Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

HAPPY ENDING Staring:  Govinda, Saif Ali Khan, Ileana D'Cruz, Ranvir Shorey, Kalki Koechlin Rated:  6/10 Happy Ending  is quite a hip and happy movie, breezy about that crazy little thing called love. And no, before you jump to any conclusions about it being a mushy love story, just remember it’s Saif Ali Khan at the helm of affairs (literally) and he keeps his film much like himself — cool dudish, funny, light and wonderfully irreverent about romance. After the unexpected success of  Go Goa Gone  where the Indian zombies had you in a, well, unexpected laughter riot, Saif seems to have come of age in reading the pulse of his audience. That, and his dalliance with ‘those’ kind of roles (endearing boy-turns-confused-lover-turns-good friend-turns cool dude) throughout his career, seals the success of this one where love sits light on humour and humour sits heavy on proceedings. Indeed, a modern-day romcom, very overtly Saifish, in fact so Saifish that y...

THE EQUALIZER Staring:  Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo Rated:  6/10 Denzel Washington makes an edgy comeback in  The Equalizer , though one must say that this is a tad different from the roles he has done thus far. But then, Denzel excels in being different and this one is no exception. A very silent one-man killing machine for a cause, he is a tantalisingly lithe assassin and a man of very few words — so few that you can count his dialogues in the film even though 95 per cent of the frames are centred on him and his eyes. An insomniac and an agency guy who has engineered to vanish from the face of Earth, declared dead to the world, he lives like a loner, spending his insomniac nights at a neighbourhood coffee shop reading his books. Till, of course, he comes across a teenaged Russian hooker who is being tortured by her pimp. You then come to know for sure what you suspected all through —this loner ...

Dumb And Dumber To Staring:  Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Laurie Holden, Rob Riggle Rated:  5/10 You would be crazy to expect anything even slightly meaningful or reasonable or even decent from this much touted laughter-riot series. But, believe me, this one goes where no grossness has ever gone before, where no finger has ever gone before and where no irreverence has measured itself up so high. And, it’s Jim Carrey who is the master of ceremonies here, and aiding and abetting his insanity is the other king of lunacy Jeff Daniels. Together, they get into crazy situations and wild encounters which are meant to be hilarious but turn out to be only too gross. Staying in a mental asylum for 20 years just to win a gag against his buddy, then having his catheter pulled out like a tug-of-war game and then letting the cat out on his blind neighbour’s parrots, there’s nothing these two stop at. Laughter soon turns to embarrassment and then even resentment over why Carrey needs...

Kill/Dil Staring:  Govinda, Ranveer Singh, Ali Zafar, Parineeti Chopra Rated:  4/10 This is not Govinda’s movie though you fervently wish it was and that he should have been inhabiting more frames and dances and taking fun rides with you instead of trying so hard to look menacing that you feel like giving him some hard talk and telling him to do what he does best — be a good guy even if he has turned old and wants to be a respectable veteran. Having said that, there is something tolerable about Ranveer Singh with his clean-shaven looks and I-am-good act. As the fun-loving illiterate sniper with a sense of humour and quick on repartee, he holds the few moments in this movie together. His friend Tutu (Zafar) looks unkempt for most part of the film with his untrimmed French cut beard and long-line hairstyle which hides most of his face, most of the time. Parineeti as the bindaas  babe is not quite fleshed out except in her body shape and, quite frankly, she is ge...

Boyhood Staring:  Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke Rated:  8.5/10 A Hollywood movie that’s 2 hours 44 minutes long? You must be joking! That long a Hollywood movie actually holding on to its own? You must be beyond joking! And holding on to its own without any big star  ensemble ? Well, that’s the least of the stun quotient of this film, considering director Richard Linklater this time round, cooks up and executes novelties as no man has ever done before. Call it a gimmick, a mad man’s ultimate fantasy, a big experiment or an unprecedented idea, the verdict remains the same: It’s a head-turner, sheer brilliance and comes with a lot of awe and wow. Really! Who would have actually thought of investing 12 years of annual filming just to watch a boy — and the world around him — grow in real time from age six to age 18? Who would have the patience or the wherewithal or even the starcast which would be willing to give 12 years of their...

John wick Staring:  Keanu Reeves, Micheal Niqwyst Rated:  5/10 Keanu Reeves is back and the matrix this time is on an overdrive — of blood, bullets and revenge. A Russian mob boss’ son reincarnates the killer in John Wick (Reeves) by killing his dog and stealing his Mustang car. Not just that, he does the unimaginable of beating Wick up, that too just a day after he loses his beloved wife to a terminal illness. Such was the bigness of the crime that even the biggest dealer in stolen cars refuses to do business over this particular Mustang and sends the errant power drunk son of the mobster away. Not just that, even the father of this son beats him up for doing the unimaginable — stealing from Wick when he is down and out. Wick, who had retired from being a killing machine is forced to resurrect after the boy kills his wife’s last gift to him — his dog. After that, there is only the sound of bullets and a hunt for the errant boy, as John Wick has to seek revenge and n...

Beauty and the beast Staring:  Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux André Dussollier Rated:  4/10 Beauty And The Beast  is one of the greatest love stories to have visited the children’s storybook shelf but this French mount unravels it without much chemistry between its two main protagonists. What it concentrates more on is the visuals and they are, indeed, a delight and help in holding together this slightly stretched fairy tale without a soul or much of a love story. What would you say of a movie which is an extremely good-looking film but fails to conjure up any tender moments between the beauty and the beast? I thought that’s too misplaced and you can’t really spend so much time on groovy visuals while the beauty and the beast visit the frame together very rarely. So is it a children’s film? Not really, because it moves very slowly. Is it for grown-ups? Actually not, because of the lack of chemistry on one end and the irritating petulance of the ‘beauty’ when trap...

Rang Rasiya Starring : Randeep Hooda, Nandana Sen, Triptha Parashar Rated : 7.5/10 Both Ketan Mehta and his film  Rang Rasiya  are bold and beautiful. Based on the life and art of maverick painter of the 19th century, Raja Ravi Verma, this biopic comes with all the nuggets of emotionality, period drama and history fitting into each other as a Lego puzzle is meant to. To start with, the very idea of making a film on this controversial painter is eclectic. Then to give it bold sexual overtones is audacious but well slotted. The world, till now, has bought Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings for several crores of rupees but is still in the womb of religious limitations, something that Mehta shows brilliantly by juxtaposing an art auction against mob fury. The painter’s family is up in arms one hears, but once you sit down to view this film, you are swept away by the doctrines of life through which this eccentric painter lived and painted. He was a hero much ahead of his times...

Interstellar Starring:  Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn Rated : 8/10 Mystery thrillers unfolding in another galaxy are somewhat hard to stitch together.  Interstellar , however, has both its physics and chemistry right as it hires a single dad to navigate the light years in search of a planet that could house the dying humanity of famine and pollution-hit Earth. The credit goes to director Christopher Nolan that for the most part of its elongated existence on screen,  Interstellar  keeps you engaged and on the edge of your seat. That the story is way out of imagination and the situational sequences hang tenuously between two far removed solar systems, gives wings to Nolan’s blockbuster ambitions. But for the last 15 minutes or so of this epic three-hour science fiction, the going is both spatially and emotionally exciting. Down the line, it also emerges as a visual treat, be it the killer dust...

Nightcrawler Starring : Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton Rated : 4/10 Releasing on week which carries at least two brilliant films from Hollywood and Bollywood,  Nightcrawler  doesn’t stand a chance. But for a lean week, or for those not interested in period drama or science fiction, this unscrupulous, sub-human TV journalist and his exploitations may make for exciting night entries. You may or may not agree with the way cut-throat TV journalism is portrayed both at the news gathering and news displaying levels, but one thing is for sure. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal gets into the skin of Luzo the Nightcrawler as no one else would. He is a smiling killer, a man without a conscience, a professional without scruples, a crazy success crawler, a blackmailer and a killer. Somewhere in between, he is also a footage provider mostly outsourced for bloody wire that a sagging news television channel could use for jolting its breakfast viewers into upping it’s TRPs....

Happy New Year Starring : Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani, Vivaan Shah, Jackie Shroff Rated : 6/10 Will it make money? Yes, big time! Does it make sense? No, none at all. But then, when the  kumba  of Farah Khan-Gauri Khan-Shah Rukh Khan and the like get together, they make sure they have all the fun on the sets. Some of it spills out into the screen too, often cocking a snook at what people call meaningful cinema, or for that matter, even cinema. In between all this fun and frolic, they also make a movie. The result? A  Happy New Year  in Happy Diwali time. Which means, a lot of nonsense, a lot of  naach gana , a lot of SRK and a lot of nostalgic self-indulgence. So you have a big heist in operation but behind the green room of a world dance competition; a burst of in-your-face colours alongside in-your-face dialogues; expected SRKisms like lampooned dialogues from  Main Hoon Na, Mohabbatein  oth...