Raavanan 2010

 Mani Ratnam's latest promises a lot and delivers nothing. Touted to be a "different take" on the Ramayana, it just ends up being half baked idea of a movie that could have been much more. Take away the breathtaking cinematography, the soulful Rahman music and all you will be left with are stilted dialogues, some constipated acting by Aishwarya Rai (now with a famous add on - Bachan) and a whole host of talented actors looking lost because they don't have enough material to work with. The storyline is non existent, most characters appear out of nowhere and then disappear, even the main characters are not fleshed out. They just do certain things without motivation or a background explanation. Ramayana is a complex story with so much scope to work on, Mani just skimmed over it superficially and made a humongous mess. [spoiler alert]Veera's sister is raped and tortured by the cops. What has Veera done? We don't have a clue apart from the introduction voice over saying that Veera helps those that need it. He then kidnaps the SP's (A surprisingly good Prithviraj) wife (Aishwarya) and then can't kill her because she is brave. (I have no other way of explaining it. This is how it was clumsily explained in the movie) A few more gorgeous but empty scenes later, the husband - a trigger happy cop is introduced. Now we cannot have Ramayan without Hanuman, so Karthik is wasted in a 2 min role that looks like patchwork. Prabhu is also wasted in a side role that requires so little work, its almost an insult. And not to forget the talk of the moment - Ranjeetha in a non speaking, sidelined, what the hell is she required for role. Btw she appeared on screen and the crowd burst out into claps and whistles for the first and last time.

Mani has tried the non linear narrative to disastrous effect. It was like he watched a few brilliant non linear narrative foreign movies on UTV and then decided he had to do it - after he shot the movie. The editing is horrible. There is no other way to describe it. Amitabh Bachan was right for once in his famous assessment. Mani Ratnam took too much on himself, shooting two languages simultaneously and it shows. Vikram is the only one who comes out looking relatively ok, he does his best with whatever little was on offer.
Mani the story teller has failed miserably this time.
4/10

Mary and Max 2008

This is an existential Australian masterpiece. Clay Animation with adult themes. Mary an 8 year old kid in Waverly, Australia comes from a dysfunctional family (father never present, mother drunk). She finds Max's address from an address book in the post office where her mother is in one of her "borrowing" sprees. She writes to him and it is the beginning of a troubled but beautiful friendship that causes a few nervous breakdowns, drunken binges and thesis papers among others.

This gorgeous gem of a movie is certainly not for happy, springy people. In shades of brown (Mary's favourite colour) and gray, each sequence unfolds painstakingly and with such depth and irreverence that you feel drawn into a world where you know everything is not perfect, but it is beautiful in its own ugly way. Each humiliation and every bump in the pathetic characters lives is shown with a black humour and in a surprising but cute choice of children's book language. It is under comedy on imdb.com, but I wonder how many people will be able to appreciate the dark, sarcastic, pessimistic humour. A little overworked and preachy at times, I would definitely put it under drama. A nice movie for those philosophy book buffs and a for movie buffs, it an interesting interplay between a dramatic script and animation.

7/10

Okuribito (Departures) Japan 2008

The orchestra where our protagonist - a cello player played has been disbanded. He realises he is not talented enough to continue as cello player but not before he has spent a few million on a new cello. At this point we are drawn in by the story. He encounters a live octopus, sells his cello and moves with his wife to the countryside into a cafe/house his mom left for him when she died. He is broke and has an irritating wife who keeps smiling (he doesn't think so, but I do) A chance ad leads to a job cleaning, decorating and encoffining dead people (yes I know, you have to be dead to be encoffined - a word I learnt from the subtitles :)) This gives the script a chance to go into dead body humour, heart wrenching sobbing etc etc.
The plight of lonely old women, shunning of people who handle dead bodies, lost fathers and scarred childhoods is all handled in between scenes of the hero playing cello in the green japanese countryside with geese and flowers for company. (Very DDLJ)

I'm not saying it was a bad movie, apart from the wife, everybody else did a decent job. There are a few funny and a few touching scenes and overall it is a sweet movie. The rituals shown are really fascinating and among the best portions of the movie. And maybe if had not won an Oscar for best foreign language film, I might have been a little less harsh in judging it.

Invictus 2009

Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood. The names are enough for a great rating, but somehow it all doesn't come together as easily as I expected. Morgan Freeman gives one of the best performances of his life. Even though he physically doesn't resemble Mandela much, the spirit was there. Matt Damon didn't have much to do but look inspired or look dejected. The rest of the cast also does a good job especially Tony Kgoroge who acts as the head of Mandela's personal security. But somehow the wow! factor is missing. It seems Clintwood sleepwalked through this movie. Everything is in place but the magic is missing.

It is the year Mandela is elected as the President of South Africa, apartheid has been abolished but the wounds still run deep. The economy is not in a good condition, nor is the country. While he should have concentrated on more worthy "presidential" duties, Mandela chooses to encourage the Springbrooks - South Africa's much hated symbol of the apartheid, an Afrikaaner rugby team with just one whitewashed african to win the Rugby World Cup for the new South Africa. Glimpses of how Mandela works, his sad family life at that point and the loyalty he inspired are very well portrayed. The Springbrooks led by Matt Damon are at first resistant but soon fall in line with Mandela's "Human calculation"

If you want to watch a feel good movie that is based on an inspiring true life story, this is for you. But forget about any Clintwood magic in this one.

6/10

Goa

You have a string of great ideas that you would put in a movie, but no story. So you string these great ideas and jokes together and in between place some songs and a half baked story and voila! You have Goa. I like Venkat Prabhu and he did an ok job with his screenplay's till now (Chennai 28 & saroja) but this time around, he should have hired a good screen writer and a very good editor. I love the irreverence with which he treats certain scenes. A few examples - the statutory warning against smoking changed a teeny bit to hilarious results. The usual introductory aarthi of the amman where the prayer is for rain, well being of all and ofcourse that the movie should do well in b & c centres :) A song with Premji giving a "Tamil Nadu"( a map) to the foreign girl and ofcourse one of the couples in the movie is a bit unusual (hehe I wont spoil the fun)

The Story:
Three guys from a very isolated village near Madurai or Theni. Jai is the wannabe NRI with some great lines, Premji is the guy given to the temple - saamikannu in a hilarious role and the third guy (i forgot his name) is the village casanova. The movie follows their adventures or rather misadventures. And after all the misadventures the movie has had, I was hoping they would have put in some more effort to atleast edit it well and provide a strong story line.May be they thought the publicity (although bad) was good enough. Anyways its supported by the funny scenes and a nice follow up at the ending, though the second half of the movie looks like a mish mash of clips from different movies.

Some of the jokes are great, though most of them have been stretched to almost breaking point. Premgi as usual provides the comic - er relief and Sampath!! I'm not going to give away the suspense but he blew me away! From the adorable macho villain in Saroja to...well, just the opposite! The women provide adequate support, with Pia looking great, a foreign girl who does her stuff and Sneha looking trim and doing a pretty good job.

A 5/10

Two States, Chetan Bhagat

Frankly speaking I do not understand the hype surrounding Mr IIT Bhagat and his books. Plus there was the film fiasco.(The movie was far better than the book could ever aspire to be) The first one succeeded because he took advantage of the IIT craze that has overtaken the nation. The following books showed that not only was he a bad writer, but one with absolutely no imagination at all. I almost cried over the time I had lost reading one night at the call centre. So when two states came out, I refused to even consider reading it. But then one red coloured copy (i love red) lay on my library desk with no takers, so decided to give in. It was ok, like a blog written by an IIM (yes we know you went to all these prestigious colleges Mr Bhagat) friend. A masterpiece of literature or even a good novel it was not.

It talks about the love story of two people from different states as the imaginative title suggests. They fall in love, the family doesn't. To give him fair credit, he has shown faults of both communities equally and has brought in some interesting conflicts. Apart from that its just a glorified diary.

So I reached the conclusion, when it comes to recounting bits of his life with a little bit of masala added Mr Bhagat does a good enough job. Just as most of us with a working knowledge of English and some spare time can.  When it comes to using his imagination, Mr IIT/IIM fails miserably. All said and done, he markets (or is marketed) aggressively and hopefully does not represent the young and upcoming writers of this generation in India. Because if he does, it falls into the same trap that our newspapers, tv channels etc are into - Dumbing down everything.

Rocket Singh Salesman of the year

Ranbir Kapoor is a supposedly a straightforward sardar who wants to be a salesman. He gets a job in AYS, a computer supplying and servicing company. The first day he meets his boss Nithin, a hard boiled saleas man who has every trick in the book and some that are not in the book or anywhere else for that matter. He shows the trainee the ropes. We are also introduced to Prem Chopra as Ranbir's grandfather who excels in this movie otherwise populated by youngsters. Singh is sent to a client by himself a few days later and the client asks for a bribe. Now this is the most common thing in India and I found it hard to believe how naive  the character was. Apart from refusing outright, he writes a complaint and drops it in the company's complaint box. As is expected he is ostracized in office and asked to cold call till his training period is over, which is kind of wierd because the training period is when you can be fired without a notice. Anyway the siren receptionist feels sorry for him and gives him the number of customer who had sent an enquiry.

During the course of the sale he discovers that the computers can be assembled at a fraction of the cost of the branded ones (something im sure even a 10'th standard kid can tell you) and so sells the client( two pretty girls) the computer he assembles with the help of the office tech support( always on porn sites and never sleeps) Now the story so far was good, from here the scriptwriters who repeatedly paint the hero as a guy with high morals make him run an illegitimate business with stolen clients (The explanation given is that they are clients who are dissatisfied with AYS. But it is a list and its stealing.)The hero has no qualms about using office time, but keeps a list of amenities used so that he can pay his boss back. These idiosyncracies ruin the movie. Your main protagonist never gives bribes but is willing to commit fraud. A half hearted attempt to show him being humiliated and hence his actions are given, but fails to prop the story. If only that had been taken care of, the movie would have not been like reading a horrendous piece of misleading philosophy (eg Ayn Rand).

The hero obviously wins the day, but the message gets diluted. 5/10.