Bawaal

​"Bawaal"

Watched Hindi movie "Bawaal". 

This movie is directed by Nitesh Tiwari. Produced by Sajid Ndiyadwala and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari. Story by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari. Music by Mithun, Tanishq Bagchi, Akashdeep Sengupta. Cinematography by Mitesh Mirchandani. This movie features Varun Dhawan, Janhavi Kapoor, Parth Siddhapura, Gunjan Joshi, Arnob Khan, Satendra Soni, Manoj Pahawa, Mukesh Tiwari, Anjuman Saxena, Shashi Vermaa. This movie was released in 2023 and runs for about 2 hour 17 min. I watched the movie on Amazon Prime with Aditi on 22nd July 2023.

Ajju (Varun) is a self centered High School History teacher. He is all bluster and no substance. Only a show off. He has created such an image in the town that everyone is in awe. His marriage is failing because he is worried about his image rather than his wife. One day he slaps a kid that turns out to be son of local MLA. Ajju is suspended. Now he has to do something big to divert the attention from his suspension and pending inquiry outcome. 

It’s a journey of self discovery and discovery of importance of relationship and relations. It starts on a lighter note that is a bit over the top. That is until they go to Europe. Until this time I was unimpressed. It looked like an ’also ran’ film. But once they travel, things start to fall in place. From here on film starts generating interest. You start to connect with the film. The second part is actually good. It generates emotions in the audience. It connects. Director presents it with a lot of consideration and it makes sense. I actually liked it, despite it being slow. Director refrains from adding unnecessary action scenes. The response to epilepsy, though, is unconvincing. 

Varun plays the protagonist and he really acts. His efforts are visible. Does well. Janhavi plays his wife. Although she needs to learn acting, she does ok. Manoj and Anjuman plays Varun’s worried parents perfectly. 

Name of the movie is Bawaal, but there is no Bawaal. It’s a wrong title for this film. Ahsas (अहसास) would have been a perfect title. 

Positives: 2nd half. 

Negatives: Over the top first half. 

Recommend watching.

Knives out

​"Knives out"

Watched English movie "Knives out". 

This film is directed by Rain Johnson. Screenplay by Rian Johnson. Produced by Ram Bergman, Rian Johnson. Cinematography by Steve Yedlin. Music by Nathan Johnson. The film stars Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Collette, Ricky Lindhome, Christopher Plummer, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford, Michael Shannon. The film runs for about 2 hour 10 minutes and was released in 2019. I watched it on Netflix on 8th Jun 2023 with Aditi. 

Harlan Thrombie, a mystery writer, is murdered the night after a party at his home. The party guest list includes Linda, eldest daughter. Her husband Richard and her son Ransom. Walter, son who runs the publishing house. His Wife Donna and Son Jacob. Joni, wife of his dead son Neil, who owns skin care company, her daughter Meg. Marta, a Paraguayan nurse who looked after Harlan. Police investigate. They are assisted in informal capacity by Detective Benoit Blanc.

Ana plays Marta. She has a very expressive face and also looks beautiful. Daniel Craig plays Benoit Blanc. Credit should be given to the one in charge of casting to envision this role for Daniel. It goes completely against his James Bond persona. He does admirably well. Chris Evans, Don Johnson and Michael Shannon play the supporting role impeccably. 

Every member has a motive to kill. Every member was in the house. No one seems to have any gap in their whereabouts. Whodunit? Success of a mystery movie lies in hiding the identity of the killer and revealing it with a flourish at the end. Audience should regret for not thinking on those lines. This movie achieves all of it. There is a small matter of looking through semi opaque glass that is not convincing, but otherwise it’s a well thought plot. 

This movie received several nominations for academy, golden globe, Bandung, BAFTA etc. It also won a few awards. 

The movie earned almost 8 times its production cost. It was a super hit.

Few weeks ago, I had posted review of ‘Glass onion’. That is sequel of this movie. Another movie in this series is expected.

Positives: Mystery. Pace.

Negatives: As mentioned above.

Recommend watching. 

Maharashtra Shahir (महाराष्ट्र शाहीर)

​"Maharashtra Shahir (महाराष्ट्र शाहीर)"

Watched Marathi movie "Maharashtra Shahir (महाराष्ट्र शाहीर)". 

This film is directed by Kedar Shinde. Written by Vasundhara Sable, Kedar Shinde. Produced by Sanjay Chabriya, Bela Shinde. The film stars Ankush Chaudhari, Sana Shinde, Amit Dolawat, Atul Kale, Harish Baraskar, Dushyant Wagh, Nirmiti Sawant, Shubhangi Sadavarte, Ankush Prashant More. Cinematography by Vasudev Rane. Music by Ajay-Atul. The film runs for about 2 hour 28 minutes and was released in 2023. I watched it on Amazon Prime on 7th Jun 2023 with Aditi. 

This movie is biography of Maharashtra Shahir, Shahir Sable. Starts with little Krushna who can’t stay away from singing but is forbidden to sing by his mother. His introduction with Sane Guruji. Love affair with and marriage to Bhanumati. His contribution to freedom struggle. His poetry and songs to awaken the masses on various issues. Basically his life. 

Ankush plays Shahir Sable. However his acting is a little awkward. He has lost a lot of weight, so his face looks drawn. Sana plays Bhanumati, his first wife. She does well for a debutant. She speaks Marathi as if she is not Maharashtrian. More efforts needed. Ashwini plays his mother and she is impressive. Nirmiti and Amit do well in their cameos. 

It’s a biographical movie, so one doesn’t expect lot of drama. But Shahir Sable’s life has a lot of drama. Starting from marriage to a girl from different cast, the contribution to freedom struggle, fame, separation, remarriage, financial loss, final recognition based on efforts of next generation.

The director, however, doesn’t tell us anything about what happened to Bhanumati after their divorce. He also doesn’t take the movie till Shahir’s death. There is hardly anything about his relationship with the children after they are grown up or with his second wife. Kedar does well, but he is a better director than that. 

For those who don’t know Shahir Sable, it’s a good watch. For those who have seen him perform live and who know his songs, like me, it’s nostalgia. 

Positives: Shahir Sable’s story.

Negatives: A bit monotonous.

Recommend watching. 

Bhau Bali (भाऊ बळी)

​"Bhau Bali (भाऊ बळी)".

Watched Marathi movie "Bhau Bali (भाऊ बळी)". 

This movie is directed by Sameer Patil. Produced by Sandeep Kale & others. Cinematography by Suhas Gujarathi. It features Manoj Joshi, Kishor Kadam, Hrishikesh Joshi, Vijay Kenkre, Resham Tipnis, Rajan Bhise, Medha Manjrekar, Manasi Kulkarni, Priyadarshini Indalkar, Shrikar Pitre. Film runs for about 2 hour and 2 minutes and was released in 2022. I watched it on 6th Jun 2023 on Zee5. 

Manoj Joshi ( Bhau) is an officer in Mantralay. He lives in a society called Siddhesh Nagar. Kishor Kadam (Bali) is their doodhwala. They clash on whether the previous month bill was paid or not and this fight turns into a war between the society and the slum. 

Seed of the movie is good but the execution is poor. Objective of characters like Resham Tipnis remain unknown till the end. Character of judge appears to be the only sane one but it peters out. Character of Bali appears to be reasonable initially, suddenly it becomes unreasonable, then he changes color to logically unreasonable, then suddenly he becomes nice guy and finally gets drunk first time in his life. Character of Bhau also does something out of character suddenly. It appears like the writer and director didn’t think about the characters enough and rather developed them on the fly. They appear to be working towards creating drama rather than story. 

End of the movie is also very unsatisfactory. Director had a good opportunity to close the movie but he again takes the unreasonable path and that too is unconvincing. Did the director know what he was doing?

Audience rue the lost opportunities. With a powerful cast like this, the movie should have been better than this.

Acting is good but due to faulty characters it doesn’t appeal to the audience. 

Name of the movie draws the audience because of its similarity with the supper hit Baahubali. But the similarity ends their in every aspect.

Positives: Umm….

Negatives:  Story. Direction.

Give it a miss.

Mission Impossible- Dead reckoning Part 1

​"Mission Impossible- Dead reckoning Part 1".

Watched English movie "Mission Impossible- Dead reckoning Part 1". 

This movie is directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Genderson. Produced by Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie. It stars Tom Cruise, Heyley Atwell, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Cary Elwes, Stuart Whelan. Cinematography by Frazer Taggart. Music by  Lorne Balfe. Film runs for 2 hour and 43 minutes and was released on 9 July 2023. I watched  first day first show with Aditi, Sameer, Prakash, Vijay, Jyoti, Pratyush, Jayant and Sucheeta.

An artificial intelligence has achieved consciousness. It’s gone rogue. There is a physical key divided in two pieces that can give control over this intelligence. Everyone is after it. IMF team gets the assignment to obtain the key. Ethan, Elsa, Benji and Luther embark on the mission impossible and the action begins. 

Well it’s an action film so there is action. But it just jumps from one action scenes to another till the end of the movie. Mind you, all the action scenes are very well executed and appear realistic. But story becomes the casualty. The story is really basic. Then the director and action takes the movie through. Action is top class. They built a train for this movie and then actually crashed it from a bridge into valley to get the shot. No special effects were used. Ernest perfection or craziness? This scene of train falling has uncanny similarities with a similar shot from Bollywood film Pathan.

Cinematography is superb. Cinematographer has a lot of scope with beautiful locations, difficult angles and action packed scenes. 

Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in this 7th movie of MI franchise. He does action scenes well and acts decently. It’s amazing that he does all his actions and doesn’t use a body double. It’s a well known fact that the scene where he jumps off the cliff on motorcycle to deploy parachute was finalized after 50 takes. That’s loss of 50 motorcycles. Ving and Simon play their usual characters. I still can’t see Ving (A heavy, robust guy) as computer genius. Is it because we are used to scrawny, bespectacled kid as computer genius. This movie also marks exit of Rebecca (former MI6 agent) and introduction of Heyley in the team. Heyley looks promising. 

It’s counterintuitive that there is a physical key to an artificially intelligence and everyone is after that piece of metal to rule the cyber space. 

Well, as the title suggests, this was Part 1. The battle is over but war is still to be won. We will have to wait for at least an year for the release of Part 2.

Positives: Action.

Negatives: Story.

Watch if you like Tom Cruise movies or action movies or both. If not, give it a miss.

Vaalvi (वाळवी)

​"Vaalvi (वाळवी)"

Watched Marathi film "Walwi (वाळवी)". 

This film is directed by Paresh Mokashi. Produced by Madhugandha Kulkarni. Written by Paresh Mokashi & Madhugandha Kulkarni. Cinematography by Satyajit Shobha Shriram. Music by Mangesh Dhakade. The film stars Swapnil Joshi, Anita Date, Shivani Surve, Subodh Bhave, Namrata Sambherao, Sandy. This film was released in 2023. It runs for abou 1 hour 43 min. I watched in on Zee5 on 5th Jun 2023.

Swapnil wants to divorce Anita, but she doesn’t want. She is seeing a psychologist (Subodh). Swapnil is having an affair with Shivani (a dentist). So they hatch a plan to kill his wife and make it appear as a murder. Things take an unexpected turn and the husband, the dentist and the psychiatrist team up. One dead body turns into two and more and more. 

The movie is interesting until the entry of Subodh. After that the movie starts losing grip. And the end is abrupt and as unexpected as it is absurd. What exactly was the director trying to tell?

Subodh, Swapnil and Anita are very good. Swapnil plays the philandering husband. Anita plays the psychotic wife. Subodh plays the psychiatrist who also looks psychotic.  Shivani plays the angry young dentist. She is mostly very good. She also looks pretty. I saw glimpses of Kavita Lad in her.

This movie recovered more than twice its production cost, so it was a hit because of the OTT rights.

Positives: Acting. 

Negatives: Story, end. 

Give it a miss. 

The Mother

​"The Mother"

Watched English movie "The Mother". 

This movie is directed by Niki Caro. Story by Misha Green. Produced by Jennifer Lopez and others. Music by Germaine Franco. Cinematography by Ben Seresin. This movie features Jennifer Lopez, Lucy Paez, Omari Hardwick, Joseph Fiennes, Gael Garcia Bernal, Edie Falco, Paul Raci. This movie was released on 12th May 2023 and runs for about 1 hour 58 min. I watched the movie on Netflix on 20th May 2023 with Aditi.

Jennifer is a sharp shooter. She’s had affairs with two bad guys. Hector Alvarez and Adrian Lovell. She gets pregnant with enemie’s child. Enemy tries to kill here. She survives but has to give up her child. She lives in a remote location for years, until the child is in danger. 

It’s an action movie. A movie that shows what a mother can do to protect her child. So what’s the difference? Well it’s the setting. Remote snowy wilderness is the setting for the movie. Director manages to stay away from the temptation to use an avalanche. 

Jennifer does well and shows glimpses of acting. She portrays the ruthless killer and the caring mother who doesn’t show her emotions. Lucy plays her 12 year old daughter. She does well. The only other notable character is Omari. He does very well in his cameo. 

Cinematographer has a lot of scope to show his skills with a lot of outdoor shoots. The wolf family presents a good allegory. 

This movie became most watched movie on Netflix when I watched it. 

Positives: Setting.

Negatives: How do the villains track the child?

Ok to watch once. 

Chupa

​"Chupa"

Watched English movie "Chupa". 

This movie is directed by Jonas Cuarón. Produced by Chris Columbus and others . Story &  Screenplay: Marcus Rinehart, Sean Kennedy Moore and others. Cinematography: Nico Aguilar. Music: Carlos Rafael Rivera. The film stars Demián Bichir, Christian Slater, Evan Whitten, Ashley Ciarra, Nicolas Verdugo. The movie runs for 1 hours 35 minutes and was released on 7 Apr 2023. I watched the movie on Netflix with Aditi on 8th Apr 2023.

A Mexican immigrant mother sends her son to Mexico to spend vacation with his paternal grandfather against his wishes, after death of her husband to cancer. The boy reluctantly goes. There on the ranch of his grandfather he encounters a mythical creature Chupacabra. But there is an American trying to capture it. 

It’s a story that basically gives the message that you should never forget who you are, where you came from and what your rites are. You should be proud of it. But the message is disguised as a fantasy. A mythical creature that looks like a combination of fox, rat, bird; only heard in mythology appears in flesh and blood. It also needs saving as its a Cub, not the full grown creature. 

Demián Plays the grandfather who used to be a fighter in his heyday. Although he acts well, he is a little bit robotically comic. Evan plays the grandson, the conflicted child who considers himself completely American but isn’t. Evan and Ashley play his cousins. Ashley is good and Evan is cute. Christian plays villain. He too is impressive.

Story needs a little bit work. Demián doesn’t look old enough to be the grandfather. Christian’s character suddenly vanishes from the movie. 

Positives: Concept

Negatives: Story weakness.

Watch for a change.