Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Starring : Vinay Pathak, Mugdha Godse, Raima Sen, Saurabh Shukla Rated : 3/10 What this one is about no one knows. Is it about the loneliness of honesty? Or is it about a strife-torn marriage? Or is about a loser husband tied to an ambitious wife? Or is it about something that we couldn’t fathom? Your guess is as good as mine, I would say and both could be entirely wrong. Like  Jai Ho Democracy , this one too blunders between mismatched humour and pathos both of which fail to make sense all through the slow and unsteady film. To top it, it is directionless too. An honest man leaving his wife and living in with an amorous prostitute (Raima Sen) without having a tumble in the bed even once could mean many things for many people. To me it meant, either the prostitute is a failure or the writer is libidinally challenged. To me it also did not make sense why a man of so many stiff principles would team up with a call girl, go into gambling, drink like a fish and never explain th...

Avengers: Age of Ultron Starring : Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel Jackson, James Spader Rated : 6/10 Last time it was New York these super guys were saving with all their special skills. This time it is an East European megapolis that the Marvel comic heroes sharing the elegantly gizmotic action terrain have been assigned to defend. There is a state-of-the-art gadgetry that has gotten slicker under the expert hands of director Joss Wedon. This time, they are avenging the Ultron and in between also an engineered fallout in the team of super heroes, cleverly crafted by the specially gifted Scarlett Witch who warps their mind with scenes from the past. However, at stake, as always, is humanity itself, this time at the feet of the towering Ultron who feels humanity will never evolve and is, thus, liable to be annihilated and replaced by machines. With trouble brewing between the super-heroes, specially Iron ...

Jai Ho Democracy Starring : Om Puri, Annu Kapoor, Satish Kaushik, Seema Biswas, Adil Hussain, Aamir Bashir, Grusha Kapoor Rated : 4.5/10 The star cast draws you into this title obvious satire but just a few sequences later you start getting annoyed. With such potent names on board, it should have been a powerful political satire which should have made you laugh, think and regret all in one go. No so, sadly. The director and the storywriter stymie the biggies with their childish attempt which goes in all the wrong directions without much thinking. The premise is wrong; the writer is all so confused with the subject matter that there is no thread to the sequences. A spoof of escalation at the border over a rooster in the no-man’s land and a Parliamentary committee set up in Delhi to decide whether to turn it into a war for the rooster is all what this film is about. All the so called moments in the film are hemmed and helmed by Annu Kapoor while the rest of the veteran talent i...

Margarita With A Straw Starring : Kalki Koechlin, Revathi, Sayani Gupta Rated : 7.5/10 You would think the topic of this bold and beautiful film would be uncomfortable to be with. It’s not so though the directness and openness with which director Shonali Bose has unravelled the issue of sexual aspirations of the disabled people is refreshingly disconcerting — not because of the disabled people but because of the able minded mindsets about this very special segment of society. Margarita With A Straw  is refreshingly different, straight-forward and simple about the fact that cerebral palsy does not mean you are retarded or your body does not have needs or that your mind does not fly, aspire, inspire or struggle to face life in all its aspects. Kalki Koechlin, who plays this role to perfection, depicting uncontrollable body movements as perfectly as the uncontrollable desires to “explore” her sexuality, pulls it off with great elan. It’s stunning to realise that she and he...

Mr X Starring : Emraan Hashmi, Amyra Dastur, Arunoday Singh Rated : 5/10 Mr X , despite the title song that may put you off, is not at all a bad film. In fact, with all its special effects and sound editing around a technologically conscious film, it holds you down as a normal thriller would do. Yes Emraan Hashmi has those mandatory kissing scenes (which he can’t really get over even when he is invisible!) but these are set aside by the action story which revolves around killing of a Chief Minister and the involvement of an insider in it. Caught in the web of his deceitful colleagues and boss, the upright Anti-Terror Department sleuth Hashmi loses his lady love to a conspiracy which not only fells his career but also fells his existence — he is alive but with a radiation defect that shows him up only in the sun and neon light. Rest of the time — and that’s pretty often in the film  — he is invisible. He angsts about the fact that his lady love thinks he is dead and that...

The Water Diviner Starring : Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Jai Courtney, Cem Yilmaz, Yilmaz Erdogan Rated : 6.5/10 Russell Crowe’s directorial debut comes piggyback on a potently emotional moment in Australian history, a war in far away Turkey which sewed up the nationalist sentiment Down Under, actually not just Australia but also New Zealand. Many Aussie young men were felled and many more went missing in this bloody battle in which more men were lost than one could imagine. The Battle of Gallipoli as it is called is the subject of Crowe’s latest drama which you can call arresting, sentimental, slow but potent in its own barren way. Crowe keeps himself the central character of the film both before and behind the camera and you cannot fault him for the intensity either end. As a father of three sons he lost to the battle, as a husband of a wife he loves to distraction but has to deal with her suicide, as a relentless man in search of the unmarked graves of his three sons wh...

Court Starring : Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi, Usha Bane, Shirish Pawar Rated : 8/10 Many toasts have been raised for director Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut film  Court  which, in all aspects, defies his youthfulness — the film comes across as a veteran’s seasoned view of a subject not many filmmakers would delve into — ills of our judicial system and the fact that our laws are so vulnerable to manipulation that they can ruin lives without batting an eyelid Having travelled with a bundle of ever-increasing accolades through international film circuits and winning best debut and best film awards across many platforms,  Court  has finally found a low brow release in the mainstream circuit and this tells you the story of how brilliance never really gets the desired platform in the world of cinema. Court  is a simple story about a ballad singer who gets arrested for abetment of suicide of a sewer worker even though he is no...

Dharam Sankat Mein Starring : Paresh Rawal, Naseeruddin Shah, Annu Kapoor, Auritra Ghosh Rated : 4.5/10 OMG!  was a blast. It was a unique merger of courage, humour and introspection all in one go. It was a brave film taking on religions and it was a new concept that sold like hot cakes. Its sequel  Dharam Sankat  has none of the above attributes and it comes across as a laboured attempt to lecture you on the one-ness of religion, in this case, the Hindu-Muslim existential chasm and the futility of it all. On paper, that sounds a good subject to unfold a hard-hitting film on but  Dharam Sankat... fails on many counts. First, it is killingly slow to tackle the tricky topic and this despite seasoned actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal and Annu Kapoor. Naseer as Godman, Rawal as a Hindu who was born Muslim and Annu Kapoor as a Muslim who wants to prove he is as much a man as any other Hindu in his colony, do their bit with perfection but the problem is ...

IT Follows Starring:  Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary Rated:  3.5/10 Did I get scared? Tried very hard to, just to do justice to a horror film. But how long and how many times will you get scared by someone following you, especially when it is a regular feature? What kills this potentially good film is the predictability way ahead into the film. You know there will be a follower, you know the follower will always be walking behind you or towards you, you know the main protagonist will be scared but not really harmed till the very end and you know how the whole thing will end. This one ends as a dime a dozen Hollywood screams have ended — looking for a sequel and never really shedding the ghost. Having said this,  It Follows  is somewhat of a unique concept — as in who would have imagined that a sexual romp in a car was actually meant to transfer a bad spirit which would follow you till you sleep with another man and transfer the e...

Broken horses Starring:  Vincent D'Onofrio, Anton Yelchin, Chris Marquette, María Valverde, Thomas Jane Rated:  5/10 It’s Parinda  reborn, albeit a tad differently, somewhere near the Mexico border. In the 26 years it took to make this journey to the otherside of the world, to another film industry, to another cinematic terrain, altered its DNA so much that potential got a beating and impact a drubbing. So, only thing good about this one from Vidhu Vinod Chopra is the courage of the man to produce a Hollywood film on a Bollywood sequence, and the stunning visuals that dot his effort. Other than that, it is a film that Hollywood doles out every once in a while when it decides to get emotional about violence, blood-shed and stark territory existence. So, here we have a somewhat mentally retarded older brother (Buddy) who drops out of school to take care of his younger more accomplished violin prodigy brother (Jakey) and the only way he does that is to become a h...