Special 26 is Truly Special !

When a first time Director makes a movie like "A Wednesday", he will forever be burdened by the weight of expectations. His second movie will face the same fate as an Amitabh Bachchan's son or Sachin Tendulkar's son faces. Unless of course, he can better himself. Neeraj Pandey's "Special 26" released with similar background. Does it work ? Has Pandey bettered himself ? read on...

First of all what is NOT so Special about the movie...

01] Kajal Aggarwal: Not her fault. Catering to so called mass effects, her role is unnecessarily extended like a rubber-band. It actually pulls the movie down by a few notches.

02] Songs: Seriously whoever conceived songs in this kind of a movie needs a proper scolding. They act like bumps in the road during a thrilling ride.

03] Peter England: Not the fault of the Company. We just get a glimpse of a Peter England in a story happening in 1987. A minor flaw, but all the same a flaw.

04] Sunil Gavaskar: Well, what was he doing on TV, playing a Cricket match in Sharjah in late 1987 ? He had actually retired from Cricket on 17 March 1987, a day before the movie begins !

And now, what is Special about it ?

05] Neeraj Pandey: He has exceeded himself. A superb second film to follow up a first one. An extremely well researched movie with very few glitches.

06] Anupam Kher: Lost somewhere in the Indra Kumar - Ashok Thakeria kind of buffoonery, this giant of an actor of "Saaransh" fame is the highlight of the movie. In a role that demands him to be serious and scared while making us giggle, Kher is pure delight. So are the names of his count-less children.

07] Manoj Bajpai: One of the finest actors of this generation got his due mostly in Prakash Jha movies. Here, he is at his best as the honest and somewhat arrogant CBI Officer Wasim Khan. One of his better movies !

08] Akshay Kumar: His best role and movie in a long time. Period !

09] Jimmy Shergill: One more under-rated actor gets a fabulous role as Inspector Ranveer Singh and he has done complete justice.

10] 100 Rupees and honesty: Good to see 100 Rupee note getting respect. The thug returning the officer's honestly earned 100 rupees shows the values people had in that era. Even the kids don't have respect for either 100 rupees or honesty these days.

11] Divya Dutta: "Sirjee, Asli kaam toh yeh log karte hain". In spite of looking older, this lady entertains with her comic act.

12] Kajal Aggarwal: Her role was extended unnecessarily in not her fault. The young lady looks beautiful in 80s style costumes and emotes well.

13] CBI: Central Bank of India... How many people really know the real expansion ?

14] Black Money: Hiding money in the Pooja room, inside the bed and in car seats was fashionable those days. Amitabh Bachchan always managed to find it if he was playing Inspector and invariably managed to escape with it if he was the "Don" !

15] The Phone: The huge black phones with 4 or 5 digit numbers and the cord-less connection phones as large as the dumb bells are sheer nostalgia.

16] Hello: The old style phone tapping was in currency during this period and this has been shown to help crack the case. Zail Singh once blamed Rajiv Gandhi of tapping his phone. Ironically these two begin the proceedings in the movie.

17] Cars: Old cars, Ambassador, Maruti, Padmini, Fiat and not a single new generation car on the roads makes it look absolutely authentic. So is the Connaught Place of the yore. A lot of meticulous work has gone into this. Appreciated !

18] Humor: Extremely subtle. So subtle, most people would miss it if not attentive. A subordinate officer clad in Lord Shiva's getup [under cover], walks past a serious discussion between Bajpai and Shergill, casually greeting them with a "Good Morning, Sir". This is serious comedy !

19] English: "I want to do my Country". This is not the pretentious "Don't angry me" or "Child in the arm pit" stuff. This is real English spoken in India in 1987 and even today !

20] Chulloo Bhar Paani: I don't know how many times this dialogue has been used in Hindi cinema. But I bet it can't be bettered after Manoj Bajpai's Classic act in the climax. The actor turns even the trivial into a classic.

21] Minister: Ministers those days did fear the CBI even though it was post Indira Gandhi era. The guts shown by P. K. Sharma when he slaps the Minister defines the mood of the movie.

22] Dialogues: Neerak Pandey's dialogues are just point blank. The seriousness, humor and timing all are just perfect and are made worthy of a long stay in our minds by some extremely good actors.

23] Rajesh Sharma: as Jogindar, one of the 4 in the gang is life-like. He lives the role. We don't see any 'acting' !

24] Kishore Kadam: As Iqbal, the fourth in the gang is another competent actor.

25] Illustrated Weekly of India: Long dead papers and magazines like Dharmyug come to life adding to the nostalgic value. Old is truly Gold !

26] The heist: Finally, after such duds like "Thees Maar Khan", we get to see an extremely competent 'heist' movie in Indian cinema. A genuinely delightful climax adds to the brand-value !

My Opinion: An extremely well made movie with some forgivable glitches. Would have been much better without the songs and with lesser of Kajal Aggarwal. Yet, this one is Special and is a must watch !

Race-2 Oblivion !

At one point in Abbas-Mustan's Race-2, Aditya Panscholi says, "Shroud of Turin hasn't been stolen even in Hollywood movies and you people are planning on that". They aspire to out-do Hollywood. Do they succeed ? Read on...

A Race is all about numbers and count downs. The Race begins with a count down, but when it ends, it is the 1, 2, 3 that matters. After making an 'Iconic' first part almost half decade ago, Abbas-Mustan return with a sequel with some old and some new characters and same old style of "Style over Substance" kind of film-making !

So let us begin the count down in terms of performance from 10/10 downwards...

10] Shah Rukh Khan: Well, we all know he isn't there in this movie and is busy sobbing about his Muslim identity being a disadvantage in India. But, SRK gave Abbas - Mustan duo their best movie to date and I doubt if they can better "Baazigar" !

09] Saif Ali Khan: It is safe to say he carried the film on his shoulders like John Abraham carried Typhoon. He looks stylish, intense, intelligent and does an encore of Race-1.

08] Akshaye Khanna: Well again, his absence is felt. Tough to replace him and since he is the second on the list of missing people, he still figures high on my list.

07] Anil Kapoor: The wicked but good RD gets wickeder but not better. The actor is an icon when it comes to over the top comedy and tongue in cheek one-liners.

06] John Abraham: He is a handsome hulk and he and we all know that. No big deal. But in a role that deals with big deals, John at times tends to 'Ham'. The problem also is with us. Race-2 is NOT Dhoom-1 for John Abraham.

05] Amisha Patel: I thought Sameera Reddy couldn't be replaced for the stupidity she oozed in first part. As Cherry, Amisha manages to look and talk immensely stupid. But she is so fit and prim at 37, her curves distract us from her stupidity !

04] Deepika Padukone: She looks seductive, melancholic, happy and sad alternatively without much relevance to the going on in the movie. But her legs save her from becoming a total disaster. Tough for her considering she has to replace Bipasha Basu who gave her best performance in the prequel.

03] Aditya Panscholi: He looks more like a middle-aged failing businessman on a forced holiday with his bitch of a wife rather than the all powerful Don he is supposed to be. Miscast I must say.

02] Jacqueline Fernandez: If Amisha tries hard to look stupid, Jacqueline tries hard to look intelligent. Amisha succeeds but Jacqueline fails. Poorly written role; can't blame the young lady. How we miss Katrina Kaif !

01] Race-2: With expectations as high as we had, Race-2 fails to reach 10% of the thrills the prequel afforded in spite of the bigger money, bigger canvas and casinos.

00] Abbas-Mustan: Though it may sound harsh, this is disappointing from the duo who have thrived on thrillers. With all the budget and best of the star-cast at disposal, they forgot something; a good story with a tight plot and something new.

Too much of style and feminine Anatomy and very little substance and Chemistry between the lead actors lets Race-2 down. Diehard fans of Abbas-Mustan style of movie might enjoy this. But unless they bring in some new dimension to their movies, the duo might soon fade away. This might be the beginning of their "Race 2 Oblivion"

Chappa Kurishu: A Must Watch !

Disclaimer: I am not much of an avid watcher of foreign language movies because I don't understand those languages. If the movie I am talking about is a remake of some Korean movie, don't bombard me with references. I am happy with Indian movies, even if they are inspired; simply because I can understand what they are talking.

Two in a Crowd !

After the delicious 'Salt and Pepper', the next Malayalam movie I watched was "Chappa Kurishu". Being a Non-Malayalee, I had no idea what it meant. But after watching the movie with a strange name, I am happy I chose to watch it.

It is a story of two totally different people, Arjun [Fahad Fazil in a come back role] and Ansari [Vineeth Sreenivasan]. One is a rich and upwardly mobile techie with ruthless selfishness. The other, a much abused lowly employee of a super-market. The former is getting engaged to a rich girl Ann [Roma in a dumb belle role], but indulges in oh so hot romance with his colleague Sonia [gorgeous Remya Nambeesan]. 

Ansari on the other hand is a slum-dweller who can't even express his soft corner for his beautiful and supportive colleague. He takes all abuses of his Supervisor and others without a whimper and continues to eat cheap food to save money so that he can send money-order to his mother.

Arjun shoots his own rendezvous with Sonia on his mobile camera. When Sonia realizes that he is getting engaged to another girl, she wrecks havoc in his professional life. In the middle of an extremely well shot altercation, Arjun loses his phone. That phone lands in the hands of Ansari who doesn't even know how to use it. This is the beginning of a chase and a race that changes two lives completely.

As Arjun frantically tries to get his phone back, Ansari begins to feel a strange sense of power. He isn't after money. For the first time in his life, he wants to enjoy the power. He uses Arjun to avenge his insult. But this act of innocent rage lands the lives of Arjun, Ann, Sonia and all the people connected to them in a huge turmoil.

The movie smoothly moves towards the climax with some tense moments involving Sonia and Arjun and a series of hit and miss events between Arjun and Ansari. The climax is all about how the incident changes the life and outlook of both the protagonists completely. Arjun, the suave operator realizes the importance of relations in life and Ansari gets the balls to take life head-on.

Vineeth Sreenivasan is simply fantastic and lives the role of the underdog. But Fahad Fazil who looked like a dud in his first movie [Kaiyethum Doorathu] is a complete revelation. Remya Nambeesan looks gorgeous, does a very competent job as the sinned against Sonia and has done a very bold love scene without which the movie would have been incomplete. Niveditha as the friend-less Ansari's only friend looks cute and does well. Roma does well in a very limited role. All the supporting cast is equally efficient.

Music and background score adds to the tempo of the movie. Camera-work is excellent and brings out Kochi as a character on its own in the movie. Perhaps the movie would have been even better with a little crispier editing. But as a whole experience, I will buy this from a first time Director. Sameer Thahir making his Directorial debut will have a lot to live up to in future. Here is one more new Director with a fabulous first movie. All this augurs well for Malayalam Cinema and I am happy for that.

Traffic

Linear narrative is the simplest way to tell a story and we have been hearing, reading, and watching the linear narrative for most of the time.  But when the story consists of different strands, woven together by the hand of fate or destiny, can linear narrative do justice to the story or the characters, each of whom has a different story to tell ? I dont think so......A complex story can be told very clearly using non-linear narrative, which is just the case with Traffic.  Just imagine the toil put in by the script writers (Bobby n Sanjay) to tell this story, which moves from multiple points and the director (Rajesh Pillai) who has manned the movie beautifully and thereby not letting us slip into traffic jam, at any point..............great work guys.......The innovative way of multi-speaker perspective keeps the viewers on the tenterhooks and I am not surprised that I heard so much good being said about this movie.

The story moves forward from a 4 person perspective, a traffic cop (Sreenivasan), a doctor (Kunchako Boban), an actor (Rehman), and a TV journalist (Vineeth) who is embarking on his first assignment, and it consists of the happenings in a 12-hour period, in which all the 4 characters are involved.


If you are among the few who have not watched it yet, then go ahead and watch it....it is an entirely new experience for a Malayalam movie watcher.


Tamil and Hindi versions of this movie are in the offing, I sincerely hope that they won't be tinkering with the script.

The Man from Earth (2007)

The Man from Earth (2007), directed by Richard Schenkman, written by Jerome Bixby, is a movie that I would say is a testimony to story telling. It also shows the power of human imagination.

I do not want to build up excitement, which always leads to dissappointment.

I stumbled across this movie, had it for a while, then one day just decided to view it and was really taken back with the story and the simple nature of the movie.

The movie is a story telling, the main characters are all in a house around a fire listening to a man who tells them a superb story.

The summary of the movie is such - a group of college professors decide to give a send off party to a professor who has decided to move out. The party turns out to a story telling which leaves everyone in the room disturbed and confused. Hope this sounds exciting without giving away much.

Read about the movie more if you want at IMDB and Wikipedia, find it, then forget about it, then one day just sit down with a warm drink enjoy this movie. You will really appreciate it.

Fair Game 2010

Fair Game, is a movie based on true events. It is described as a biography, drama, and thriller at IMDB. It is not one of those loosely based or loosely inspired stuffs we normally see in the movie. The movie shows actual true events.

The theme of the movie is the events leading to the Iraq War, and the movie is shown from the view point of the two leading actors, Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, portrayed as husband and wife.

Naomi Watts portrays the actual CIA operative Valerie Plame whose identity was leaked by the White House when her husband wrote an article in the New York Times questioning the authenticity of the president George Bush's address to the public on Iraq possessing nuclear material.

The movie depicts the fight of one family against the White House for the truth, the internal tension that arises within the family, how their social life gets affected, and how they emerge from all this.

The movie is worth watching, is an understatement.

S1m0ne

'S1mOne', IMDb describes it as a comedy, drama, romance. They forgot it is a thriller for most of the part.

The story goes on like this..

.. an actress walks out on our director (Al Pacino). No other actress is willing to work with him. This is the last chance he has with his production company. Facing this ultimatum.. he meets a mad man who lost his eye creating a computer program that can bring characters to life on screen. Left with no choice, our director creates a virtual actress Simone, promising that he will erase her once the movie is done. To his surprise she seems indistinguishable from real characters in the movie. The movie breaks records and Simone becomes international sensation. What follows will leave you at the edge of your seat.

The fight between our director and Simone ensues.. it becomes difficult for our director to kill of Simone as she is the most popular person in the world. Now Simone has to appear on TV shows, international concerts, and just about everything else.. it is a comedy to see how our director struggles to make this all possible.

This is a great movie and I was so excited to see the ending... it didn't disappoint and was brilliant..

The writer and director of this movie is Andrew Niccol a genius who has also made Gattaca (1997), The Truman Show (1998), The Terminal (2004), and Lord of War (2005) all of them top notch.

Exam

Exam, the most dreaded word around, be it the annual exams in school or the semester exams in the university it is the same feeling generally. Though I know a few who actually look forward to it.. so that they can enjoy the holidays ;)

The movie, Exam, is a thriller, the general description would be - eight people after going through rigorous screening, appear to the exam for a key position in the biggest pharmaceutical cooperation of the world.

One can guess, the exam will not be a piece of cake. The very nature of the exam, the characters, the setting.. creates tension.. and the movie progresses... as I said it is a thriller so you will have to go through the whole thing to understand what is the reason for what goes on.

I enjoyed the movie. Though I cannot vouch for all of you out there.. and say that you will enjoy it.. all I would add is, if you are in a mood for a thriller.. you should watch "Exam".