Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Baby Starring : Akshay Kumar, Rana Daggubati, Taapsee Pannu, Anupam Kher, Madhurima Tuli, Danny Denzongpa, Kay Kay Menon, Sushant Singh Rated : 6.5/10 For the January 26 week,  Baby  is an apt release. It comes with a high testosterone patriotic fervour, is pegged on the populism of  terrorist bashing, is helmed by a crisp Akshay Kumar and is edited such that pace gets maximum mileage. Director Neeraj Pandey who has grown up on well-received films like  A Wednesday ,  Special 26, Total Siyappa  and The Royal Bengal Tiger  breezes through  Baby  with the expertise of a veteran. Pandey moves the spy thriller from India to Nepal to Saudi Arabia and keeps up the edge-of-seat jingoism without really getting overtly jingoistic. Yes, it is ridiculous to see one man doing all this and with such precision. He can torture, he can murder, he can kidnap bad elements from another country, he can walk into a fully guarded hideout and take out a t...

Mortdecai Starring : Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Olivia Munn, Jonny Pasvolsky, Paul Bettany, Jeff Goldblum Rated : 5/10 You often wonder how bereft the world of Hollywood would have been if God had not given one Mr Johnny Depp his typical brand of screen eccentricities. What would Hollywood have done if Depp had come to the big screen without his distinct ability to purse his lips the way he does, bat his eyelids so quizzically, make the most funny faces without doing a Jim Carrey on you and yet romance as no man has or will ever be able to? Well then, Hollywood would not have made films like  Mortdecai . And if it did, they would have fallen from grace without making a sound. There is nothing in the film even now but for that oh-so-delightfully queer Lord Mortdecai, played oh-so-delightfully by Depp. It is not just his stiffly gelled brunette moustache that keeps him apart from his wife Gwyneth Paltrow but also his totally over-the-top mannerisms of a he...

Dolly Ki Doli Starring : Sonam Kapoor, Rajkumar Rao, Pulkit Samrat, Varun Sharma Rated : 6/10 This one is a breezy film with an unexpectedly pleasant and unconventional end to the proceedings. Sonam Kapoor, resplendent as ever in her designer wear (producer Arbaaz Khan was in a state about paying through his nose for all her costumes), plays the lead role with gumption and holds the otherwise slim and scattered film together. Women con artists have been around on Bollywood screen for a long time and even made waves sometimes, like Babli did with Bunty some years ago. As Dolly, Sonam may not carry the same spice but she is no walkover either. Her serial weddings and loots with a motley group of co-conspirators tend to get somewhat repetitive but she can be seen working hard and succeeding in hemming up the tears fast. And where she fails, in walks Rajkumar Rao with his potent histrionics as a Haryanvi farmer and steals the show. He stands tallest in the film which has only l...

The Theory of Everything Staring:   Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney Rated:  9/10 Stephen Hawking, as we all know, is the most celebrated specimen of destiny defying human endeavour and has, well, defied theory of everything fatal in his lifetime of 70 plus and still going strong. For a scientist of such repute, who has ruled the minds and appreciation of the world with his scientific philosophy and what he called “physics of lust” when he was young and able bodied, a film has always been in the making. When he was made the subject of  The Beautiful Mind  with Russell Crowe getting the honours — and the complex proposition — to play Hawking, it was an arresting but runaway hit, a darling of the Oscars. Now, with  The Theory of Everything , the story still remains the same — potent, pulling, moving, compelling, awe-inspiring and legendary — much the same as the personality himself. Only, this time round the fil...

The Imitation game Staring : Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong Rated : 8/10 This is a week of legends telling their true stories on cinema. If Stephen Hawking does so on the muscle of five Oscar nominations,  The Imitation Game  does so with a rare multiplication — that of eight Oscar nominations, with Benedict Cumberbatch leading the race for best actor only a whisker behind Eddie Redmayne. Whether it will finally be the best picture while in the company of  American Sniper, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Boyhood, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash  and  Selma  is a question worth waiting for, but for now, sitting tall over the edgy shoulders of Cumberbatch, this one from the War days is a treat to watch. It is slow, measured and not in the hurry of a traditional thriller but it still manages to hold you in your seat while you get into the secret operations of the Allied forces on a secret mission to break the ...

Paddington Staring : Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Nicole Kidman, Ben Whishaw Rated : 6.5/10 He is from the darkest insides of Peru. He is a bear but he can into London, talk like the English do and sport manners that will leave a gentleman with some questions about himself. To top it all, he is called Paddington, as in the well-known underground. He is here to find a home after his groovy shelter hanging from a tree in a Peruvian jungle is destroyed in an earthquake. And if he is all this, he is also fodder for evil animal stuffers — like our very own Nicole Kidman who is after Paddington as a mission in life after her good hearted explorer father refuses to bring in one after an expedition to Peru all those years ago.  But that’s another story altogether, as in, only the flesh of this film which thankfully, delightfully and quite playfully centres around the cute bear cub. Paddington has all the ouvres needed to ensnare y...

American Sniper Staring:  Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller Rated:  7/10 Bradley Cooper has an Oscar nomination for this one but the film is not exactly no about him but the fallout of the relentless Iraq war on US Marines and their families. This film too has been inspired by a true story so when the credit starts rolling at the end, you are left alone to think the inevitable — why war when it kills, and how? As an American sniper, Cooper is a legend with 162 terrorist heads adorning his uniform — all killed with precision and in cold blood in the name of the nation — and these casualties include women and children trying to harm the forces in some unnamed city of Iraq. The film is not about war either but how it alters the psyche of its  dramatis personae,  Cooper being the central figure of that subtle but devastating alteration of the mind, body and soul. As his friends fall to a wily Iraqi sniper who was once an Olympic athlete, Cooper gets compelled to ...

Crazy cukkad family Staring:  Swanand Kirkire, Shilpa Shukla, Pravina Deshpande, Kushal Punjabi Rated:  3/10 This one is from the stable of Prakash Jha, the maker of all those thinking political thrillers which have adorned Bollywood for so many years. So, him venturing through the backdoor in another genre altogether came with high expectations. But his production fails to impress, is too light on a storyline and comes squeezed of laughs. So the crazy kukkads  here are crazy yes, but only with smirks not with laughs. They try hard to make you smile, but lend a lot of irritation down the hours, be it through an overweight wife abusive son of a comatose father, or his wannabe husband-abusing daughter of loud colours, louder worsts and loudest distastefulness. One wonders when Bollywood will realise that comedies don’t really have to yell or go over the top in their endeavour to make a mark. Jha, a man of repute when it comes to cinema, should have realised that...

TAKEN 3 *ing: Liam Neeson, Forest Whitaker, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Dougray Scott, Sam Spruell, Leland Orser Rated: 6.5/10 Bryan Mills is back and in the same style. He has the same kind of (personal) job to do, he is as agile, fit, fast and as deadly as he was in other  Takens . His job too is almost the same — save daughter from lean and mean kidnappers, this time the Russians who have nothing really to do with him. Yes, his daughter has grown up enough to reject a giant Panda for a birthday gift from dad and also turn pregnant. His wife Lenore is there for a short and sweet interlude, but more importantly, on a much bigger job of getting the story going. For, writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen set up the entire two-hour premise of what they are calling the “final Taken” on Lenore’s largely unexplained murder. Fans of the  Taken  series will not be disappointed by this one too as Liam Neeson is vintage stuff, in fact so vintage that you can predict ...

UNBROKEN *ing: Jack O'Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock Rated: 7/10 It’s a mind-boggling life that Louis Zamperini lived all through the 97 years that he fought almost everything — imaginable and unimaginable — from school days beatings to being trained as a marathon runner, to run the Berlin Olympics, to shake hands with Hitler, to steal the Fuehrer’s personal flag, to becoming a bombardier, to going down with a plane, to drifting ceaselessly without water or food for 47 days in the Pacific Ocean, to being captured by the Japanese, to spending two of his most harrowing years as a POW, to finally returning to his family, to fighting alcoholism and post traumatic stress disorder, to becoming a born-again Christian, to preaching forgiveness as an inspirational speaker, to running the Olympics again, in Japan this time at age 87, to finally falling to pneumonia just three years short of turning 100! Obviously director Angelina Jolie could not ...

TEVAR *ing: Arjun Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Manoj Bajpayee Rated: 6/10 Arjun Kapoor says in this one that he is the mixed fruit juice of Rambo, Terminator and Salman Khan put through a mixer-grinder. He also says he is Superman, Salman ka  fan and what not, like mouthing a menacing  kabaddi, kabaddi  chant before going for the kill! Well, on the face of it, all the above mentioned have enough currency to power a two-and-a-half-hour movie all on their own even if two hours of it are a villain chasing hero-heroine chase. But  Tevar , despite Arjun’s earnest effort at unabashed  pehelwani  mixed with ruffian buffoonery, does not take you in. Come to think of it, all these South Indian movie remakes are falling apart. This one particularly, perhaps because producer Sanjay Kapoor erroneously decided to remake a way back 2003 Telugu movie as his production vehicle in 2015 when almost everything has changed from those olden times — be it the way you take r...