Argo Movie Review

Lester: Argo F***k Yourself

Director:

Ben Affleck

Producer:

Grant Heslov, Ben Affleck, George Clooney

Cast:

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez

Bryan Cranston as Jack O’Donnell

Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel

John Goodman as John Chambers

Clea DuVall as Cora Lijek

Kyle Chandler as Hamilton Jordan

Victor Garber as Ken Taylor

Tate Donovan as Bob Anders

Michael Parks as Jack Kirby

Tom Lenk as Rodd

Christopher Stanley as Tom Ahern

Taylor Schilling as Christine Mendez

Rory Cochrane as Lee Schatz

Music:

Alexandre Desplat

Story:

A dramatization of the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran.

Review:

When you see ‘Based on a True Story’ you think how true is the true story? Especially when it’s CIA related.. But, you’d be surprised how accurate this movie is. Ben Affleck is a great director and is critically acclaimed for his movies- ‘The Town’ and ‘Gone Baby Gone’. Those two were wonderful. This movie is no different.

The movie starts with a voice over telling us about the history of Iran, mixed with some real pictures and some drawings. Then we see what happened due to USA’s interference in the politics of Iran. This eventually led to the rebellion that led to the main story of the movie. This rebellion eventually leads to six Americans at the American embassy in Iran to escape and take refuge in the Canadian ambassador’s house.

There, they stay for over 70 days before the CIA takes notice of them and plans a rescue mission. They go through a list of plans to get them out.. All of them are bad. Ben Affleck’s character, Tony Mendez comes up with the best bad plan to get them out. He decides to make a fake movie and those 6 American’s would be the crew. They would be scouting for shooting locations. Tony, then goes around assembling the team for the movie. He finds that in John Goodman and Alan Arkin. From here, he goes to Tehran to save them.

The movie is well made and it blends the real footage with the movie nicely. The acting was wonderful, especially Ben Affleck’s. His performance was marvelous. He should win an oscar for this. The music complimented the scenes very well. The end kept the audience at the end of the chair waiting to see what would happen. At some point, people would expect a shoot out scene, but that doesn’t happen. That was a good thing. The set design and the costumes and the make was also very good. If I didn’t any better, I’d have thought that this movie was made in the 70’s.

The movie had hints of dark comic elements into it. This was a brilliant movie after so very long. Ben Affleck’s acting as one of the highlights of the movie.

Final Verdict:

8.5/10

Movie Review: Shanghai 2012

 

Director:

Dibakar Banerjee

Cast:

Emraan Hashmi as Joginder Parmar

Abhay Deol as T. A. Krishnan

Kalki Koechlin as Shalini Sahay

Prosenjit Chatterjee Dr. Ahmadi

Pitobash Tripathy as Bhagu

Farooq Sheikh as Kaul

Tillotama Shome as Mrs. Ahmedi

Music:

Vishal-Shekhar

Based on the novel ‘Z’ by Vassilis Vassilikos.

Story:

A small town somewhere in India is poised to become the next Shanghai. Billions of dollars are being poured into an upcoming International Business Park. On the eve of its launch a drunk truck driver mows down a prominent social activist. A lone girl believes it to be a murder, supported by a porn film maker who claims to have the proof that will bring the government down. A high ranking bureaucrat is brought in to investigate the accident.

Review:

Shanghai, is not your typical Bollywood movie. It doesn’t have the usual masala and the unnecessary dancing at every second. It has only two occasions where there were people dancing. It starts slow, but it has a good story. It was a good movie.

Kalki cannot act! And Abhay Deol cannot speak Tamil. Though he tries very hard he only pronounces certain words like tamilians. The movie has a good story line and the music was pretty good too. Emraan Hashmi is the only person who acts good (Strange!). The movie is like a documentary. When Krishnan, uses tact and cunning to get his superior to prosecute the minister, was the best scene in the movie.

The Directing by Dibakar Banerjee was pretty good. And the movie was pretty good too.

 

Final Verdict:

6.5/10

Movie Review: Prometheus (3D)

Meredith: Son of a Bitch! They were right!

I’ve added two posters as I couldn’t decide which was better!

Director:

Ridley Scott

Producer:

Ridley Scott, David Giler & Walter Hill

Writer:

Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof

Cast:

Noomi Rapace as Elizabeth Shaw

Michael Fassbender as David

Guy Pearce as Peter Weyland

Charlize Theron as Meredith Vickers

Idris Elba as Janek

Logan Marshall-Green as Charlie Holloway

Rafe Spall as Milburn

Sean Harris as Fifield

Music:

Marc Streitenfeld

Story:

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

Review:

Ridley Scott, in 1979, changed the meaning of monster. In the dictionary, you’d see a picture of a Xenomorph against the word Scary. He took haunted house genre to a whole new dimension (and solar system). Here Ellen Ripley was hunted by an Alien. This movie spawned 3 sequels (Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection). And now, 33 years later, Ridley returns to sci-fi and to the Alien Universe with Prometheus.

Prometheus starts of with a prologue, showing us a scene of a beautiful landscape, which I think is ancient earth. A large humanoid thing drinks something from a cup and dives in to the waterfall. This, I feel, was an awesome start to the movie. We then flash forward to 2089, where Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Hollaway are discovering the pictograms.

On Prometheus, we see the whole crew in hypersleep and David, the android, is watching Lawrence of Arabia. Then as we reach LV 223, Charlize Theron’s character has woken up and she instructs David to wake the others up. Then when we reach the planet, the fun starts. They see a large pyramid kind of structure. Its origins is unknown but it’s hollow on the inside. So, the team ventures into it, to find the makers of mankind.  But what they find could just be their end.

David finds a mysterious pane, which on activation shows a hologram of large aliens running and one getting decapitated. As they follow the hologram, they find the body of the alien, and when David opens the door, they find the head. Along with the head they find a large statue has features resembling that of Humans. They also find some canisters. Shaw then takes the head back to Prometheus. Where, they realize that the alien is wearing a helmet. Which on removing, reveals a human like face. And it is then that they realize that they have found their makers!

The whole pyramid thing, reminded me of the one in AVP, and this was so beautifully constructed. The canisters with the black liquid oozing out and the large head, was amazing. The later we see two crew members being attacked by what I’m assuming is a pre-face hugger, or what I’d like to cal finger hugger. The whole movie, gets interesting from there on out.

Charlize Theron acts so well. She carried out the role of Meredith. She was so cold and mean, that I actually thought she was a robot. But Fassbender does an AWESOME job as David the android. He and Meredith, have ulterior motives. We find out later in the movie that Peter Weyland is still alive and in hypersleep. He has actually come here to see mankind’s makers.

The large humanoid aliens, our makers, were so awesome. They were large and looked scary too. The SFX in the movie were too good. And Noomi Rapace acted nicely for her first lead role post-millennium series. The 3D effect just enhances your experience of the movie. And the insta-pregnancy of Elizabeth Shaw, and her removing the alien out was an awesome scene too. But then, the alien that she removes, turns out to be alive.

When David reveals that there is actually an Alien still alive, Peter is killed when they open it and then it turns out that they were standing in the ship of the alien, which is on a course to earth to destroy it. After crashing the aliens space craft, it still is alive and hunts Elizabeth Shaw. And in the end Elizabeths baby, which is now fully grown, crushes it.

Then David, whose head was ripped off by the alien, tells Shaw that there are other ships as well, which he can pilot. She then asks if he can pilot them to the planet of the makers. I found only one problem in this movie. This takes place before Alien right? So how does Prometheus have more advanced technology than the ship in Aliens?

The end of the movie where a baby Xenomorph, rips through the aliens chest, after it was planted by large Octopus-alien thing.

Other than that it is a very good movie!

 

Final Verdict:

8.5/10

Movie Review: The Matrix

Morpheus: What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me.

Director:

Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski

Producer:

Joel Silver

Writer:

Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski

Cast:

Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson / Neo

Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus

Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity

Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith

Joe Pantoliano as Cypher

Julian Arahanga as Apoc

Anthony Ray Parker as Dozer

Marcus Chong as Tank

Gloria Foster as the Oracle

Belinda McClory as Switch

Music:

Don Davis

Story:

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Review:

First of all I’d like to say that I absolutely hate Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburn. Keanu isn’t a strong actor and Laurence’s role in CSI ruined my image of him. But when they are given good roles in good movies, without stupid lines they actually do a good job.

The Wachowski brothers have done a beautiful job in this movie. We are in a time where sci-fi movies lack a good script and rely heavily on SFX. It was a refresher to see such a movie. This movie has humor, action, science fiction and little bit of romance. The action sequences in the movie are a little like a tamil movie, but since it’s happening in The Matrix, its’s forgivable.

The visuals are stunning and the action sequences are choreographed to catch your attention. The movie gets interesting only after the first 30 mins, when Neo gets the message from Morpheus asking him to follow the white rabbit. The ship has a rather complicated name –  “Nebuchadnezzar” – not bad as names go but a rather  funny name. The acting of Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith was very good.

The Matrix, is essentially a good vs evil, dystopian future movie. All  in all it’s an awesome movie.

Final Verdict:

8/10.

Movie Review: Safe House

 

 

Director: Daniel Espinosa

Producer: Scott Stuber

Writer: David Guggenheim

Cast:

Denzel Washington as Tobin Frost

Ryan Reynolds as Matt Weston

Vera Farmiga as Catherine Linklater

Brendan Gleeson as David Barlow

Sam Shepard as Harlan Whitford

Rubén Blades as Carlos Villar

Nora Arnezeder as Ana Moreau

Robert Patrick as Daniel Kiefer

Music: Ramin Djawadi

Story:

Matt Weston is a CIA rookie who is manning a safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, when Tobin Frost the CIA’s most wanted rogue agent is captured and taken to the safe house. During Frost’s interrogation, the safe house is overtaken by mercenaries who want Frost. Weston and Frost escape and must stay out of the gunmen’s sight until they can get to another safe house.

Review:

‘Safe House’ is what you’d get if Jason Bourne was a 60+ year old guy. The movie borrow ideas from several other movies. The movie had a tinted color which for me, was kind of irritating. The story of the movie is very confusing.

From the first 30 mins of the movie, I had guessed that there was some one feeding the mercenaries information as to the location of Frost (And what a cold name for a rouge agent , Tobin Frost, it’s sure to strike fear in the heart of his enemies). The movie could have been made much better if they had revealed the identity of the leak and then weave a better story around that. But probably the Director wants us to focus on that mystery. There  are too many shoot outs in the movie – If I’m right, there is one near the consulate, one in the safe house, one in the stadium, one in the slums and the last one in the other safe house. There was also many car chases. Maybe the director wanted us to be amazed at the number of shoot outs and car chases he could squeeze into one movie.

But not only is the story that let the movie down, but also the character. Tobin Frost is supposed to be some great CIA Agent who goes rouge. He has killed many agents and he’s an expert at psychological manipulation. So basically the CIA thinks that he is capable of mind control.

The action sequences were not very great either. But on the bright side, Ryan Renolds shows that he can actually act. Denzel Washington’s acting wasn’t  great.  The poster for the movie is uninspiring. The movie has a very cheesy tag line: “No one is safe”

‘Safe House’ tries to be a Bourne kind of thriller but fails miserably. But if you  are going to watch this movie for the senseless action then probably you’d like it.

Final Verdict:   4/10

Midnight Feature #2- Grindhouse

GRINDHOUSE

 

Planet Terror

Cherry Darling: [astonished that Dakota has shot The Rapist with a syringe] Where’d you learn to do THAT?
Dr. Dakota Block: Useless Talent #37

Director:

Robert Rodriguez

Producer:

Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino & Elizabeth Avellan

Cast:

Rose McGowan as Cherry Darlin

Freddy Rodriguez as El Wray

Josh Brolin as Dr. William Block

Marley Shelton as Dr. Dakota Block

Jeff Fahey as J.T. Hague

Michael Biehn as Sheriff Hague

Rebel Rodriguez as Tony Block

Bruce Willis as Lt. Muldoon

Naveen Andrews as Abby

Julio Oscar Mechoso as Romey

Stacy Ferguson as Tammy Visan

Music:

Robert Rodriguez

Story:

After an experimental bio-weapon is released, turning thousands into zombie-like creatures, it’s up to a rag-tag group of survivors to stop the infected and those behind its release.

Review:

The movie is the first part of the second part of my “Midnight Features”. It was awesome (Obviously!). The scratched effect and the ‘missing reel’ were an interesting additions.

The acting was also amazing. This movie was intentionally made like a cheap horror movie. Or to put it simply a hindi horror movie.. 🙂

The movie is wonderfully made with an amazing cast.

The fake trailer before this movie is of “Machete” with Danny Trejo. The trailer is funny and later made into an actual movie.

“If you’re going to hire Machete to kill the bad guy… You better make damn sure that you are not one of them” 

Final Verdict:

7/10

 Death Proof

Stuntman Mike: [as he drives] Hey, Pam, remember when I said this car was death proof? Well, that wasn’t a lie. This car is 100% death proof. Only to get the benefit of it, honey, you REALLY need to be sitting in my seat.

Director:

Quentin Tarantino

Producer:

Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Elizabeth Avellan & Erica Steinberg

Cast:

Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike McKay

Rosario Dawson as Abernathy Ross

Zoë Bell as Zoe

Vanessa Ferlito as Arlene / Butterfly

Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Jungle Julia

Tracie Thoms as Kim Mathis

Rose McGowan as Pam

Jordan Ladd as Shanna

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lee Montgomery

Jonathan Loughran as Jasper

Michael Parks as Earl McGraw

Monica Staggs as Lena Frank

Marley Shelton as Dr. Dakota Block

Quentin Tarantino as Warren

Story:

Two separate sets of voluptuous women are stalked at different times by a scarred stuntman who uses his “death proof” cars to execute his murderous plans.

Review:

This is part 2 of my second “Midnight Feature”. This too was awesome. Quentin Tarantino is a SUPERB director.

This movie, unlike the previous, didn’t have scratches but had two ‘missing reel’ parts which made it even more better. The story is also good. The stunt called ‘Ship’s Mast’ was actually performed by Zoë Bell and it was amazing. The acting was also brilliant.

The movie is an orignal Quentin Tarantino movie i.e. AWESOME.

Final Verdict:

9/10

Quotes:

Stuntman Mike: Well, Pam… Which way you going, left or right?
Pam: Right!
Stuntman Mike: Oh, that’s too bad…
Pam: Why?
Stuntman Mike: Because it was a fifty fifty shot on whether you’d be going left or right. You see we’re both going left. You could have just as easily been going left, too. And if that was the case… It would have been a while before you started getting scared. But since you’re going the other way, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to start getting scared… immediately!

Midnight Feature #1 — Fight Club

Tyler Durden: “Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight.”

Director:

David Fincher

Producer:

Cean Chaffin, Ross Grayson Bell & Art Linson

Cast:

Edward Norton as The Narrator/ Jack’s Body parts.

Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden

Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer

Meat Loaf as Bob/ Robert Paulson

Music:

The Dust Brothers

Bases on the novel of same name by Chuck Palahnuik.

The Story:

An insomniac office worker and a devil-may-care soap maker form an underground fight club that transforms into a violent revolution.

The Review:

The movie is amazing from start to finish. The acting of the three leads was also marvelous. David Fincher has done a great job of captivating the audiences with visual effects and background score.

It was awesome seeing it at 12:00 AM on 6th April with my cousin Karthik in Hyderabad, just an hour or so after I arrives in Hyderabad. This was one of three “Midnight Features” (Four, if you take Grindhouse to be two movies).

The movie was fun and so were the characters. The movie had a very unexpected twist at the end for those who haven’t read the book. The movie had some goof ups, like the boom mike visible and the face of the stunt man being seen.. But that was only because I read about it on IMDb.

Final Verdict:

8.5/10

3 (Tamil Movie) Spoiler Filled Review

*This Review contains spoilers.*

Director:

Aishwarya R. Dhanush

Producer:

K. Vimalageetha

Cast:

Dhanush as Ram

Shruti Haasan as Janani

Sunder Ramu as Senthil

Prabhu as Ram’s father

Bhanupriya as Ram’s mother

Rohini as Janani’s mother

Gabriella as Janani’s sister

Music:

Anirudh Ravichander

The Story:

The story revolves around Ram and Janani love for each other and the troubles they face as their relationship matures.

The Review:

First and foremost Shruti Hassan CAN’T ACT AS IF SHE IS CRYING, CAN’T ACT AS IS SHE IS ANGRY OR FRUSTRATED & SHE CAN’T SPEAK TAMIL OR HINDI. BASICALLY SHE CAN’T ACT. SHE CAN ONLY SING. 

The first half of the movie is good. It has story, and some good songs too. “Kannazhaga – The Kiss of Love”  is among my favorite songs in the movie. The movie builds up to a horrible end. I was surprised that a daughter of Rajnikanth made such a horrible movie. The acting of Shruti was also terrible. Towards the end, Dhanush’s acting seemed to have been influenced by his co-star. It too was bad towards the end.

My theory is that- The reason Dhanush’s character, Ram, killed himself, not because of his bi-polar thing, bu because he saw the second half of the movie.

I have seen enough CSI, NCIS, Dexter etc.. to know about blood spatter pattern and how blood settles after people are killed. I brought up that topic for a reason. The reason is that finally I get a chance to play detective. When we get to see the room where Ram had died, there are blood stains on the chair, where the back is supposed to be. And also on the wall at the side. Now, you’d think that he was shot in the stomach, leading to the blood stains in the chair and then in the head from the side, leading to the blood stains on the walls. But no such thing happened. He killed him self by slitting his throat.

Heres what happened (I’ve been waiting soo long to say this.. *Monk reference*): Ram slits his throat and normally blood should pour down his neck and even if it went from behind his neck, there would be distinctive blood stains on the chair. Thus, the blood stains, as shown in the scene, should not exist. But they do. This is because of poor set design and even poorer attention to detail.

The choreography of the dance for the hit song “Why this Kolaveri di” was also terrible. This just ruins the effect of the song. I thought  that the song wouldn’t even be featured in the movie. For the tone of the movie is quite different form the tone of the song.

I also didn’t get why they named the movie ‘3’.

Final Verdict: 

Not a very good movie… 4/10..

Drive

Driver: [on phone] There’s a hundred-thousand streets in this city. You don’t need to know the route. You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I’m yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you’re on your own. Do you understand?

Director:

Nicholas Winding Refn

Producer:

Gigi Pritzker, Adam Siegel, Michel Litvak & John Palermo

Cast:

Ryan Gosling as The Driver

Carey Mulligan as Irene

Bryan Cranston as Bernie Rose

Oscar Issac as Standard Gabriel

Ron Perlman as Nino

Kaden Leos as Benicio

James Biberi as Cook

Music:

Cliff Martinez

Based on the novel of the same name by James Sallis

The Story:

A mysterious Hollywood stuntman, mechanic and getaway driver lands himself in trouble when he helps out his neighbour.

The Review:

The movie had slow start, but slowly it built up to an awesome story, Ryan Gosling acted very well, though he didn’t have much of a speaking part in the movie. The background score was also amazing. It suited the movie perfectly. The movie had some Quentin Tarantino-ish styles. The movie also payed homage to Taxi Driver. I thought the movie was wonderfully made with an awesome ending. Apparently the sequel book ‘Driven’ is being released soon, after which, it probably would be made into a movie.

Final Verdict:

Enjoyable movie. 7.75/10.

Another quote I loved from the movie:

Shannon: I know a lot of guys who mess around with married women, but you’re the only one I know who robs a place to pay back the husband.

Agent Vinod

Director:

Sriram Raghavan

Producer:

Saif Ali Khan and Dinesh Vijan

Cast:

Saif Ali Khan as Agent Vinod

Kareena Kapoor as Dr Iram Parveen Bilal/Dr.Tanya Ruby

Prem Chopra as Mafiosi David Kazaan

Ram Kapoor as Abu Nazer

Anshuman Singh as Jimmy

Shahbaz Khan as Huzefa Lokha

Gulshan Grover as as Tehmur Pasha

Babu Antony as Colonel

Adil Hussain as Colonel

Maryam Zakaria as Farah Faqesh

Music:

Pritam

The Story:

——

The Review:

Terrible. Avoid. Not worth my time to write a review!

Final Verdict:

HORRIBLE!

**NOTE: The story section has been intentionally left blank due to the lack of any story!**