it all up holding nothing back – and acts spectacularly. Prithviraj Sukumaran, the hero, is the only sane guy and pulls of his intense/ brooding character brilliantly. The movie moves slowly, but the story wasn't meant to go anywhere anyway. Music by Amit Trivedi rocks as usual.

This is a brave experimental Bollywood movie and I highly recommend it to all those who may be getting a bit bored of all the normality in their life. Forget all those movie reviews, most of which have totally panned it – their reviews are for masses… not you ;)

My Rating – 8/10 (From my Blog - http://www.rahulbalyan.com/2012/11/movie-review-aiyyaa/ )

Argo (2012)

Probably the best edge-of-the-seat thriller of 2012

[9/10 · 24 October 2012]

This is one of the best edge-of-the-seat thriller of the year (Currently has an IMDb rating of 8.4, which will take it to the top 50 films of all times). Ben Affleck pulls off an outstanding performance as the actor and a director. It is a real life story of an attempt to rescue six US embassy staff caught up in Iran around the time Iranian revolution, while another 52 are being held hostage in the American embassy at the same time. The rescue plan hatched by CIA is totally outrageous, and there is almost no chance of it succeeding, but it is pitched as the "best bad plan" under the circumstances.

Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) lands in Iran in a hostile environment with most Iranians harbouring deep mistrust and hatred against the USA, and the revolutionary guards hunting down Americans and American sympathisers. And CIA is concerned that to have their operatives caught inside Iran would be a massive embarrassment for the USA. Also a failure of the mission would mean death for all the hostages, and even for the Canadian ambassador and his wife who have have helped harbour the Americans. Just as Mendez is all set to roll out the escape plan, CIA gets cold feet and the whole plan is ordered to be shut down. He alone has to take a decision if he should still take-on the responsibility for the hostages and to help them or not (this part is apparently stretching the actual story a bit, but what the heck, it is all beautifully done).

Every element of this movie has been crafted to perfection – reproduction of actual events, the casting, the makeups (must see the closing credits for the references), capturing the chaos of the revolution on-ground, and the whole feel of the 1970's. Even the film processing gives it a 70s feel. The dialogues are sparkling ("If we wanted applause, we would have joined the circus" ) and keep you engaged. There aren't many films where the audience break into spontaneous applause as the story unfolds. By the end you are emotionally invested in the outcome and Ben Affleck doest let go of you off the hook till the end.

Go watch… My rating – 9/10 (from www.Rahulbalyan.com)

Student of the Year (2012)

SOTY tries to be a modern version of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, but it does not have the same innocence or freshness about it

[3/10 · 22 October 2012]

Student of the year tries to be a modern version of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, but it does not have the same innocence or freshness about it. Like so much of Bollywood which loves to be "inspired", this one seems to particularly incestuous in its inspirations. References to old Bollywood movie are rife and are totally irrelevant to the story. The remixed songs, random uses of recycled props (daflies, bells in a temple, with clip from an Amitabh movie etc), etc seem like pure indulgences of the maker who is in love with the Bollywood that he grew on as a kid. But the ticket paying audiences of today deserve a bit more than this staleness.

Student of the year feels like Bollywood's fantasy about today's youth. It is not clear if the story is set in a school or a college. The world that the characters inhabit is pretty unidimensional and stereotypical of Bollywood – All girls are just pretty young things who like to flaunt their bodies, chase guys and have no other ambitions of their own. The guys are competitive beef cakes who throw corny dialogues at each other like Tuhjhe Maarunga, Lekin Usese Pehle Gale Lagaunga, and are looking for a reason to hug each other all the time. Adding a gay dean and trying to keep it funny while being sort of apologetic about gays takes the cake for poor taste. I know this is Bollywood, and suspension of dis-belief is a crucial requirement to enjoy it, but this film pushes the limits of ridiculousness pretty far out.

The core of the story revolves around the award for Student of the year. The winner is supposed to get a scholarship for higher education at ivy league college anywhere in the world. By the end of the movie it I was wondering what will be the admission essay of the winner to Harvard sound like :

Sir, I have been awarded the Student of the Year in my school which makes me special. I won a really competitive treasure hunt, and that tells you some things about me, Uummm, well, lets leave that as a clue for you to solve. I now also have that hot chick with the hottest legs in school and who has windswept hair all the time, and who comes with that big cup; so maybe that tells you that I am satisfied with nothing but the best, and I am charming and can become a successful investment banker too. I dance well and last the longest on the floor as I proved in the prom (our prom is a bit different that yours). Even Farah Khan aunty was there to give me two thumbs up and Kajol also winked at me on the floor, so maybe that tells you that I enjoy culture and arts too. I play football, I run, I swim, I even cycle (you ask why cycle, obviously you haven't seen Jo Jeeta Wohi Sinkandar…). My biggest regret is that Sharukh uncle didn't join me on the floor that day, I had practised his step better than him and would have shown Karan uncle that his faith in me is well deserved. I know I am the best and so totally cool enough to be at Harvard. You deserve me. — Cheers (from the guy who only half smiles…)

Midway I think Karan kind-of realised the silliness of it all. In his script he gets a fat boy gets drunk (am calling him that because that is his stereotype), and launches him into a badly acted outburst listing out all the flaws of this contest and how ridiculous it all is. The trick of berating your own film inside the same film doesn't really get anyone off the hook in my blog. So if you anyway knew this was all junk, why did you still do it? The ending is predictable and there is nothing at stake by the time it happens.

The three young actors act well, especially for a debut. They all ooze confidence, look all sexy, and push up the bra, oh I mean bar, for all the entrenched and ageing Bollywood stars. Other than these three, everyone else does a hack job. Boman Irani's boy is totally out of place. The other kids don't matter much anyway. Music sucks except for the title track, but even for that the spoof version is so much better. The background score is unbearable at most places and the creators rely too much on it to lift weak screenplays.

This is another one of those films that exploits the brand value of the producer/stars to pull in audience (a 20Cr marketing budget may also have something to do with it) and leaves them with a substandard experience. I wonder when will this exploitation come to bite Bollywood back on its butt, and the viewers will all get wiser. Totally avoid this film, and watch Jo Jeeta Wohi Sinkandar again instead. (from www.Rahulbalyan.com )

My rating – 3/10

Barfi! (2012)

Why Barfi! wont win an Oscar (Spoiler Alert)

[7/10 · 23 September 2012]

Barfi is fresh for Bollywood. It is a great celebration of Life and at no point does it linger on the disabilities of the key characters. There is lightness about the movie, and the slapstick comedy enhances the experience, all credit to Ranbir's charm. The premise of the movie is a bit forced, but Anurag Basu somehow infuses credibility into the most unlikeliest of Love triangles, and makes it work. The slightly poor script is held together by wonderful acting by Ranbir Kapoor. He clearly is one of the very few authentic acting talents in Bollywood, and anything this guy touches turns to gold. Anurag Basu's mastercraft is visible throughout the movie with many moving touches. The whole backdrop of Darjeeling gives it a fresh feel and has been used really well. And the music is nice, and helps build the mood of the movie.

But will it get the Oscars (It is India's official entry to Oscars)? I don't think so. It misses on a number of accounts, but the fatal flaw is that it is too long. Anurag Basu just did not have the heart to cut up this labour of love, and has left too much into the movie that distracts from building the story. The movie goes round in circles, the motives of characters are all suspect (and not in a good way). There are some nice moments, but the story starts lingering around too many of them, without adding anything new to the story. Props get overused – too many train scene, too many shots of Howrah bridge, too many paper birds, too many kidnappings of the same person. And the use of that band in the background – fresh for Bollywood, but this is a trick lifted from somewhere. Flashback is poorly used and does nothing to enhance the impact of the story. At some point you know how the movie will end, and the film does not disappoint.

Other than Ranbir, all others actors are fairly clueless about what is going on – except for maybe the Saurabh Shula (The inspector). Priyanka Chopra (Jhilmil Chatterjee) has over interpreted an autistic person (and what is with that false fake looking gums?) and is uncomfortable in the role. Ileana D'Cruz (Shruti Sengupta) brings no special touch to the movie. The makeup is amateurish… and I think does serious damage to the credibility of the entire movie.

With a 30 min cut, most flaws would have disappeared. Flashback should not have been used atall. That marriage song right at the end could have been used in the main story itself somewhere and replaced some of the other weaker segments, it is powerfully done but comes too late in the movie and is a wasted opportunity to build a stronger connect with the audience.

Overall, I would rate it at 7/10 and would recommend you do watch it, but I am not betting on it winning the Oscars…

(from my blog at http://www.rahulbalyan.com/ )

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

'The Dark Knight Rises' misses greatness by a bats whisker

[8/10 · 28 July 2012]

The dark knight rises, is a pretty awesome movie. Batman meets a foe that is stronger than him, loses all to him and then has to struggle to rise against him. The theme of evil brewing under the city, the dark underbelly literally, is a powerful metaphor and adds to the ominous feel of the rise of the evil. You forget that this is a Superhero thriller, and are pulled into this gritty narrative of Gotham city about to be annihilated.

The theme of inequality in society is played up and seems like it has been inspired from recent events like Occupy wall street. As Selina the Catwoman says- 'There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.' There is a sequence of the assault on stock exchange, the hatred for the rich, the summary judgements on the rich through public trials etc, a scene probably out of the Khmer Rouge, or even of the rise of Nazism. The evil rises in the context of social discontent, rising on a tide of public chaos but eventually you know that public has been led astray, as the evil is merely using this discontent to legitimise its control – an instructive lesson for most democracies everywhere I guess.

The remarkable feature of this Christopher Nolan movie is that even though you know that the evil will somehow be defeated by Batman in the end, you still cant be sure what surprise Nolan may throw at you. However when the end does come it is a bit underwhelming, and which does reduce the impact of this movie. There are some parts of the script that are a bit weak but there is enough going on for them not to matter. A tighter ending would have taken it to greatness, it almost makes it.

Ishaqzaade (2012)

Isqzaade has no redeeming features

[1/10 · 13 May 2012]

Isqzaade has no redeeming features. The only remarkable thing about it is how it saw the light of the day, and how could so many people have been fooled to fill the hall.

It is overloaded with ugliness; be it the locations, the politics, the sexist streak, the crassness, religious stereotypes, language used. It is being positioned as a volatile, small town love story… well it isn't. It is better described as a deranged fantasy of an incompetent writer/ director/ producer. The acting is bad, but I don't blame Arjun Kapoor or Parineeti Chopra – characters are badly fleshed out, story line is aimless, and motivations of everyone in the movie are unclear. Actually, all characters exhibit traits of a crazy person - fluctuating between extreme emotions a bit too easily, showing complete absence of any forethought, having no moral dilemmas.

This movie brings a bad name to all the critics who have recommended it. So here is my good deed of the day – please don't watch it… this movie is Junk.

Ra.One (2011)

Ra.One is a great Con Job

[26 October 2011]

RaOne is a successful con job. Commercial success will eclipse the fact that the quality of experience is poor and not quite commensurate with the scale of commercial success. My rating on the movie is 2 out of 5.

SRK has a lot on his shoulders. He has to play the role of a clumsy dad with a south-Indian accent, who can also dance like Micheal Jackson for his son, and then sing an item number in perfect Hindi, and then going onto becoming a charming Android. He needs to be ruthless with evil, and the ultimate romantic with the leading Lady. His sense of humor needs to have the a mix of slapstick and crudeness since that seems to really get the crowd going. But he seems to have got them all by their main parts, as the movie keeps focusing on someone either getting kicked there, or catching a fire there, or getting beeped at the security check. Even the little kid soon catches on the trick and tell his mom to use it the villains main part to her advantage.

This movie also tell us that Indian boys as young as 11 can code programs that jump out of the screen to somehow tap into all the electromagnetic radiations around us to turn them into physical matter and then bring it all to life – this really is stretching the concept of matter being electromagnetic waves and particle at subatomic levels. And so, it is apparent to me now that reason why humanity still hasn't cracked AI (artificial intelligence) yet is that we don't have enough 11 year old kids in the Labs. Seems easy to fix, if only we can get all the 11 yo brats to finish their milk all by themselves. It must be pretty heartbreaking for all the Indian moms, most of who are SRK fans, for this new task for their kids – finish homework, come first in class, and program G1 to life.

The movie taps into the ultimate fail-safe formula of using (and perpetuating) the Indian stereotype. Instead of using a Sardar, they use a Madrasi. A South-Indian eating noodles with his hands, and adding curd to it is quite the epitome of thinking that this movie achieves, and gets a few laughs from the crowd too. Disclosure – The thought of it cracked me up a too, but more for the nerve of the director to go ahead with this crude gross joke.

The movie assumes that Indians need to be spoon fed explanations. Everything is over explained, again and again, repeatedly, as if we really wont understand it the first time, till even the people who don't talk in Hindi get it, till all our cows come home. I wrote this paragraph for effects, just to make my point, so that all of you get it too, and by the way it was written in the same style as Bellwood tries to explain the events, by over explaining things. If you still don't get it you can write to me with a subject line as 'Duh'.

It is clear that the film makers are quite proud of their special effects, they keep repeating them so often. With the bombastic claim that the movie has more special effects than Avataar, I guess it became the sworn duty of the movie maker to Honor the vision of the special effects programming coder, who he probably paid by the hour and thus to use as much of that footage in the film, creative integrity be dammed.

This action sequence, in the typical Bellwood tradition, are partly comic and partly 'saving the world' sort of serious. The conclusion of these sequences is apparent to all and the only thing uncertain is the health of your ears when you walk out after listening to the amped up background score on these sequences. Edge of the seat experience may not be there, but it is more than made up by special effects like the appearance of lord ganesha to help the hero stopping a train from wrecking Mumbai.

Then there is the whole marketing circus that happens in before the movie release. Clearly SRK has used his considerable charms to manipulate the whole world, including the professional critics. Mr Taran Adarsh had his moment in the sun too when he became the trending topic on twitter for his rating of 4.5 out of 5 a day before the movie release (through a special preview), most of it negative. Nikat Kazmi gives it 4.5 too. But most other non-professional reviews seem to be giving it no more than 2. My own rating is 2. This wide width in ratings cant be explained in any other way.

But it is Diwali , people want a good time, or as they say timepass. As i walked out, I overhead a disgruntled fan crib, "ye kia sci fi type picture banaya hai…" I guess we get what we deserve.