Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher  Rated: 6.5/10  You can call this one a seductive psycho thriller based on the love fixation of a bipolar personality. It is only when you sit through one, do you understand how thrilling — and frustrating — it can be for a good man with an undiagnosed bipolar personality who has just come back from prison after beating his wife’s love to pulp after discovering them in the shower, making love as his wedding song plays in the background. But then you meet the other crazy character and our bipolar man looks nothing in comparison. She has apparently made out with all men in her office after her cop husband died in a car accident. She is abusive, aggressive and manipulating as no woman visiting the locality. But she knows her dance steps as well as her football and the two negative characters, together make a positive beginning. The film, brilliantly enacted by Bradle...

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton  Rated: 8/10 Jessica Chastain has been nominated for an Oscar and is most likely to win it for showing up the grittiness of a sleuth who is trying to trace Osama Bin Laden for more than 12 years. She sports an unnerving kind of frustration, anger, depression and defeat with a mix of determination that few of her male colleagues are able to offer to their thankless job of tracking down ways and means of getting to what they call “the big man.” Amid the fire and smoke of global terrorism, the badlands of Afghanistan and the chicanery of the ISI, a group of American snoops are shown to be quietly working on their desktops in trying to add the dots and the dashes to reach 20th centuries most elusive fugitive. In the process, they lose colleagues to suicide bombing, earn the chagrin of their seniors who want results, get misled by a global network of terror mongers and live life on the edge — all the time. Zero Dark Thi...

Special 26 Starring: Akshay Kumar, Kajal Aggarwal, Jimmy Shergill, Manoj Bajpai, Anupam Kher Rated: 8.5/10 It’s films like these that give you reason to applaud a churning, emerging, brand-new and fearlessly experimental Bollywood which is changing mores of India’s song and dance tinsel town. Special 26  is, well, special, really really special. It is thrilling, it is true-life, it is pacey and it is no-nonsense. It also holds on to the twist till the twist finally unfurls to take you wholly by surprise. It has actors who do their job as brilliantly as the editor does his, or the music director does his, or the director does his. Not a thing out of place is an achievement that comes out of the courage to make a different genre of cinema that is not slave to the box office dynamics. And yet this could be a blockbuster. In this sense this one is special as said earlier. Director Neeraj Pandey is not new to this kind cut-to-piece film-making. After all, he brought...

Parker Starring: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Nick Nolte Rated: 5/10 Jason Statham is an aggrieved man. And when you have an aggreived Statham, there’s sure to be some dizzying retribution.  Parker  has that. Only, all this action comes in a week loaded with extremely good, out of the box, cinema so it might just miss out on the eyeballs this time. Part of a heist and then shot by his accomplices and left to die on a highway, Statham does what he always does — comes back from the dead to hunt down, wreak havoc, kill and take away what’s his with tantalising silence. Even his love story is shown from behind smoke and shrouds and he is just too serious to crack any wry jokes. But, unlike Bruce Willis, Statham is more about muscle than humour and he stays true to form in this one. A run of the mill action thriller where Jennifer Lopez and her butt make their presence felt from the sidelines. Good for a dekko on a lean week, and of course for S...

Mama Starring: Jessica Chastain, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse, Daniel Kash Rated: 5/10 Horror movies around angelic children are regular staple for arresting eyeballs and giving you the ultimate heebie-jeebies.  Mama  unfolds entirely on the shoulders of two angelic children and their ghost of a mom. Kidnapped by their father who wanted to kill them, they are saved by a house ghost in a hut in the wilderness and ever since no one can find them. Five years later, when they are found, they are not so human anymore. The film grows well on you if you want to let out a scream or two. And when those deep watery eyes look at you from the innocent face of a five-year-old girl, there is something very haunted about it. Mama  draws from two girls and their tryst with a ghost who can kill in jealousy, who will not let them go and who comes as a moth, only to concretise into a evil flesh form not seen before. Go to the film if you want horror...

Any body can dance Starring: Prabhu Deva, Ganesh Acharya, Kay Kay Menon, Terence Lewis Shakti Mohan Rated: 5.5/10 Anybody Can Dance? Really?? If it’s the Remo kind of dance you see in this one, you must be joking guys. It should come with statutory warning — it could be injurious to health. But then, if you have this  nasha , you don’t apparently need any other  nasha , at least not the one that comes with drugs. Or so says dance master Prabhu Deva who, incidentally, does not do the best dance that could have been in the movie —  Muqabla, muqabla, oh laila . Having said that, this is by far the most ambitious, most keenly choreographed put-on-your-dancing-shoes movie to have visited Bollywood. So, in the bargain if you are also made to put on your ballet shoes, your acrobat shoes and your running shoes to do a whole lot of daredevilry both on and off the dance studios, so be it. For, modern dancing I am told, misses its completeness if it does not punch, gyrat...

Lincoln Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones Rated: 9/10 Is this Abe Lincoln, or is this Abe Lincoln? Henceforth, this is the only Abe Lincoln I know. They say he is Daniel Day-Lewis but I have my doubts, serious doubts. For altering public perception to this extent is, I guess, why this Lincoln who goes by the name of Lewis should get an Oscar for a performance as grand as his director Steven Spielberg’s designs on cinema. Lincoln  is a historical drama on America’s most interesting period. And Lincoln was the President at this time, replete with a sly slouch but an upright thinking. Lewis, with all his wrinkles, his lawyer seasoning of life, his immense knowledge of history and his most arresting yet irritating penchant to tell stories to his hapless Cabinet colleagues as thousands of sons were being slaughtered in a prolonged civil war, is the centrepiece of this film. The canvas takes into account the la...

Starring: Vikram, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vinay Virmani, Tabu, Lara Dutta, Isha Sherwani It is grand on the canvas, it is stunning in cinematic experimentation, it’s a treat to the eyes, it’s a magical merger of three eras and it is all that would make for a gripping, novel experience in a carefully done-up cinema. Considering that writer-director Bejoy Nambiar could throw up such packed potentiality of newness from a Bollywood pedestal,  David  should have been the ultimate dish for the exotic taste buds. But, despite all the big moments in this differently abled film, it seems too long and drifty in parts — that’s because Nambiar fails to give a befitting end to a punchy build-up and because the storylines of the three Davids in three timeframes fail to end with the passion with which they unfold. That’s such a shame because Nambiar’s courage to do it differently, and his ability of adorning his newest mount on a unique mix of sights, shades and sounds very distinct...

Starring: Satya Bhabha, Shriya Saran, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Soha Ali Khan Rated: 6.5/10 Like  Life of Pi , it was a book considered un-filmable. No wonder it took 32 years for some director to gather enough courage to make a movie out of the best-ever love tribute to India in English literature. With the meticulousness of Deepa Mehta at the helm, and the inauguration of Salman Rushdie as screenplay writer and playback narrator prudent enough to make certain departures from his book,  Midnight’s Children  is an engaging film on a gripping novel with few rivals. Yes, the book is unrivalled and so the movie, in comparison, a wee bit of a lag. But that does not take away from the effort by Mehta and Rushdie to adapt this treatise on India on screen, retaining most of its essence. The result is cerebral, stunning and mesmerising all at the same time. Like the book, the film chronicles pre and post independent India in all its hues, through its magical childr...

Starring: Kamal Haasan, Pooja Kumar Andrea Jeremiah, Rahul Bose Jaideep Ahlawat Rated: 7/10 The controversy is redundant, the film is absolutely not. Wonder why and how this Muslim sentiment angle got into a film that is one of the best racy thrillers one has seen in a long time.  Vishwaroop  is very Hollywood, very expansive, very edge-of-the-seat, very Kamal Haasan terror thriller that refuses to lie low in any department whatsoever. Yes, it is too long at two hours and 28 minutes, but the absolutely gripping combat sequences thrill you with their audacity and a strange kind of perfection. Hassan has gone all-out to entertain you and he does so as a dynamo of a single-pivot film by one man who is writer, director, producer and actor of a film that is, by far, his biggest, most ambitious one and yet perfectly hinged film that will make R&AW agents happy, send FBI agents to the Haasan learning school of tactics and combat and the terrorists to the cowering roo...

Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, John Abraham, Jacqueline Fernandez, Anil Kapoor, Ameesha Patel Rippling male bods, pumped up musclemania, blood-thirsty streetfighters, men racing cars, jetsetting in luxury private aircraft, clinking glasses on swish yachts and being  lambi  race  ka ghorha  themselves, beefcakes doing women as and when, women gyrating to their tune in skirts shorter than smiles in war country, slick locales, slicker editing and peppy music — yes,  Race 2  is peppy, racy and extremely seductive in intent. It is a youthful movie for young minds and entirely Abbas-Mustan. Abbas-Mustan, to a considerable extent, have lived up to expectations for this sequel which has a thrilling storyline, too, to go with all the post modern props on display. John Abraham, as the ultimate bad man, worships his dirty money as much as he worships his beautiful body, so much so that in the end, he is not left battered as a villain usually...

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick Rated: 3/10 If you are in any way interested in watching a treatise on the ‘F word’, this is the one to go to. For, here you not only find the most varied usage of this four-letter abuse, but it is hurled at you from every quarter, from every mouth that opens and it will be no exaggeration to say that only guns and cars do not use this word. Other than that, there is nothing remotely interesting or classy in this film on an extremely weather-beaten subject of a partner police petrol roaming the streets at night, culling out criminals and criminality — of course amid a good amount of dirty girl talk. Had there been somewhat of a sustainable storyline, had the F-errati not been so disgustingly overbearing, this one would have made some kind of vague sense. Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer, 27 January, 2013  

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta Jones At: PVR & others Rated: 5/10 It’s a splashy starcast which couldn’t have gotten any bigger than it is. And, considering that the film is a next to nothing effort which douses what could have been a gripping politico-criminal thriller, one wonders why an actor of Russel Crowe’s worth would sign up for such an unhappening and lax script. Aiding and abetting him in this lost cause is none other than Catherine Zeta Jones who, as the corrupt and criminal mayor’s stunning wife has only a two bit role to play. Mark Wahlberg as the private eye hired by Crowe to ostensibly spy on his adulterous wife brings in some weight to a film which otherwise hurtles in dark alleys and darer problems. Films on land sharks with political backgounds are neither new nor few in Hollywood. So, this one joins the many which have preceded it, though it does so with far less gravitas. And if Crowe can’t get you gravitas with his unusual ...

Starring: Sachiin Joshi, Gihani Khan,Aditya Pancholi, Mahesh Manjrekar Mumbai Mirror  is directed by Ankush Bhatt and produced by Raina S Joshi. The movie exposes the nexus between powerful, corrupt dance bar owners and the Mumbai police. It revolves around the life of a police officer played by Sachiin Joshi in the big and bad city of Mumbai. The people who live in the city are different from the people in other parts of the country. All those who come to this city start running for an unknown race and everyone aspires o win in that race. The entire movie displays the truth of survival of the fittest. Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer, 13 January, 2013

Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Marta Etura, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Holland Rated: 8.5/10 Against all odds and a family reunion on the shoulder of a devastating disaster, there is nothing that can stop it from becoming a film for accolades. The Impossible, based on a true story of a Japan-based American family of husband, wife and their three young boys who went holidaying to a Thai resort and were hit by the tsunami, is quite an emotional thriller, an edge of the seat experience. What happens to them scares you, their fight to survive inspires you to not ever give up and their commitment to each other — and that includes the three boys all under 14, is an ode to strong family ties in a world where everything is breaking down. It is due to the emotional depth of the storyline that despite the tsunami and its potential to get swept away by a visual treat, the film anchors around only the main characters and their travails once they see that menacing dark monstrous wave...