Martin Scorsese’s The Departed: The Perfect Bait To Catch The ‘Oscar’ Shark

‘Lies, Betrayal & Sacrifice. How far will you take it?’ the quote clearly describes Martin Scorsese’s exceptional cop thriller ‘The Departed’. Martin Scorsese voted as one of the best directors ever to be gifted to the film industry, returns back to the gangster genre after a span of 11 years. Goodfellas (1990), Mean Streets (1973), Casino (1995) are few of the illustrations of his master hand in this genre. Inspired from 2002, Hong Kong movie ‘Internal Affairs ‘ The Departed makes the viewers witness assembling of an astral cast altogether. I mean who won’t give a nod to the movie which has Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson & Mark Walberg in decisive roles.

Screenplay crafted in a well paced & witty manner by William Monahan, the film begins with the director playfully shooting Nicholson in the dark for few scenes as you can just glimpse his outsized silhouette while everyone else is in the clear view. Scorsese simply wants to symbolise through this that he is the driving force of all the mayhem & destruction; the monstrous devil. 20 minutes post the film starts, you get to know about the title of the film but by then you have already crafted a general picture of the film’s plot in your mind; An outstandingly clever move by an outstandingly brilliant director.

Frank Costello (Nicholson), the Irish-American Mafioso is the only powerful man holding the reigns of organized crime in Irish neighbourhood in South Boston.  He influences Collin Sullivan (Damon) by seducing altar boy by few gallons of milk & comic books & Sullivan is trained to be his very own secret agent in the Massachusetts State Police department; the department run by Queenan (Martin Sheen).  On the other hand, Leonardo plays Billy Costigan, an honest person from a dishonest family who cannot make it to being a cop owing to his austere family background finally agrees to Queenan’s urge for him to be his undercover informer in Costello’s gang.

After a failed sting operation in spite of Billy tipping the police off, the State Police Department grows quite suspicious of a rat in their own department. Thanks to Sullivan from State Police, even Costello is tad convinced that even he has a police informer in his gang. The entire movie is about how both the organizations make their best to find out the moles around them, finally leading to some shootouts, body counts and unsurpassed scene of carnage.  Matt Damon who appears to be a well behaved & a neat cop pertaining to his clean shaved look but sadly isn’t. He gets involved with the cop psychiatrist Madolyn (Vera Farmiga) and gets into a live-in relationship with her but finally the love tapers towards destruction in the end. The film however gets us the glimpses of some heart-warming intimacy between the couple.

The Departed is a complex story of a paralleled infiltration of organized crime and the police department narrated rather simply as it showcases the idiosyncratic performances of the lead actors & the strong masterstroke of the director. It makes a complicated and potentially convoluted story and delivers it to the audience with sterile clarity. It has the same violence & tension from Goodfellas & Casino minus the narration. However as expected Scorsese has managed to explore the gangster world ahead of the vision & delivered a kaleidoscopic masterpiece.  Needless to say, in my view this happens to be Scorsese’s best gangster movie till date. 

Skyfall: Sadly the best Bond movie ever...Only question is...How??

One of the best Bond movies ever (at least what the film experts call it) ‘Skyfall’ gathered a whopping 1 billion at the box office thus being the only highest earning James Bond movie. Having a budget of 150-200 million, Skyfall takes you to some of the appealing locations in the world. Thanks to Sam Mendes’s extra-ordinary imagination, the film takes us on a mini tour. May it be the ostentatious city of Shanghai to one of the magnificent gambling dens in Macau; Mendes has done an impressive job in the director’s chair.

As a movie buff, I would give my thumbs up to the director without a slight reluctance. Only problem lies with me is the weak plot of the movie clearing giving clichés at some points. I am quite sure that this utter statement which I made might drop some jaws enough to tag me as a hysterical person altogether. But I personally found Daniel Craig starrer ‘Casino Royale’, a far improved & an impeccable endeavour than Skyfall.  

The movie starts with two agents James Bond & Eve Moneypenny chasing a man named Patrice down the streets of Istanbul who has a very important hard drive; something which acquired can save a cataclysmic event.  A terrific bike chase sequence is shown where Bond & Patrice end up falling on the top of the train. “Ok! Now I am excited. Let’s see what Mendes has to show now “ was how my thoughts were directed watching Bond & Patrice engage in a pernicious fistfight.

But somehow I was disappointed when Eve who got herself positioned alongside with a sniper rifle under the pretext of shooting Patrice, shot Bond instead. It was her mistake. Mistakes do happen. But a man who falls from a height in the waterfall with a bullet in his shoulder is sure to die. But he doesn’t. The question of ‘Who saves him?’ is still unresolved till date. C’mon Mendes, show some realism while making such sequences. Only Indian audiences can put their faith here only because they have been subjected to many such mindless sequences in past.

A presumed-dead James Bond soon returns back to London when his organization MI6 is targeted to massive gas explosions as someone underground hacks into their highly secure systems. Put out on the field by his boss M (Judi Dench) even though he is degraded & merely held on his feet by alcohol, Bond makes himself ready to chase down this hacker who has started a grudge mission against British Secret service. The film is magnificent, Bond happens to look cooler than before but the plot is flawed at places but somehow those flaws aren’t important enough to be noticed by viewers.

But some scenes did deserve some more thinking, brilliance & realism. I recollect a scene where Silva, the hacker is caught up & held in MI6 headquarters but he soon escapes the cell with no bigger fuss than you could imagine. Mendes did his best to imitate the Joker sequence from The Dark Knight but ended up doing rather childishly. I mean as soon as the bespectacled geeky-looking genius ‘Q’ connects Silva’s laptop to the main server, the port generates an algorithm hacking the entire system thus setting the cell door open. Now you don’t really require a cinematic vision to think about such a plot. Even a not-so-expert naive software engineer can think about such an idea. The movie deserved better considering the hype it left behind after its release.  Then they mention that Silva’s planning the escape since years. Oh really! I mean he really knew the new changed location of MI6 after gas bombing since years. Admirable foresight he has I must say.

The action sequence towards the end of the movie looks promising except few unanswered questions which still linger in my mind.

I heard bullet in legs can take days for an unattended victim to die. So how does M succumb to her injury just after hours of being shot on her leg?

A helicopter falls on the mansion & there is a massive explosion & anything within a radius of few meters of the bungalow is sure to be caught in fire. But Silva who is just standing in front of the house escapes without even a small burn or a bruise. How?

Jump in the water beneath the ice & I am confident you won’t even be able to stand properly when you get out. But here comes James Bond as if he is just back from his regular swimming sessions.

Overall, I have no qualms with Skyfall except the fact that a small love story or a romantic angle at some point could have been poignant on the celluloid. The film is opulent & deserved more judging Craig’s superb acting. Nevertheless I personally feel the tag of the highest Bond earning movie would have looked better on ‘Casino Royale’ rather than ‘Skyfall’.

But for action lovers, Skyfall is not worth giving a miss. It remains brilliant if the sluggish flaws are proudly overlooked. I tried doing it but I failed to know why. Maybe others can. 

Good Luck!

My Name is Khan : Was it a worthy endeavour to bag a National Award ?

Rizwan Khan : I want to see the President of the United States
Security Incharge : Why ? Is he a friend of yours ?
Rizwan : No No. He is not a friend of mine. I have something to say to him.

That is Karan Johar's My Name is Khan, his most flawless & perfect film till date. The MNIK trailer which released in the 2009 year end attracted the attention of most of the public as well as the critics. " Oh ! Damn ! another film based on 9/11 tragedy after Kurbaan. "  was one such comment displaying negation about the film since Kurbaan starring Saif Ali Khan & Kareena Kapoor proved to be a box-office debacle. Although people mistook MNIK to be a film on terrorism judging from the famous one liner from the movie where Shah Rukh says " My Name is Khan And I am Not a terrorist ", it wasn't one.

So the question is was that film worthy enough to receive a National Award ?

Yes, MNIK was different & innovative. Firstly, it being a Karan Johar film, itself promises a emotionally-powerful experience. Secondly, it brought the much coveted offscreen couple SRK & Kajol together after a long span of 9 years. And Thirdly, SRK had shed off his usual superstar persona & essayed the role of an autistic for the first time in his career.

Yeah, it must have required a sheer amount of hard work & dedication. Bearing a strong resemblance to Russell Crowe's role as schizophrenic in Ron Howard's ' A Beautiful Mind ', Shah Rukh Khan managed to pull it off quite well & enacted the role of an Asperger's Syndrome victim with subtlety. Sources say that he used to live as the character of the film even at his own residence only to perfect himself more & more.

As far as the sensitive & riveting storyline, outstanding direction & lead actor's extraordinary brilliance put into the film was concerned, the films had all its points up as the contender for a National Award. As far as the story of the film is taken into view, if you listen to it verbally it sounds too naive since story of an autistic who goes on a journey to win back his love sounds a little boring but it wasn't. Instead it was powerful & poignant.

Overall, on the celluloid , the movie is a love story; a genre where Johar has expressed his mastery before in collaboration with Shah Rukh in films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham & Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. However main focus of his previously directed ventures was on human relationships; may it be a father-son relationship or may it be showing an extra-martial affair .

However, MNIK was bigger & dealt with some real-life issues, adding a religious flavour to it. The plotline is engaging as it progresses. Rizwan Khan suffering from Asperger's Syndrome stays with his mother & brother in Mumbai. " There are only two types of people in this world. The good & the evil. There exists no other difference " Zarina Wahab who plays Rizwan's ammi gives him the most important lesson of his life thus setting up the tone of the film. This message is the only platform where the whole movie stands firmly on as you see numerous occasions where Rizwan applies various other values, which his ammi has successfully inculcated in him.

But soon after her death, Rizwan migrates to San Fransisco, USA to stay with his brother Zakir (Jimmy Shergill ). But soon a void is created in the relationship between the brothers as Rizwan decides to marry a Hindu girl, Mandira (Kajol). The film shows some of the really enchanting scenes as Rizwan desperately tries all possible ways to win the heart of his lady love & finally succeeding in his attempts. Gradually after few years of marriage, 9/11 tragedy creeps in & all thanks to the evil prejudices of the extremists, every Muslim in US gets frowned upon as a downright terrorist by the inhabitants and in such atmosphere even an autistic Muslim was not an exception.

Further, Rizwan's step son & his only best friend Sameer gets beaten up by the college bullies & dies eventually due to internal bleeding. The cause of his unintentional beating up was the fact that he was a son of a Muslim and this enrages Mandira who thinks it was her fault that she married a Muslim & out of fury, she tells Rizwan to leave the house. Out of pain & agony, Rizwan embarks upon a long journey to win back his love. His repeated failed attempts to tell the President of the United States that " His name is Khan & he is not a terrorist " showcases Khan's wish to broadcast it globally that even if he is a Muslim, it doesn't imply in any sense that he is a terror causing entity.

MNIK is a story of this man's journey who inspires humanity in every way possible. A clear display of tolerance, perseverance, religion & the strong power of love is dis

played in MNIK. It captivates you for the entire duration & keeps you totally mesmerized with some strong performances by the lead cast.

The most emotional & lump-in-the-throat causing scene was the one where after being revived of the charges of being a terrorist, Rizwan goes to rescue one of the best acquaintances he had; Mama Jenny & her son Funny Hair Joel from floods in Wilhelmina, Georgia.  The media covers the scenes of his rescue attempts & broadcasts it on TV claiming that very person who was suspected to be a terrorist is rescuing the flood-stricken victims in Georgia. Rizwan not only does good but also inspires it in every way possible.


 An artistic direction, excellent cinematography, an engaging & a new concept & award-winning performances by the lead pair itself make MNIK a worthy endeavour to bag the National Award for the best film.


But unfortunately, it didnt !

Why Kamal Hassan's Hey Ram happens to be one among the most creative Indian cinemas ?

The Outstanding Experiment with the truth

Kamal Hassan, one of the most popular & talented actors from South started his directorial debut with the funny & entertaining ‘Chachi 420’ where Hassan mastered the role of an old woman with ease. After a rib-tickling endeavour, Kamal Hassan grabbed the reigns to direct a powerful film of a completely new genre, ‘Hey Ram’ a film which displayed the communal instability in India post Independence in 1947. The words breathed last by the great leader of our country, Mahatma Gandhi itself reveals the fact that the film is based on a semi-fictional plot involved in the assassination of Gandhi.

Gathering an ensemble cast from Bollywood, Hassan made it a point to make a very commercial approach to the film. The film starred Kamal Hassan as the protagonist while Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Hema Malini, Naseeruddin Shah & Om Puri handled small but significant roles.

The film commences on 6^th December 1999 which marked the 7^th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition which invited communal riots between Hindus & Muslims. On this date, in a dark dingy room lay 89-year old Saket Ram on his death bed with his grandson by his side. The film time-travels to the era of 1940’s where Pakistan & India where being partitioned and that was the reason why two best friends Saket Ram (Kamal) & Amjad Ali Khan (Shah Rukh), who were archaeologists working for a British named Wheeler were told to stop their work & return back to their respective homes.

Saket Ram returns back to Calcutta to his Bengali wife, Aparna (Rani) but tragedy follows after him as Aparna gets sexually assaulted & killed by Muslim extremists in the locality. A distraught & enraged Saket Ram meets Abhyankar, a revolutionary who convinces Ram that Mahatma Gandhi is solely responsible for this bloodbath. Succumbed to family pressure, Saket Ram marries a teenager Maithili (Vasundhara Das).  The film displays some intimate scenes between Saket & Maithili. The scenes are so detailed that you find yourself astonished as why Censor Board  did not intervene with their snipping tool.

The film revolves entirely around Saket Ram’s life as he collaborates with Abhyankar and Maharaja and offers to help them in the plot to assassinate Gandhi. Shah Rukh Khan as Amjad Ali Khan is entirely used as a commercial weapon by Kamal Hassan as inspite of having just 30 minutes in the film; SRK has successfully managed to uplift the standard of the film. He plays a Muslim Pathan who rescues Saket Ram who gets trapped in the communal riots in curfew-struck Muslim community in Delhi.

The film indeed deserved more of Shah Rukh Khan’s exquisite display of acting skills as his inclusion in Hey Ram poster must have promised the viewers a parallel role alongside Kamal. The film has some really advanced & subtle effects, the film although shot in 2000 makes you feel as if the film is shot in the early 60’s. The 1999 India scenario is showcased in black & white to distinguish it well with the cinematic representation of happenings in past.

Hey Ram is powerful as it deals efficiently with universal & contemporary themes set in the post-Independence India.  Thanks to Kamal’s creative mind & brilliance put into the film, film was chosen as India’s official entry to Oscars to be considered as nomination in Best Foreign Film of the year.  Hey Ram is story of fictional character whose life gets turned up-side down because of some real life incidents in 1940’s that have changed the course of history. The film concludes admirably in a poignant manner

People having a fine taste for art films, Hey Ram will give you one of the best cinematic experiences of your life.

Christopher Nolan : His Past & Future

The first Christopher Nolan movie I had watched was the famous stunner ‘The Dark Knight’ which starred the unforgettable & remarkable Heath Ledger featuring as an antagonist. As I gradually withdrew my attention from Ledger’s villainous role as the evil Joker, I slowly started looking more into the director. He appeared to be a man having a vision & the best knowledge on how to thrill the viewers with his extra-ordinary & a stand-out director.

“ So Christopher Nolan that is “, I said to myself as the movie ended &  the director’s name came proudly flashing on my computer screen  as if those letters were proud to form into a name that will be recognized as one of the respected persons in the cinematic world.

The very next day, I ended up browsing for Nolan on the internet, craving to watch more of his impressive ventures. “The Following, Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, The batman Begins, The Dark Knight “, I began moving my eyes through these names. Almost all seemed to be accepted by both critics as well as the audience with rising hopes that he will come up with more of such physiologically-demanded thrillers in the near future.

I downloaded all of them & watched them one after another after proper intervals. The intervals which sent my mind running into thoughts about the film I watched previously, making me completely awestruck over this director.

The Following, which showcased a writer who out of boredom & loneliness took to following random people on the streets desperately plunging himself into the world of theft, deceit & misfortune .

The Memento is a film about a man’s battle with his short term memory loss & his desperate attempts to avenge his wife’s murder.

   

The Prestige: Two warring magicians try to master a very spectacular magic trick even surrendering their own morale. The question is who ends up being the winner.

  

Batman Begins: A playboy billionaire at war with his own conscience rises as a masked vigilante, Batman to save Gotham from crime & terror.

      

Insomnia: Veteran actor Al Pacino plays Detective Will Dormer, who arrives in Alaska under the pretext of investigating a homicide case & ends up getting involved in murder, despair & insomnia

                            

The Dark Knight: The Gotham city gets a new crime lord, The Joker who terrorizes the people of Gotham with his fiendish actions. It is up to Batman & few other heroes of Gotham to save the day.

Inception: A new technology is developed where it becomes possible to access one’s dreams & steal an idea or plant an idea in it. Don Cobb & his associates are hired by a businessman to enter into his rival’s mind & plant a destructive idea in his mind.

  

The Dark Knight Rises: Joker is arrested & Bruce Wayne aka Batman becomes recluse, but not for long. The masked vigilante has to come back to save the city from getting destroyed by the mercenary Bane. Can he succeed?

                                     

                                       

                                          http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0634240/?ref_=sr_2

After all his publicly as well as critically accepted ventures, Christopher Nolan has decided to grab the reins to direct ‘Interstellar’.  Interstellar will take you on a maiden voyage to space revealing all the undisclosed theories &   surpassing all the limitations of space. The film assembles the stellar cast of Mathew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises), Jessica Chastain & Michael Caine (Prestige, Inception, The Batman franchise).

I am not too much involved in sci-fi movies. I find them highly over-rated & unrealistic but as a Nolan-fan I am pretty much convinced that he will pull off outstandingly raising the bar of sci-fi films. Even after directing a hyped movie, Nolan is smart enough to beautify it more by introducing powerful emotions in it, as if he is holding the firm grip on keeping the film emotionally brilliant.

So all I can do is wait for interstellar to hit the theatre for another Nolan-esque thrilling experience in IMAX theatres.  The fact that Christopher Nolan is directing Interstellar promises swooping helicopter shots, Hans Zimmer’s outstanding music, some exquisite plotline & some emotional & thought-provoking conclusion.  

Interstellar is slated to release in the latter half of 2014. 

Chennai Express : Fun-rolled Masala Entertainer !!!

Since the days of Chak De India, judging his grace & his stupendous acting skills, I am a huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan since. A man of substance, he shows his skills in every film through his strong dialogue delivery & a firm grip over the emotional phenomena of the film. Every film he does, he makes it new for his audience & that is what makes him a stand-out actor.

Just few hours back, I caught up with his new film released today ‘Chennai Express’ directed by the Singham & Golmaal director Rohit Shetty, co-starring Deepika Padukone. It showed the King of Romance in a dynamic never-seen-before avatar & some fun-rolled laughter & Rohit Shetty style action.

Not much of surprise, the film touches all the genres of Bollywood completing a circle of entertainment. The film is the mixture of both: humour as well as some serious action. Frankly, I only liked Shetty for Golmaal & Singham. I found that mostly his films lacked sensibility & displayed some mindless insensitive action. But the fact that Shah Rukh Khan is starring in it made me really look into Chennai Express. Because as far as I know SRK, he is one of intelligent brains in Bollywood & knows completely well what he is up to.

Not deviating from Chennai Express, I would like to tell about the plot. The story is about Rahul, a 40 year unmarried man, who lives with his grandparents in Mumbai.  After his grandfather’s death, Rahul embarks on a journey to Goa but a series of confusions & misunderstanding, he finds himself in Chennai Express, a train that brings a big turn in the life of Rahul leading him to the place where he is destined to be.

Frustrated of his misfortune about not being able to go to Goa, Rahul meets Meenama, a South Indian girl from Kumban village in Chennai.  She happens to be the pivotal part of the film that changes the monotony of Rahul’s life. Rahul witnesses the ticket checker of the train being thrown in the waters from running train by the Tamil goons who happen to have kidnapped Meenama, thus being the only witness to the incident. Rahul is plunged into the world where he is being pestered, troubled & led into some humorous mishap. Shetty has depicted all of this in funny way that audience find themselves having the best time of their lives.

Chennai Express is sheer entertainment with fun-filled comedy all over. There is action, romance & humour throughout the film. It will leave smiles on everyone's faces when they leave the theatre. It is very impressive and unlike all Rohit Shetty films, it has the powerful element of emotion, the element which Indian directors use to uplift their standard of cinema. The songs are combination of foot-tapping numbers as well as some melodiously extravagant songs.

If you have caught up with all Rohit Shetty films, this one you will be the most satisfied with. The first time collaboration of Rohit Shetty-SRK duo will undoubtedly set the box office registers ringing.

The Conjuring : Creepy & Terrifying...

Not being a lover of horror films, I never caught up with one in the theatres.  The 1973 Academy-Award winner The Exorcist & the Bollywood horror flick Bhoot, directed by RGV was all I had watched from this genre. According to me, both these films had enough visual & sound effects to terrify the audience. As I was going through Bhoot for the second time, I noticed that the main source of terror was the sudden sound effect (irrespective of the screen showing a demonic creature or not) & RGV had used this trick to scare the audiences more than ghostly horrifying visuals.

A very similar but an enhanced effect accompanied by some great visual effects is what The Conjuring (2013) stands on. The Saw director James Wan extracted a piece of story from the case files of Warrens and directed a supernatural thriller proving to rather more than just a mere horror film. It had the soul accompanied by a well-defined structure.

The film opens up in a remarkable scene where a demonologist Ed Warren & his beautiful clairvoyant wife Lorraine who are paranormal investigators providing rational explanations to strange happenings, investigate a case of the Annabelle doll where a small doll suddenly becomes possessed by the ghost of the 7 year old girl haunting the house of two nurses. The scene remarks the introduction of the two researchers who research & provide solution to malignant ghost invasions in a person or in a accommodation.

The film flies back in 1971 where Carolyn & Roger Perron, with their five daughters move into a bungalow in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Right from the day, they settle in the family experiences weird happenings in the house. Their pet dog Sadie is found dead outside the villa, the mother Carolyn gets strange bruises after she wakes up in the morning every day,  an unknown entity takes to pulling the daughter’s leg every night, the door creaks open mysteriously every now & then. These incidents go on culminating and aggravating as these small strange happenings magnify themselves to reveal large demonic presence in the house.  The menacing situation ends up getting so severe and dreadful that out of fear & despair, the couple resort to the Warrens for help.

The story is not just about the family of Perrons. The life of Warrens is also showcased parallel with the life of Perrons. The film is totally one-sided that you can predict that the lives of these two families are going to end up meeting at an unfortunate turn. The film is not recommended for people with a weak heart as the scenes are impressive but frightening. The demonic visuals are sudden, unexpected & fear-inducing personifying the directorial talent of James Wan since he succeeds effectively in generating chills down the spine.

More enhancing are opening & closing credits in the movie, the weapon most under-utilized in modern cinema as the snapshots from real-life Warren Cases are shown. The film’s cinematography also receives thumbs up as the cinematographer John Leonetti uses some swooping shots to capture characters as they run inside the house.   The film appears to be a winning horror formula after some previously released horror flicks going deep under the ground.

Above all, the director’s clear fascination to horror films like Amityville horror, the Poltergeist & the Exorcist is clearly visible in the film. As the film progresses to the latter half, comparisons of The Conjuring to The Exorcist becomes totally unavoidable  but the director has lived up to the expectations in The Conjuring & succeeded in giving an extra-ordinary film.  For weak hearted people, my message to them is ‘ Try not to scream folks ‘.

Django Unchained : The Most accessible Tarantino movie ever !!!

Being a movie buff, I was well acquainted with Quentin Tarantino for his master-work in two exquisite projects Pulp Fiction (1994) , Inglorious Basterds (2009). That is why I was more eager than usual for watching his 2012 movie, Django Unchained starring Christoph Waltz, Jamie Fox & Leonardo DiCaprio in lead roles. The title comes from Django, 1966 western drama starring Franco Nero who happens to make a remarkable cameo in Django Unchained. The horror that Django Unchained expresses isn’t of slavery, but of a filmmaker attempting historical but a entertaining endeavour while shackled by his own superior persona.

Tarantino found an appropriate channel to exhibit aggression & violence in a dramatic manner. The plot is set up in the year 1958 post Civil War where black negroes were traded, enslaved and tortured in return of money.
The opening sequence depicts two brothers Ace Speck & Dicky Speck with several chained Negro slaves being taken to a place somewhere in Texas. Among those slaves is Django, the slave who is determined to save his wife Broomhilda who is being separated from him during an auction. The Speck brothers during their travel are interrupted by a dentist turned bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Waltz) who offers to buy Django from the Speck brothers but ends up shooting one & injuring other severely since they refuse to initiate the sale & Django gets unchained.Schultz offers Django complete freedom if he identifies the Brittle brothers whom Schultz, being a bounty hunter is required to kill. It somehow happens that Django has the ability to recognize the Brittle brothers as he had worked in their plantations before being auctioned to wilderness. The two go on bounty hunting rampage when finally Schultz gets so enamoured to Django that he offers to aid him in his search to rescue Broomhilda. There is more to Django than just a bounty hunter’s right hand. Django has forbidden love for his wife which he restricts from reflecting on his face as he has Broomhilda on his mind even after being separated from her. Cinematically Tarantino has represented it rather beautifully.
The underlying soul of the film is that the freedman Django & the hitman Schultz are pitted against Calvin Candie, the owner of Candyland plantation & his butcher Stephen to save Broomhilda who is working as a slave in Candyland. The violence is outsize and enormous but not disturbing and Tarantino has successfully created a niche to showcase onscreen violence with several blood splashing & spilling scenes.  The action sequences are blood, gore & comedy-rolled together thus keeping us entertained all the way.

Christoph Waltz ought to get thumbs up for playing a scrupulous, lethal & politely taunting bounty hunter.  Even the role of antagonist Calvin Candie is played beautifully by DiCaprio as he succeeds to look both well-mannered as well as purely evil displaying sheer splendour & ability.
‘Django Unchained’ is 165 minutes long and is filled with moments of agonizing & teased out action and surprises in casting as well as the story.  Some people may have criticized the director on how racist the film happens to be but if you sit throughout the film; you can discover plenty of scenes for the audience to engage in. The world created by Tarantino in film is not just of misery and pain but one having sarcasm, racism, extreme violence and reprehensible people.

Swades recreates a new face for patriotism !!!

"You have to come to India and experience it. Then you will probably know what I am saying ", says Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan), a project manager for Global Precipitation Measurement in NASA to his associate. He knows the beauty which lies inside the culture of India and the importance of being an Indian. Swades: We the people, directed by Ashutosh Gowariker is all about developing a new outlook towards patriotism and also dealing with the relevant issue of brain drain. 

Shah Rukh Khan plays Mohan Bhargava; an Indian NASA scientist migrated to America as he finally manages to shed off his star persona, enacting a subtle but powerful performance, thanks to director's marvellous vision and excellent story-telling. The film starts with American-based Mohan feeling a deep regret over not being able to take care of his nanny (Kaveri amma), while she was old. He expresses his feelings to his associate Vinod (Rahul Vora) as in how Kaveri amma was next to his mother and how she took good care of him when he was a child. 

Filled with an urge to find Kaveri amma, Mohan takes a leave for a week from NASA and sets off to India only to find Kaveri amma in a village called as Charanpur. The fictitious village Charanpur (assumed to be 200 kms near Delhi) broadcasts an Indian rural life which is full of loving, caring and affectionate people but is simultaneously plagued with problems of illiteracy, caste system, child labour and child marriage. As India enjoys urban development, technological leaps, and the software boom, here villagers still struggle to accumulate basic needs such as education and electricity. 
In this small village of Charanpur, Mohan finds himself in a world that stands as the polar opposite to his American lifestyle. He tries to convince Kaveri amma to come with him to America much to the dismay of Geeta (Gayatri Joshi), who lives with Kaveri amma. Geeta is the hindrance in Mohan's task to bring his nanny with him to America. She is strong-willed, straight-forward and has immense love for India and its culture. She repeatedly retorts to Mohan's criticism of the government's inability to provide for its people by questioning his contribution to this society.
The film starts deviating from this a bit as Mohan decides to channelize his energies in making Charanpur a better place to live as he sees the social evils, the village faces. He helps Geeta in persuading more children in the villages nearby to pursue education, thus gradually falling in love with her. Aided by a local postman Dayal Shrivastav and a local dhaba-owner Mela Ram, Mohan sets off on a mission to bring in more children in their local school. Mohan tries to enable greater access to education, especially for girls, and integration of the castes & appeals to the more liberal members of the village except the conservative council members. With time, Mohan becomes more of a diplomat and less of a dictator.
Shah Rukh Khan is sincere, takes you through the gamut of the journey his character Mohan experiences, and even brings in shades to Mohan Bhargava's character. I could literally sense a lighting spark in Mohan's eyes to make his country, one of the best nations in the world. He criticizes the people, claiming that they are irresponsible and do absolutely nothing to make their country progress to pinnacle of glory and you can't help but agree to his diagnosis. 
One of the best climax scenes is the part where Mohan, with the help of his brilliant mind and his experience in the field of science, tries to generate electric power in Charanpur. The scene is shot so beautifully in the village showing how Mohan along with the villagers work day and night to introduce electricity in village starts to get lost in its own darkness.

Sure, no one doubts the sincerity of the idea behind making Swades. Conceptually, it is totally noble. It is admirable how the director keeps the movie totally grounded and down-to-earth, not retreating to any commercial pressures. In spite of the movie being of 189 minutes long, the movie doesn't feel to be slow as the director keeps it extremely well paced. Swades is a sensitive story of good triumphing over the evil, only this time evil doesn't have a face but is rather equated with regressive ideology. Indeed Shah Rukh Khan's performance as Mohan Bhargava will go down as one of his best and the most genuine performances till date.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367110/

Scorsese's Taxi Driver increases the bar for dramatic vigilante films...

Taxi Driver is an American drama directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader inspired from 1956 John Ford film 'The Searchers'. The screenplay is crafted so artistically by Paul showcasing a raw, nerve- wrecking and powerful look at depression and solitude. The film has the capability to become an altogether successful venture when the actor-director synergy can make astonishing wonders happen. De Niro and Scorsese happen to be one such example. The collaboration between these two has given us some of the really extravagant films. The movie starts with a Taxi moving in a slow motion as it leaves a foggy smoke behind as credit starts appearing in the cloud of smoke giving a more artistic feel to the beginning of the movie. Travis Bickle an ex-Marine officer suffering from chronic insomnia returns to Manhattan, New York after the Vietnam War. A person having no real life experience in flesh-and-blood human relationships gets alienated in the city of aflame and enthusiastic people. Travis takes up a job as a taxi driver on a night duty travelling around the city watching the night- life and prowlers that rule the streets of NY after nightfall. He is a person who tries to mimic the interactions he sees on the streets and goes horribly wrong, watches dirty movie in a porno theater, falls for a girl working in the Senator Palantine's campaign, takes her for a porn movie making her feel awkward and terribly angry. His small acts highlight his lack of human touch and his unstable mind.

 The director had pivoted the confused notions of the protagonist successfully as the audience was meant to assume him to be a psycho. Travis in the latter half of the movie, fails in repeated attempts to get his love back and finally makes up his mind to assassinate the Senator only to flaunt his prejudice. After a failed Palantine assassination, Travis freeds himself from frustration as he guns down three men who he holds responsible for corrupting a girl's youth in a brothel to rescue a 12 year old prostitute named Iris in an unsurpassed bloodbath. Scorsese proved himself a creative genius through Taxi driver. Only part remains undisclosed in movie is the reason Iris chose to run away from home only to become a prostitute at an age where she ought to be going to school, giving an uneasy feeling to the viewers. Like all the Scorsese directed films, redemption is the soul of the film. The audience, terrified and overwhelmed by urban crime will readily respond to any film about heroic vigilantism in future. Courtesy: Martin Scorsese. Taxi Driver, the drama is one of the most organized and a soulful drama made in the history of Hollywood.




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/

Dark Knight : Nolan's Redefined approach to a SuperHero film

The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan is the second installment of Nolan's Batman trilogy. The sequel to 2005 stunner ' The Batman Begins' has an ensemble cast of Christian bale, Morgan Freeman, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman in key roles. The film is dark, twisted and austere having a dazzling spectacle and feverish action promising a fun-filled experience ahead.
The film ran a successful theatrical period as the audiences started flooding in to watch a fabled gift from Heath Ledger who plays the evil Joker 6 months after his death and he didn't disappoint them. Like all other superhero movies, the underlying theme of the movie is the battle between the good and the bad. The film begins with iconic bank robbery scene shot with an IMAX camera as six robbers try to rob a mob bank but only one winner to claim all the stolen money leaving others dead. Of course it is the Joker, the person who wears a purple colored suit (his usual dress code), having his face painted chalk-white and a big red smile which extends further from his mouth. Needless to say, Joker opens up with an electrifying performance as expected by the viewers.
He speaks in calibrated accent enunciating his words properly enough to produce terror. His smart-liners steal the majority of the limelight. In one scene, when he says to Batman "You complete me". Don't buy the tease. He means it. Joker starts in the film with simplicity in his action but this simplicity itself goes on to terrify the audience as the movie progresses. We can clearly glimpse chaos at the heart of the Joker instead of creation as he threatens Batman through media that he will start to kill people of Gotham and only way to stop this is by disclosing his true identity. Joker's fiendishly designed actions are meant to pose dilemmas for his enemies. His evil and mean side is highlighted in certain scenes. For example, when he states he doesn't use a gun since the knife savors all the emotions of the victim. Bruce Wayne aka Batman played by Bale is the masked crusader of Gotham who finds himself at war with his own conscience. He is in love with his childhood friend Rachael (Gyllenhaal) who finds herself torn between the love of two heroes of Gotham, the masked vigilante Batman and the district attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart). Batman is indeed the ray of hope to end organized crime in Gotham as he tries his best to apprehend Joker, confronts the head of crime family Maroni and brings down the Chinese accountant Lau who handles the Mob's money. Eckhart handles the role of Harvey Dent with magnificence as he earns the title of Gotham's white knight (the one who doesn't need a mask to stop crime on the streets of Gotham). Later, Harvey dent's character transformed from a candid cop in to a bitter monster which the joker wanted. His sole aim was to bring down Gotham's white knight to the echelon of brutality and he succeeds with a cunning plan to be executed at his behest.

The still from The Dark Knight

Then, there is Wayne's butler Alfred (Caine) who also happens to be a fatherly figure sends often a supply of useful advices to Bruce whenever needed. The Alfred-Bruce relationship is the strong pillar on which the whole Batman legend stands firmly. Alfred also destroys the secret that is likely to demoralize his boss thus proving him to be more than just a butler for Wayne. Other accomplices of Batman include Lieutenant-turned Commissioner of Gotham Jim Gordon (Oldman) and his armorer and CEO of Wayne enterprises Lucius Fox (Freeman) who is fully aware of Wayne being the masked vigilante. 

Christian Bale as The Batman in The Dark Knight

Throughout the duration of the film, we see calamitous explosions, terrific chase scenes and witty smart-liners by the villain. Nolan immortalized Batman through this flawless endeavour .The film leaps beyond the origins and becomes an engrossing affair. The haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination. It is full of surprises you don't see coming

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/