Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

The Judge Starring : Robert Downey Jr, Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio Rated:  7.5/10 This is the movie of the week — a gripping drama around the coming together of an estranged father and son — father, a respected, righteous judge in a small county and son, a cut-throat criminal attorney from the big bad urban world — both on two sides of the spectrum both professionally and personally. You can accuse the film and its able director of playing to the gallery when it comes to the emotionality quotient, but really, is there any other way he could have dealt with the subject? Estranged father meets his long lost son on his mother’s funeral and sparks fly — sparks of hate, sparks of anger and sparks of what happened between the two all those long years ago. Seasoned actors Robert Duvall and Robert Downey Jr in lead roles leave little scope for you to complain about drama being handled to perfection so  The   Judge  despite being an overly slow ...

Dracula Untold Starring : Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper Rated : 5.5/10 Dracula movies are big mounts — expansive, expensive and enchanting in their own blood-sucking manner. This one falls a little short on this high pedestal but is gripping nevertheless. No, Luke Evans does well but the problem lies in the fact that he has very little to do. The story is razor thin and the sequences short and tidy — too tidy for a dracula film. Here, he has to save his family and says he will do whatever it takes to do that. And, shockingly, he does — drinks dracula blood to become a vampire, mostly a colony of bats really, to live happily ever after. The film, meanwhile, has its moments though not too big or fancy. Second big movie to go to this week. Source: Sunday Pioneer, 19 October, 2014

Sex Tape Starring:  Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel Rated:  5/10 Where there’s Cameron Diaz, there is fluff, there is romance, there is fluttering of eyelids, there are toothy smiles and lost look and there is this crazy little thing called love. Sex Tape (don’t get to taken in by the title) is a little different kind of love — a couple’s journey through love, romance, marriage and parenthood and the journey’s single biggest casualty — a fertile sexual relationship. Down the line, there’s also this one wild night (more at trying to have sex than actually having it) which goes online by mistake and then there is this resultant tizzy that takes up much of the time of this light-hearted romantic comedy. Diaz is the central point of this easy going, somewhat different, but much too fluffy film and she does here what she has done best all through her career — be this sweetheart in love, a heart without too much thinking powers, a wide-eyed, extremely alluring blonde. As a...

What If Starring:  Danile Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Megan Park, Rafe Spall Rated:  5/10 What if, he was never Harry Potter? What if, one could get over Harry Potter? What if Daniel Radcliffe had a real life magic wand to take away the Potter memories of movie buffs all over the world. What if, indeed! I don’t know about others but I could not make myself separate Harry Potter from Daniel Radcliffe — a med school dropout in this one. Where was his magic wand to make his girl fall into his spell. And why was he taking a flight to Dublin instead of vrooming on his broom in a much faster manner? Well, maybe it is time for people to forget he is Potter and give him some screen space as a you-and-me guy in a you-and-me kind of film. He tries to do his best here as a guy in love with a girl who has another boyfriend. Sadly though, we are still to forget he is Potter and he is still to grow in stature which is bigger than his inaugural hunt. Till then, he is too...

Kill the Messenger Starring:  Jeremy Renner, Ray Liotta, Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia, Oliver Platt Rated:  6.5/10 The CIA’s covert operations, unholy liaisons and destructive missions are all too familiar to need an explanation. The spooks are known to be involved in shadowy multi-nation ventures in the name of American interest. One such is the peg to this highly gripping movie about a small newspaper investigative reporter who breaks the biggest story of his career, only to be hounded by the system, discredited, disowned by his editors, abandoned by his family and finally found dead some years after going into virtual anonymity. Played to perfection by Jeremy Renner, this true life story has all the element of intrigue to keep you on the hook even though it stretches in parts. While the director slips in keeping the pace up and the editors can be said to have been caught napping in certain time zones of the film, it is the story that catches you unawar...

Annabelle Starring : Ward Horton, Annabelle Wallis, Alfre Woodard Rated : 5.5/10 In this prequel to last year’s hit  The Conjuring , one feels the director is trying to do a lot of things just to invoke fear in the minds of the audience. Usually, movie spin-offs attempt to up the ante but in Annabelle , director John R Leonetti of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation fame have taken a low-key approach, with a cast of unknowns substituting for such estimable performers as Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga and Lili Taylor. Set in the late 1960s, the story revolves around young married couple John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis). Mia is pregnant and her husband gifts her a large-sized doll she's been wanting to complete her collection. Before Mia gives birth, their neighbours are murdered by their wayward daughter Annabelle and her boyfriend, members of a Manson Family-type satanic cult. In the film’s most blood curdling scene, the intruders break into John and Mia’s house, wit...

Bang Bang Starring : Hrithik Roshan, Katrina Kaif, Danny Denzongpa, Jimmy Sheirgill Rated : 5.5/10 It’s slick. There’s a lot of action too. And Dharma Production’s money power is all too evident in all those heady foreign locales. But  Bang Bang , riding on the audacious negative campaign of being the most violent presentation for India’s most peaceful day (Gandhi Jayanti), hits you only here and there. For the rest of the time, it is the well thought out and slickly designed romance between a hulk and a bimbette (read Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif) which tries to bind a movie in which the mystery is out in the second shot itself. If at all  Bang Bang  takes a high ride, it will be on the gorgeous abs of Hrithik Roshan and the helluva moves he can make with his body. Quite another matter though that  director Siddharth Anand has decided that his audience are much like his heroine — quite without brains, or for that matter, even geographic sense. So, his ...