Spoorloos (The Vanishing) (1988)

Director: George Sluizer
Writers: George Sluizer, Tim Krabbé
DOP: Toni Kuhn
Cast: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege
Language: Dutch, French

Rex and Saskia, a young Dutch couple in love, are on vacation in France. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins recieving letters from the abductor.

The film is told from the perspective of both the victim (Rex) and the abductor, who is a self-confessed sociopath. Unlike the usual portrayal in serial killer films, Raymond (abductor) is a middle class chemistry teacher leading a normal life with his family. He is not super-intelligent but a perfectionist of sorts. You see him constantly practising and refining his methods and even practises some moves on his daughter. He is surprised to see new missing posters put up by Rex three years after the incident and decides to confront him and exploit his curiosity. We learn from their interactions that Raymond's antics are not serial in nature but a one-off abduction. He had once saved a young girl from dying and feels that he can kill one for that heroic act.

One of the striking things about the film is its editing as it is pretty much revealed early on itself who the abductor is. Both of their stories are interspersed and the suspense is regarding the fate of the victim. The last act of the film is pretty terrifying and Stanley Kubrick had called it one of the most terrifying films he has ever seen. What makes it effective is the randomness of selection and you will put yourself in place of the victim. Raymond is claustrophobic and he has something similar in sort for his victim. One film I was reminded of was Michael Haneke's Funny Games which was like a sick spoof of the horror genre. Vanishing does break several genre conventions and has plenty of uneasy light-hearted moments.

Rating: 4.5/5

Die Hard (1988)

Director: John McTiernan
Writers: Jeb Stuart, Steven E. de Souza
Cinematographer: Jan de Don't
Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov

The film follows off-duty police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) as he takes on a group of highly organised criminals led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), who perform a heist in a Los Angeles skyscraper under the guise of a terrorist attack using hostages, including McLane's wife Holly, to keep the police at bay.

Die Hard is of course the film that launched Bruce Willis, who was till then a TV actor who does comedy, as an action star. The studio had approached Arnold Schwarzenegger for the role as a sequel to 'Commando' but he turned it down. We can thank him for that because we just cannot imagine anyone else playing McClane now. Out of the left-field choice of Bruce Willis and the then fresh idea of a non-muscled up lone wolf hero fighting against all odds were what made Die Hard such a path-breaking film. Since then the whole premise has been regurgitated numerous times and we got Die Hard on a plane, Die Hard on a President's plane, Die Hard on a Ship etc, as the honest trailers guys put it. I was never a fan of Arnie action films (couldn't finish Predator) and films like Die Hard , Bourne series etc are my kind of action films. Only downside to it is that it forced Bruce Willis to do many action films which led to the underutilization of his considerable acting capabilities.

What makes it great when compared with other action films, including the sequels in the same franchise, is that it got a great villain. To be honest, I won't call him a villain even because Alan Rickman is just cool as the silver-tongued operator with classical education. You will almost feel sad when he meets his end in the film. It is hard to fathom that it was a debut role in films for the excellent Alan Rickman, whom many idiots will remember just for his role as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter franchise.

Die Hard works as a great action film, a great Christmas film and a great comedy film. Most of the characters in it, especially outside of the building, are cartoonish but it works well for the comedy. I just loved those FBI guys, both of whom are named Johnson (no relation). It is a must-watch.

PS: Yippie Ki-Yay, Motherfucker!!

Rating: 5/5

അപരൻ (Aparan) (1988)

Director: Padmarajan
Writer:    Padmarajan 
Cinematographer: Venu
Cast:.         Jayaram, Shobana, Madhu, Mukesh
Language: Malayalam

A young unemployed man (Jayaram), hunting for jobs, is roughed up by some people who mistakes him for a fraudster, who supposedly looks just like him. He earns a reprieve when the police officer turns out to be his old college mate but his doppelgänger's legacy continues to haunt him as he moves into the city when he gets a job.

The film is an adaptation of a short story from Padmarajan and the title translates as 'Doppelgänger'. Film also marked the debut of Jayaram who then became a sort of fixture in Padmarajan's latter year films. The basic plot might make you go 'I've seen this before' but treatment is quite different. If you've got a premise like this from a film from the 80s you expect it to end in a tragic way with a 'Crime doesn't pay' moral lesson. But this is Padmarajan and he can always make things interesting based on characterisation.

Here you can see Jayaram's character almost discovering his darker side because of the other dude who is spoken off like a myth. Many of his actions doesn't seem to come from a rational basis and some of the film's contrivances can be explained off like that. They don't have the physical confrontation the way you expect them to have and we only hear the bad dude's voice,  and that too towards the end. All in all, one could say that this story can be seen as a very superior backstory for a film like 'Don' and I wonder whether that film influenced Padmarajan in any way.

Overall, it is a nice little genre film. There aren't many interesting characters in it and the film is a bit too plot driven. Jayaram does his part will considering the fact that it is a debut film for him. His is not a very likeable character and it is intentionally so. One could also say that it is a metaphorical reading of caste sentiments in Kerala where some of the very upper caste people could very much feel like they are getting hunted for something that they presume they are not responsible for. Padmarajan does go out of the way to mention the caste of the character in one scene anyway.

Rating: 3/5  

മറ്റൊരാൾ (Mattoral) (1988)

Director: K.G. George
Writers:  K.G. George, C.V. Balakrishnan
Cinematographer: Ramachandra Babu
Cast:        Mammooty, Karamana, Seema, Urvasi
Language: Malayalam 

An upper middle class family is torn apart when the middle aged mother elopes with a car mechanic. Their family friend (Mammooty) is trying to get the husband (Karamana) and wife (Seema) back together.

The husband is a Govt officer of significant stature who likes to restrict his wife into a homemaker. They have two kids and it is pretty evident from the early interactions that they don't have much chemistry anymore. I was thinking it would be more of a divorce case scenario and it was quite shocking when the central event in the film revealed itself. As is usual with K.G. George films, the interactions between its characters and their behaviour are very real.  He is certainly the best on that. However, my problem with this film is that it comes off as a bit regressive, especially coming from someone who made Adaminte Vaariyellu. He specialises in playing on clichés but the problem with that is that there is only a very fine line between it being a success or failure. Even though Karamana's character is shown as a bore early on, the film becomes quite one-sided later on with his character attracting a great deal of sympathy. The ending also ruins it further as  a hopeful one could have been truly path-breaking.

Despite my reservations about the ending and overall moralising tone of the film, it is still a good watch with excellent performances. I don't think there have been a film dealing with this subject matter in a real sense before and after this film in Malayalam. You are bound to get something out of a K.G. George film even if it is a lesser film of his.

Rating: 3/5

ഒരു സിബിഐ ഡയറിക്കുറിപ്പ്‌ (Oru CBI Diary Kurippu) (1988)

Director: K Madhu
Writer:    S. N. Swamy
Cast:       Mammootty, Suresh Gopi, Jagathi Sreekumar
Language: Malayalam

The film revolves around a suspicious case of suicide which gets handed over to CBI after it has been declared as a case of suicide by the state Police department. 

The plot-line of the film was crafted around a real life incident, the Polakkulam case, in which a hotel employee was the victim. It was investigated by the CBI and was the first instance where humanoid dummy experiment was done in the state to prove a murder case. The lead character Sethurammayar CBI, played by Mammootty, is inspired by a real-life IPS officer named Radha Vinod Raju. The film came out in 1988 and the dummy segment was immediately spoofed by Sreenivasan and Mohanlal in their own comedic CID franchise  'Pattanapravesham', which also came out later that year. You got to admire the turn around time of Malayalam films in those days as both Mammootty and Mohanlal had 12 films releasing in 1988. Guess they didn't believe much in post-production. 

Film can be best described as a police investigative procedural which was hugely admired for how different it was when compared with films that came prior to this. There was no flab in it in terms of having typical entertainment elements like songs, elaborate stunts. verbal diarrhea from the lead and things like that. The sole focus of the film was the central investigation and the Malayalee audience, familiar with Sherlock Holmes stories, lapped it up. It was also quite popular in Madras/Chennai with it running for more than 200 days, an achievement that was replicated by only one Malayalam film since then, with Premam recently completing 200 days there. I don't consider it as a great mystery film since they are best done when at least some of the audience could figure out the twist by themselves by following the clues. That is not the case with this film or any of the other films that came out in this franchise since. A common complaint regarding these films are that S N Swamy could literally have some random person from the crowd as the culprit during the end twist portion of the film. There have been three other films released since then in this franchise and a fifth one is on its way. The second one, Jagratha, was also very good while the third one was quite average and the fourth one being quite terrible. 

Originally, the character was conceived as a tough cop named Ali Imran but it was Mammootty who convinced the director and writer that a pious intelligent Tamil Brahmin would be better. That is what makes the film stand out from other films in this genre with the lead using brain rather than brawn to solve cases. One could say that Mohanlal's character from Company owes a little bit to this character even though I am not sure about whether RGV had watched this film. The mannerisms that Mammootty brought to the table, accompanied with Shyam's excellent signature background score, were so effective that the audience were taken aback when he sparingly uses physical force during some instances. To sum up, it is a great watch and is quite a unique franchise when it comes to Indian cinema. 

PS: The actor Prathapachandran is now best remembered for his role in this film with an iconic line of his being memed quite frequently these days.

Rating: 4/5