Movie Review – Unforgiven

A western for the common man

Much of my analysis of ‘Unforgiven’ could be due to my last western watch, ‘True Grit’, which coincidentally is a Revisionist Western like ‘Unforgiven’. Hailed as one of the greatest in that genre, it confounded me as to why it was a great movie. It was not so easy to dismiss it plainly as a film which didn’t work for me, it felt like it didn’t work majorly due to my lack of understanding, that’s why it was disappointing. In this season it’s the second movie after ‘Ivan’s Childhood’ which didn’t work for me for the same reason. As a fan of both Coen brothers and Tarkovsky, the disappointment is not because it didn’t work for me but because it should have worked for me but it didn’t. Thankfully ‘Unforgiven’, which I thought, wouldn’t work for me, actually worked wonderfully. At last that was some respite.

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The huge problem in watching a western is that, one needs to understand what it is. it’s not necessary whether we’re able to categorize between a western, spaghetti western, revisionist western etc. It’s enough as long as we know its western. There are limitations to western because it has to deal with a certain boundary and follow a definite template. It can break it but still it should be evident, one can’t just write a scene without even thinking of a long shot and lone ride in a desert. It’s about how one breaks it or how one shoots it artistically. Like how it’s our personal interest whether we like to take the road which we’ve always liked or try a new one for thrill. ‘Unforgiven’ takes the former path but doesn’t make it a cerebral experience like ‘True Grit’, instead has heart in the right place.

Even with ‘Unforgiven’, it started on a slow pace. Add to the Western template, it had Eastwood template too where he’s an old tired man where people insult him till the very end. But finally, he achieves his purpose either by coming out gloriously or by subtle means. But the fact is he gets what he wants. So, the initial scenes were like that. There was a slasher scene at first which shocks us immediately and makes us sit upright. The film follows the search of those cowboys. As it’s a revolutionist western, the role is reversed. The sheriff is a bad guy and the assassins are the good ones. The usual scenes like formation of team, long ride, conflict between members, friendship etc. all takes place. But things get interesting near the end when Sheriff starts his cruelty

Wish someone writes massy screenplay for Rajni like how Eastwood does for himself. William “Will” Munny (Clint Eastwood) almost has nothing to do till the fag end. Even he doesn’t do the final killing by himself. But once he knows that his friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) is killed, he avenges his death in style. Those last few minutes are enough for the theatre to explode. Imagine how it would have been if Rajni had been in place of Eastwood and Mammootty in place of Morgan Freeman. When people write for stars, they should write like this, instead we see scenes where the stars become a big shot immediately. It’s a typical ‘Baashha’ type of screenplay but written with a lot of self-restraint.

The supporting actors are brilliant here, more than Eastwood. Though Morgan Freeman doesn’t have much of screen space or space to perform, he does his job effortlessly through a couple of scenes where he decided to go back to his home and the scene where he’s tortured by sheriff. Local sheriff “Little Bill” Daggett (Gene Hackman) is actually the star of the movie. Even though antagonist, he’s the highlight. A raw irritating villain. Gene Hackman was wonderful in it. In the last scene where he says that he doesn’t deserve such a death is such a well written scene where he’s made to look heroic even in his death. From making villains becomes good guys in the end during MGR era to villains plainly accepting their defeat with Amul baby types in Dhanush era, Tamil movies could never get this fate right. This is how you respect every character of yours. Even though the climax is all about Will, it’s Bill who dies a heroic death.

Movie Review – In the Line of Fire

In the spot of bother

I started watching this movie with a natural excitement one has while watching Clint Eastwood’s works. He has been one of the fool proof directors/actors for me. But the same couldn’t be said about this movie. Directed by Wolfgang Peterson, who set the bar really high, at least according to me, in ‘Das Boot’, fails to weave the same magic here. Though critically acclaimed, the movie didn’t fit in either a fast-paced fun action movie like a ‘True Lies’ or a really serious thriller like a ‘A Day of the Jackal’. It was in between and in a spot of bother.

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The movie has more scope for the villain, Leary (John Malkovich) than for the hero Horrigan (Clint Eastwood). I guess it’s the one of the movies where catching up with the age genre went wrong. He had to play an unglamorous role of an aging secret service agent with no heroism, who pants while running along the car of president, sweats with tension while protecting him and struggles to run while chasing a thief. His instincts are no more the same. He’s too old to flirt and only his guts guard him in an otherwise tiring environment.

The man whom he’s up against him is an assassin who’s on a rampage. A near psycho who is on a killing spree so that he can have importance. Horrigan, who’s marred with guilt of not being able to save Lincoln the first time over provides to be a perfect bait for Leary’s folly. There is a cat and mouse game throughout with a little flirting between Horrigan and Lilly Raines (Rene Russo) who even though aged than a typical female counterpart looks lovely. She doesn’t overdo in any scene.

The love making scene where they had to remove their dress, walkie talkie, guns etc. to get to bed was a lovely scene. But the sense of irritation one must have got while returning back to work on hearing a call was missing when Lilly gets out of the bed. Plus, the scene gets literal when Horrigan utters a dialogue of how it’s a tiresome act to wear everything again. It’s not the only scene which was literal. There were a number of scenes which would have been great if had been left as such but Horrigan’s dialogues spoil the impact. Wonder how Wolfgang Peterson resorted to such screenplay, because ‘Das Boot’ was all about close ups and expressions, here it was completely opposite. May be that’s the disadvantage of making a movie different from one’s native language.

The movie has a great poster with Clint Eastwood running along the president’s car. What looked like a heroic chase or at least a heroic poster gets a completely different meaning while watching the movie. The villain too was given a good weightage in the script but he couldn’t exude the charisma like a Hannibal Lecture. Looks as if it’s toned down to make the Eastwood prominent. Whether it happened intentionally or not, it did spoil the impact. We don’t feel Horrigan to be as helpless as how Batman feels around Joker. That’s the power of building a powerful antagonist, the revenge will be sweet but it feels like a typical Rajni movie where he says ‘vayasayirucha enaka?’ (aged, am i?). That’s why I compared it with ‘True Lies’ where at least Arnold goes on a full rampage from a family man to Rambo.

Leary was supposed to be done by Robert De Niro, but couldn’t do it because of ‘A Bronx Tale’, which in a way is good because ‘A Bronx Tale’ is one of my all-time favorite movies and co incidentally it’s my second reference of ‘A Bronx Tale’ in this week.  But maybe if De Niro had done, he’d have added more dimension to the character, like how Jack Nicholson did in ‘The Departed’ even though the story majorly revolved around the rats.

Movie Review – J. Edgar

Strictly for history students

Again, this was one of the movies which came at the time when I had taken time off from movies. In spite of not so good reviews I watched ‘J. Edgar’ for two reasons. One is for nostalgia and other is for Clint Eastwood. Of course, it has Leonardo DiCaprio, who needn’t be mentioned at all as a point of interest because he automatically becomes one in whichever movie he acts. Even though I watched ‘The Great Gatsby’ too with the same mindset, it completely swept me off the floor so I was hopeful of ‘J. Edgar’ too before I started watching it.

I guess making a biography needs a separate skill set, especially of the political people. Generally Hollywood nails it whenever a scientist’s or a prodigy’s biography is made, like that of ‘The Imitation Game’ or ‘The Theory of Everything’ but when it comes to political biography, most of it falters, they try to say only the good things and mask it as if they’re being brutal, which is more annoying than being an outright fan boyish film. Guess, the only exception is Oliver Stone, who’s a master of making political biographies like ‘JFK’, ‘Nixon’ etc.

The film opens with an old Edgar trying to tell his side of the story. For some reason, most of the shots had dark lighting with very less screen visibility. Guess that’s a good way to mask the details in a period film. But the old Edgar or anyone old for that sake were high on prosthetics and didn’t look natural at all. Their younger selves were so vibrant and more importantly real when compared to the present. These two factors were a huge hindrance in otherwise mundane movie.

The movie is very much American. Maybe it wouldn’t be a big issue with people who are politically knowledgeable or at least have the eagerness to know what had happened. For others, its tough to hold the interest. When you watch ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, you don’t feel the need to know about the person who’s in focus. May be a curious few would want to read upon the character, when they get to know its real, but mostly otherwise, they’d be basking in the glory of the filmmaking. That couldn’t be expected out of any political character because its not their duty to entertain. But generally, whenever a person is discussed, the aim of the movie should be to make people dig up the artifacts and know more about the history. ‘J. Edgar’ doesn’t put that interest in the head of people who are watching. By the time the movie ends, we feel exhausted. There is no scope of knowing more history on the subject. That, is a prime example of why the movie doesn’t work. It doesn’t make us curious, rather makes us bored. Yes, that’s the word.

The events as such too weren’t curious. It didn’t make me want to root for him or hate him. It was just like news article. No matter what happens, I couldn’t feel for the character, I was constantly disinterested. Above all, what annoyed me the most was the storytelling. When I was trying to focus so much and concentrate on what is happening, if not for the joy, at least for the knowledge, I was irritated beyond words when I got to know that the narrator is unreliable. Till then at least I could forgive it as a boring movie, but after that I couldn’t control the irritation. Guess it’s only the cast who took the film seriously and outperformed the maker of the film. If not for that, the film was a super dud.

Movie Review – Escape from Alcatraz

Slow burn prison drama

‘Escape from Alcatraz’ marks one of the famous collaborations in cinema with Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood. This phase of Eastwood is rather a curious one. During the Sergio Leone era he was a class act but didn’t have a mind of his own, didn’t have any say in the scripts and towards the later point of time everything in the film had his say. He mastered both the phases. But it’s this phase in between which got him a name amongst the masses because of his thrillers and massy appeal, had him in a sort of dilemma, because of which it becomes a curious phase. ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ is one movie from that phase.

I’m yet to watch ‘Dirty Harry’, in their combination, which seemed to be precursor of all these raw yet stylish action films. It’s been so long since the DVD has been lying around, I finally forgot it somehow. Finally, I got to watch another film with the same combo and got an idea of how the film would be. Don Seigel and Clint Eastwood don’t look like a superhero combo like a KB + Kamal Hassan or a Robert Zemeckis + Tom Hanks but the second string of director actor combo. Someone like a Jaishankar and Sridhar. Not sure they both have done films together but you get what I mean. It’s that type of film where we don’t go slam bang with the film making, yet be interested.

Being a prison break film, I expected it to be a lot more pacier and lot more tense but it plays out as a subtle film. The film starts with Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) getting into the prison and like any prison getting friends and enemies. He’s no Michael Scofield and the story is not as dramatic as ‘Prison Break’. So, whatever happens, happens without fuss and looks more believable. May be as it was a true story, they didn’t want to dramatize it too much.

Later, Morris encounters bank robber brothers John and Clarence Anglin (Fred Ward and Jack Thibeau), who are his old friends from another prison sentence, and he makes the acquaintance of prisoner Charley Butts (Larry Hankin). Together they form a team and try to escape out of Alcatraz which the warden (Patrick McGoohan) proudly claims, that it has never been breached. The actors don’t have much to do as its all about the plot. Even then instead of being mere caricatures, some acting could’ve been exhibited but most of them, including Eastwood looked poker faced. Only Patrick McGoohan exhibits an eerie sadistic nature. Otherwise other ones are mostly point blank.

It’s one of the roles which looked tailor made for Amitabh. Having been made in 1979, if it had been remade in Hindi with Amitabh in the lead when he was going great guns as an angry young man, it would have been a feather in the cap of the actor. Somehow it reminded me of Deewar, my most favorite film of his.

Guess my experience was spoilt because of other prison break films like ‘Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘Prison Break’ which dealt with a lot more factor apart from just breaking out of prison. May be ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ is a movie for purists in the specific genre, because only when I typed the above sentence I realized that not even a second did I think about why he ended up in prison, what’s his life outside or what’s anyone’s life is like outside. All we think of is prison and their escapade. It happens without our notion. That’s a curious point to note.

I wish the film had more heart in mouth moments and I expected it to have a number of failed attempts before the success. Or may be stay with the way Siegel originally intended to, with a with the guards’ discovery of the dummy in Morris’s bed, rather than the chrysanthemum scene. It’s the only scene where the warden shows emotion. It’d have been nicer if he had controlled it or kept his pride even in the climax.