Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Director: Brad Bird
Writers:  Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec
Cast:       Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, Michael Nyqvist

The IMF is shut down when its implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.

The fourth one in the franchise is the best one yet with some very fresh action set pieces and 'Burj Khalifa outer wall climbing' being the highlight. The regular features in the MI films like self destructing messages are done with plenty of humor and Simon Pegg is given more importance to good effect. The pace at which it goes till the end of Dubai sequence is breathtaking after which the events are a bit of a letdown. By then it uses up all its set pieces in the great category and culminates with the sequence in India which was very tiresome. The last five minutes of the film is unbearable and I really don't know why they had to include it. What is up with with all the ambassador cars in what is supposed to be Mumbai.

The good thing about Tom Cruise action films is that since he does most of the action sequences without a stunt double, you really get the thrills the action set pieces commands. What makes this one the best is the right kind of humor accompanying the action sequences which generates genuine laughs without being corny ('No shit', 'Masks', Simon Pegg one liners). There is the typical Tom Cruise run to be added in his compilation and this time you get a different shade of it in a sandstorm. 

I don't know whether the studio was planning to groom Renner for the lead role in the subsequent installments but it seems the same acting team will star in the next one which is due out next year. Christopher McQuarrie (Usual Suspects) will be directing it and that is an interesting choice. The directorial pick for Ghost Protocol was also out of left-field since Brad Bird made his name by directing animation films with this being his debut in a live action one. He certainly made his mark with this film. I enjoyed it more than Skyfall even though it lacked a proper villain. I really wish I had seen it at the cinemas.

Rating: 4/5

സെല്ലുലോയ്ഡ് (Celluloid) (2013)

Director: Kamal
Writers:  Vinu Abraham, Kamal
Cast:       Prithviraj, Sreenivasan, Mamta Mohandas, Chandini
Language:Malayalam

The story of J C Daniel, who made the first Malayalam film 'Vigathakumaran' in 1928, resulting in his exile from hometown due to bankruptcy and eventual downfall.

Film is a must watch for Malayalam cinema enthusiasts. I say that because it is a story that one should be aware of and not necessarily because it is a great film. The film has its flaws, especially in the former half of the film which depicts the making of 'Vigathakumaran'. The caste aspects and its equations are overplayed and J C Daniel is portrayed as a whiter than white character. There was really no need to overly show him and his family being above all that. The action of casting someone from the 'lower caste' to play a 'nair girl' in the film would have been enough to convey where  he stands on these matters and they could have left the rest of it in a subtle manner without banging it on our heads. It would have left some element of surprise regarding the fate of 'Vigathakumaran' when it was eventually released. It would also have given some credibility to the 'J C Daniel turning his back on his family' angle which comes later in the film after his attempt to produce a second film.

The film gets much more interesting when it jump cuts to 1966 from 1928. Portrayal of an old J C Daniel by Prithviraj is surprisingly good. Film is based on 'Life of J C Daniel' by Chelangatt Gopalakrishnan and 'Nashta Naayika' by Vinu Abraham. Sreenivasan plays the role of Gopalakrishnan , a film journalist. He finds out J C Daniel's whereabouts in Tamil Nadu and make efforts to get him the recognition that he deserves from Kerala government. The cultural secretary played by Siddique is apparently the famous author Malayattoor Ramakrishnan and the chief minister during that time was K Karunakaran. This generated some controversy due to the casteist interpretation of their actions in the film even though their identities are not explicitly given. The final jump cut to 2000 coincides with the release of Mohanlal starring 'Narasimham'. The irony is not lost because that clusterfuck of a film ushered in plethora of Malayalam films having larger than life heroes from which we haven't still recovered.

Overall the film is a very good watch. The flaws in it are the ones to be expected from an above average director from the old school era. The two songs in it are excellent giving the feel of the times but the necessity of them in the film can be questioned. I am getting quite fed up with the reliance on local slangs as a comic vehicle in these kind of films. It is one thing when it is done by actors who can definitely carry it and other when limited actors try to do them in a farcical manner

Rating: 3.5/5

Rush (2013)

Director: Ron Howard
Writer:    Peter Morgan
Cast:       Daniel Bruhl, Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara

The film depicts the merciless rivalry between Formula One drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl)

Hunt is a brash playboy whereas Lauda is more of a Schumacher style perfectionist. One cannot really say that the film puts one character over the other and it is as much a character study as it is a sports film. I generally don't like Sports based films because they generally tend to be very cliched tales of making a comeback against all odds and as if that is not good enough they tend to exaggerate on top of that. This one is not much different, with the rivalry between the two characters exaggerated and then trying too hard to make them come out even at the end. The rivalry itself and the turn of events are remarkable enough for them to make it in a semi-documentary style without Hollwoodizing much. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Hunt taking the interviewer to the cleaners didn't really happen. The script is sometimes cringe inducing and as if we didn't understand the characters from the first 15 minutes itself, they have to do a whole explanation routine in the last scene. 

The color tone of the film is very good and the race scenes are done very well. The commentary that they give with the race is a bit Americanized.  I am not a huge fan of Ron Howard even though I quite enjoyed watching 'Apollo 13' and 'A Beautiful Mind', both of which are done in a feel good fashion. I think a British director would have handled this film better because subtlety is not something that Americans do well especially considering that Formula One is kind of alien to that country. Senna is a far better film than Rush and it is also more compelling despite being a documentary.

Rating: 2.5/5 

സപ്തമശ്രീ തസ്കര (Sapthamashree Thaskaraha) (2014)

Director: Anil Radhakrishnan Menon
Writer:    Anil Radhakrishnan Menon
Cast:       Prithviraj, Asif Ali, Chemban Vinod
Language:Malayalam

A group of seven people, including both con men and common men, plan a small heist with a big reward.

This is Anil Radhakrishnan Menon's second film after 'North 4 Katham' which got National award for best film in Malayalam language, fuck knows how. Must have been a very poor year for Malayalam cinema. This one is better than the first one, but not by much. When you are making a heist film which relies very much on comedy, you needs to make it very crisp. There are some very good laughs in it but it comes within a very lagging storyline. Also, I don't know exactly how to put it, some of the humor didn't hit the right notes because of the way they were presented. It seemed there is a linger after the punchlines as if the director is waiting for a clap or something. The story is narrated through a confession given by Chemban Vinod's character to a priest who I found to be extremely annoying. The films is set in Thrissur and the slang didn't really help in my opinion as there was a distinct self awareness in the way it was delivered by many of the actors.

It is decent towards the end, with a well executed heist sequence, but I wouldn't have made it till the end if I was not watching it at the cinemas. I didn't mind the twist at the end because it is more believable than a common man masterminding the whole thing. Obvious reference for people to make would be Steven Soderbergh's 'Ocean's Eleven'. In Ocean's Eleven they establish all the characters in about 30 minutes whereas in this film it takes up the entire first half of the film. All the setting up stuff for the heist that can be done in about 30 seconds sequences run into minutes without adding much humor and thus being very difficult to tolerate. You don't need to give complete explanation to the audience on how you are going to get into the building through the AC ducts and then proceed to show the entire thing. Either one will do. Overall the film is a decent watch but not very good.

Rating: 2.5/5

Margin Call (2011)

Director: J.C. Chandor
Writer:    J.C. Chandor
Cast:       Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore

Follows the key people at an investment bank, over a 24-hour period, during the early stages of the financial crisis.

I have seen people referring to the film as an account on Lehman Brothers. The head of the Investment Bank is named Tuld which is similar to then Lehman Bothers' CEO Fuld. The thing is, at the end of the film it is shown that they were the first to successfully liquidate their considerable position on MSBs and thereby starting the meltdown. That would make them more similar to Goldman Sachs whose actions were described as the one who ran out the door first locking it behind them. In the film also Tuld says to the skeptical Kevin Spacey character that it is not panicking if you are out the door first. 

This was my second watch and the good thing about the film is that it doesn't try to overly explain the technicalities behind what is happening which makes it very crisp. The film is not really about making its audience understand the minute details and it very much works as a disaster film where we don't really care much for the people who are in danger.  There are characters in it who represent the man on the street questioning the way they do things and the exorbitant money that they make. It might not be very realistic to have characters in the middle of it questioning the morals and ethics behind it but I think the film gets away with it mainly by having an incredible cast list.

It is incredible that the the budget for the films was just $3.5 million when in fact it looks very much like a $35 million picture. They managed it by having a very 90s cast list who also might have taken a pay cut in order to express their outrage after the 2008 financial crisis. It is a great companion piece to the academy award winning Charles Ferguson's documentary 'Inside Job'. 

Will Emerson: Jesus, Seth. Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe you're necessary and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and big fuckin' houses they can't even pay for, then you're necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is cause we got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin' fair really fuckin' quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don't. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came from. Well, thats more hypocrisy than I'm willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow if all of this goes tits up they're gonna crucify us for being too reckless but if we're wrong, and everything gets back on track? Well then, the same people are gonna laugh till they piss their pants cause we're gonna all look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door.

Seth Bregman: Do you think we're gonna be wrong?

Will Emerson: [long pause] No, they're all fucked.

Rating: 4/5

Reversal of Fortune (1990)

Director:Barbet Schroeder
Writers: Alan M. Dershowitz, Nicholas Kazan
Cast:     Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Ron Silver

Wealthy Sunny von Bulow lies brain-dead in a coma, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he is innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.

The film is adapted from Alan Dershowitz's 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside von Bulow Case. Unlike other trial based films, the protagonist lawyer is not really up against it in terms of insurmountable odds. The case is quite easy to break and thereby prove his client's innocence but he is in a moral quandary because he doesn't fully understand his client and is not entirely sure about his innocence.  Even the trail scene in the film is there just in passing and the whole film aims to capture the nature of relationship between Mr and Mrs. von Bulow. It is made obvious that Claus married Sunny because of her riches. Their marriage is in doldrums and he wants to get out of it through divorce whereas she wants to commit suicide. We know that Claus is also not too unhappy about it but the question is whether he tried to make sure that she is dead and voluntarily put her in this state. Even if he did, should we think he is guilty of a big crime because of the state of their marriage and general unhappiness. The good thing about the film is that the lawyer character harvest these suspicions throughout the film and never believes him completely with regards to his version of the events. So there is no big twist at the end of it which helps us to appreciate the way they build the characters. 

Jeremy Irons is superb in this film and he got an academy award to show for it. He did some great work during that time period (Dead Ringers & Kafka). He is an actor with great presence and it is a shame that his career didn't take off the way it should have in the latter part of the 90s. It is not really great when IMDB picks Lion fucking King and Die Hard: With a Vengeance as his career highlights when we check his bio. Reversal of Fortune is a solid little film that I think was held up in a much higher regard when it got released because of the familiarity with the case.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Directors: Andy Wachowksi, Lana Wachowski
Writers:    Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
Cast:         Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving

Neo and the rebel leaders estimate that they have 72 hours until 250,000 probes discover Zion and destroy it and its inhabitants. Morpheus believes that he can prevent this by getting Neo to the Source to fulfill the prophecy. The whole film  is a buildup to Neo's meeting with the Architect who can be interpreted as the God (Creator) of the matrix.

 The story progresses significantly through three meetings and the three overly long action sequences associated with them. First one is Neo meeting Oracle and the Kill Bill like action sequence with 'more and more' agent Smith's. The second one is the meeting with Merovingian and the highway action sequence. The third one is meeting with architect which completely flip many of the assumptions that the characters themselves had about their own existence. Unlike the first film, the balance is not quite right but still I enjoyed it more than I thought I would this time round. 

One may wonder about the reliability of explanations given to Neo by these three people but if we go by their words, especially of that of architect, this is the second version of the Matrix. The first one was created as a perfect world like the Garden of Eden in Bible and it ended up as a disaster because of lack of choice. So the second one (Serpent & the apple) was created with a seemingly false sense of freewill which worked for the majority 99.9% of people in the matrix. The rest would always free themselves from the matrix to form the Zion and 'The One' is a systemic anomaly in the matrix. The Oracle, who is referred to as the mother of the Matrix, with her prophecies about 'The One' gives a purpose to the people of Zion but the machines just use 'The One' to selectively destroy the Zion and reboot this version of Matrix. It has been rebooted five times and Neo is in the sixth iteration. All of this is explained by the architect to him and he can choose either to cooperate with him and save the people in the matrix by helping him selectively destroy the Zion or go back to the futile resistance causing all of their deaths. 

In a way some people will feel that they were deceived by the directors since all the events leading up to the meeting with the source/architect is along the expected lines as desired by the machines. I don't have a problem with it because there are plenty of clues given leading up to it. Both Oracle and Merovingian talks about the versions of the One, comparison with the previous versions, expectations about the next version etc. Then there is also the talk about control especially in the scene between Neo and the leader of Zion where the latter appears to doubt whether Zion itself is a form of control exerted by machines on them even though they think they are free. Snake in the Garden of Eden must have also been created by God and if that is the case he/she also desired that the humans will disobey given a choice. One could view this version of God as a creator who does not take operational control of his creation and just watch from sidelines how it is going to play out which I am led to believe is similar to the role of Brahma in Hindu mythology. I am not well versed with the mythological aspects of various religions since I don't give a fuck about them and so many of the symbolism that they have included in the film is lost on me. Still it is worthwhile to dissect it because vast majority of people in this world are still influenced by it. Even in the developed world where religion does not play a vital role, I think majority of people live a life akin to slavery tied to their jobs, desires or social conformance. 

I still feel the whole Neo-Trinity love angle in the film is a weak point even though it is central to the plot. One reason for it is the script itself which is not that great during those scenes and also the unconvincing portrayal by Keanu Reeves who is not a even a good actor. In terms of meat in the story second one in the trilogy is the most significant even though it kind of gets diluted by the plethora of action scenes. It also dilutes the significance of first film somewhat with the revelation about the iterations in matrix but first one still works very well because of its subtext message about capitalism.

Rating: 4/5