Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

*ing : John Boyega,  Scott Eastwood,  Jing Tian,  Cailee Spaeny Rated : 6/10 Robots, iron monsters, wars, destruction and a whole lot of metal clanking through your eardrums, Pacific Rim No 2 is back for all the adrenaline junkies who draw their life and breath from unmitigated metal-ism. The sequel to the 2013 edition, this uprising goes a step ahead from merely postponing apocalypse to taking the war into the land of the monstrous Kaijus, conceived and missiled by an equally crazy science junkie amid a whole lot of China town hitech gimmicks and mumbo jumbo. The visuals and the sounds emanating from this relentless metal against metal war are engaging though the non-metal lovers would wonder what they are doing in the film where humanity saver Idris Elba’s son takes on the mantle, albeit reluctantly, to save the world as the skyscraping Kaiju’s get programmed to go amok all over the place. The uprising, quite obviously targeted at New York, Hong Kong and o...

*ing:  Rani Mukherji Rated : 7/10 Rani Mukherji has matured, does not shy away from being less than ordinary or dressing down, shows up her acting talent with aplomb and dominates this finely made film from the first to the last frame. After a break from films, marriage and motherhood, Rani uses this home production to the hilt to make a mark as a rare tourettes syndrome patient who takes life by the scruff of the collar despite rejections both by society and her father. The very fact that the movie is titled Hichki shows how little we know of this rare disorder which is a vocal reaction to some electrical waves mismatching in the brain, and not at all about stammering.  She plays out this affliction with gumption. Showcasing the struggle of Rani to follow her dream of becoming a teacher despite all the scepticism around her affliction, this film with no hero or singing and dancing props, goes in the right direction of a good teacher beset with a batch of bad student...

* ing : Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'Cruz, Saurabh Shukla Rated : 8.5/10 Much like the trait of honesty it showcases, Raid too is a firm, standout and rare film which will be sought after and feted by the audience. Helmed by a brooding Ajay Devgn who has done many stalwart aam official roles in his career before, this one comes with a dash of impressive slowness to thrilling proceedings. For most part, this film set in the 1980s’ Lucknow around an upright income tax officer who has been on a constant transfer as a penalty to his unbending honesty, is gripping. That it takes up a true-story income tax raid on one of the most influential and corrupt party-funding money-bag politicians UP ever had, makes the going even more impactful. Add to that Devgn concentrating on realism as a mode of communication and you have a thriller at hand which quite uniquely does not draw its flesh and blood from unmitigated pace and yet keeps you hooked on. Call it human failing of director Ra...

*ing: David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Thandie Newton, Sharlto Copley Rated: 6/10 Genetically unlawful, high on violence and constantly at war with reason, this kidnap, betrayal, payback drama comes with its moments which kind of slow down and pick up in a regularity that takes away rather than give to the plot. Yet there is enough for you to pop in the popcorn while the chase gets hot on the screen with David Oyelowo testing his comic timing as a Mr Goodness middle-management honcho who gets lost in the badlands of Mexico. He’s is humorous, endearing, God fearing and endearing man who is betrayed by everyone he loves – his best friend, his wife and his hard-nosed but whorish colleague played to the hilt by Charlize Theron. In the middle of this personal battles he is faring with his circumstances, there is a drug lord, there is a snide drug deal between his pharma company and the research facility in Mexico, there is a kidnap drama, there...

*ing: Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl, Eddie Marsan, Ben Schnetzer, Lior Ashkenazi, Denis Ménochet Rated: 8/10 Another gripper of the week, this time based on the 1976 hijack of an Air France airliner by two German revolutionaries and two Palestinian terrorists and a covert rescue operation by Israel when Yitzak Shamir was the Prime Minister and Shimon Perez his Defence Minister. Besides capturing the era of the 1970s beautifully with all its fine nuances and political movements, the film is a realistic take on the gritty and near impossible rescue operation that Israel conducts 4,000 miles away from its territory, that too at an airport falling in the crazy Ugandan President Idi Amin’s territory. Not just that, the entire operation gets the Cabinet vote even as Shamir deters against a crackdown, buckles under pressure and agrees to negotiate with the terrorists, going against Israel’s long stated and never breached policy of no-negotiation. That he was later in life assa...

*ing : Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Ralph Ineson Rated : 4/10 Rob Cohen is used to being fast and furious so he does some amount of justice to the insane speed of the hurricane in which he wraps this heist at a federal facility in America this time round. Carefully chosen to coincide with the storm hitting the coastal city with all its ferocity, the burglars want to achieve the impossible – taking away millions of dollars from a shredding facility. All is well with the film for most part of the heist story, what with a conscientious lady trooper trying to save the millions by changing the code and thus nullifying the hackers and their evil intentions to drone into the system to open the loaded cache. However, not she, but the ferocious hurricane is the befitting hero of the film, as also the brilliant camerawork capturing this rolling annihilating monster. It blows you away without getting blow away itself. A geo-truck, a meteorologist, a mechanic brothe...

*ing : Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas Rated : 5.5/10 From Angelina Jolie in the first one to Alicia Vikander in the 2018 edition, the Tomb Raiders have not moved too many paces, certainly not at all from their original calling. Granted that the franchise allows them to follow only a rigidly set path which has to lead to some tomb raiding in some remote part of the world, mostly to save the world from unmitigated evil (this time an infection genocide), but sometimes variety does help, especially when it is not the kickass Angelina Jolie taking the battle to 70 mm bigness. Yes, Vikander brings her own brand of athleticism to the proceedings and yes it is quite a becoming thought that a movie with a female lead has stood its own for 17 years, but Vikander does not have that splashy oeuvre of Jolie that can carry a movie on the shoulder of a female lead with style and class. Vikander, a rich father’s girl who lost her daddy to an un...

*ing : Urvashi Rautela, Karan Wahi, Vivan Bhatena, Ihana Dhillon, Gulshan Grover Rated : 4/10 What’s loaded most in this No 4 of this perennial bums and boobs show? Yes, the boobs and bottoms as always, but this time the dialogues too are on a continuous nonsensical botox, thereby giving the film a constant high — and dry — syndrome. Too much here is really too much and despite all the bare-breasted heaving, and the weaving of an attempted suspense murder revenge drama into this bee-stung lip and thigh show, there is very little you can cling on to. Neither the music nor the suspense is worth any of your money and even if libidinous men and women turn you on, this one leads you to a limp dead-end without much action in the middle. The Hate Story series, as it is old and boring after three episodes so the fourth one needed to show up more than the passion writhing body of a buxom Urvashi Rautela who must have spend tons on make-up and her lips are so heaving made up that ...