Movie Review – Ford v Ferrari

Vrooming to Victory

The first impact the movie would have, would be on your ears. Especially, if you had watched the movie with earphones like I did. Either you’d be enjoying the sound of cars whizzing from one ear to another like it happened with “Omahaziya” in your Sony Walkman or you’d be complaining of pain in your ears. Whatever may be the case, like the imaginary sparrows spinning around Tom’s head when Jerry makes him hit any roadblock with his mischief, the imaginary sound of the elite cars of the sixties would be buzzing in your head.

I’m a big fan of racing games, even though I’m not good at it. Just like how I like Mathematics even though I don’t get good marks in that subject. In Need for Speed, there used to be a stage where we would get slow cars and great environment. It would be easier to handle the cars around the corners, it doesn’t skid and other cars don’t cut corners every now and then. That used to be my favorite part of the racing game, I couldn’t proceed post that. Ford v Ferrari gave that vibe. This film would have felt lot more clinical if it had used the color of that era. Because if someone sees the film just out of the blue, by ways of film making, no one would be able to tell the time period. It feels recent. But I do understand that it’ll make the film artsy if made that way.

It was a film which was long impending in my list and just like anyone I thought it’d be a movie about two giants and their fights. When I started watching it, I understood it had two leads. I thought I was right. At least till the first half an hour of the movie I was of the opinion that one person out of the two would go to the other company and that’s what the film is about. But the director James Mangold cleverly doesn’t do that. A nice way to mislead the audience right from the way posters, title etc. were made.

The movie starts with Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) retiring from racing due to a health issues. It’s lovely to notice his composure. What I thought would be about his revival story or rage wasn’t there at all except for the one scene and my favorite one, where he takes Henry Ford 2 (Tracy Letts) for a spin. Reminded me of the story Lokesh Kanagaraj told as an idea for ‘Vikram’, where the lion says to the fox, “even though I’m old, I’m still a lion”. Apart from that Matt Damon doesn’t have much to do.

The movie is about Ken Miles (Christian Bale) entirely. May be that’s why Christian Bale would have agreed to do it. Bale was phenomenal in the movie. It’d have been a treat to his fans. Even for a non-fan like me, it felt like one of his best performance, if not the best. I generally feel he overdoes his role and spoils the flavor of the movie. But here it was to the point. From the posters I thought it’d have been Matthew McConaughey. Just imagine if the same movie had been made by Scorsese or Fincher and had McConaughey and DiCaprio as leads. It’d have been truly legendary.

There is no risk taken in the movie and that’s why the universal impact and that’s the reason the movie suffers from normalcy and doesn’t become a legendary movie. It’s a movie which anyone would like if they watch but if you ask me whether it’s a must watch movie, I’d say rather not, because the same feeling would be got from any movies of this genre like may be say a ‘Real Steel’. That’s the problem with making risk free movies. It’d be neither like a guilty pleasure movie like a ‘Death Race’ or ‘Fast and Furious’ nor like a cult movie like ‘Baby Driver’. It’d come and go, entertain, but wouldn’t impact.

Movie Review – Oppenheimer

A staggering achievement

‘Oppenheimer’ is nothing like anything which has come to cinema before. To restrict the film as just a biopic is an understatement. Nolan does everything he does to perfection. The template is set right from screen one, through music, shots, timeline etc. It’s the most Nolanisque film, yet it’s the complete opposite too. Through craft he does everything he’s known for in his films and through art he touches the deepest of human emotion. Sorry to spoil it, but the silence at the end of film felt really like the end of it all, end of the world and in so many years of film watching, I’ve never witnessed anything like that in cinema halls before.

Right from screen one, Nolan gets you on hook, first through music and then that ever piercing camera. Together it gives a feel that it’s penetrating inside you. I watched it as a night show in big screen and I couldn’t sleep for a good couple of hours, i could feel my heart still racing. But mind you it’s not a thriller like ‘Interstellar’ or a non-thriller made like a thriller like ‘Dunkirk’. It’s one of the films were all the pieces come together. Post ‘Inception’ it felt like he was doing those back and forth shorts with that tension inducing music of his, for no real reason. But here it just felt apt.

Especially after a disastrous ‘Dunkirk’, a drama film, which was needlessly made a thriller, I had very little hopes for ‘Oppenheimer’ as it was a real story. Meanwhile by trying to prove his mettle, he went overboard in ‘Tenet’ I feel (which I haven’t watched it yet), and incurred the wrath of even people who normally would watch his film just for the entertainment factor.

Nolan has always come out as a guy who’d make you think and that was taken for granted by his fans, who mostly are fan boys, who get under your skin when you watch in A-list theatres like Sathyam or Escape. Just by the looks of it you can identify who are those smart asses who’ve come for his movies. They’d be explaining to one naïve guy or a new girlfriend about the formulas and equations. That herd was there for this film as well, with of course the other “cool guys who kalachify anything English” group. But this film was a slap on the face on everyone. It was a statement by Nolan saying, “don’t you dare reduce me to your level with your cheap antics”. And it was a statement not wanting to prove anything but only to outdo himself and make a truly staggering quality cinema. His march towards excellence.

It’s not necessarily a film where you need to understand everything but it doesn’t put you down like an ‘Inception’ or ‘Interstellar’ where the one who explains you gets an imaginary halo of being the know it all. The film can be enjoyed, no, enjoyed is not the word, it’s too less an emotion. The film can impact you in numerous ways, through moralistic questions, exposing your views, make you numb but more than anything, it gets you astounded by the way it was made.

I watched ‘Capote’ sometime back and thinking of biopics or otherwise, it was one of the truly beautiful movies I’ve ever watched. Not even taking into consideration the story and direction. Just by the shots and the frame, I’ve never felt this poetic in a while. So at the top of my mind, that’s the best biopic I’ve watched. But this film overdoes it. Because it couldn’t be restricted as just a biopic, not just another movie like ‘The Imitation Game’, which of course was lovely for its template. ‘Oppenheimer’ talks to you in much different ways and impacts you multifold with its show.

Recently I had a chance to watch ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’. I say “chance to watch” and not “watched” because it happened. There was something about ‘Rocketry’ which was putting me off. Even though the story was a strong one, it felt forced and the making was bad. While watching ‘Oppenheimer’ it showed, how through a good director, a similar story can be elevated exponentially. Direction is not just about shooting a story. It’s much more than that.

When talking about ‘Oppenheimer’, everyone talks about the bomb and the blast. But it’s not just about that. In fact it’s not at all about that. It’s not a stunt like much latest ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’, it’s the story to it. It’s like an enigma to which we’re going towards. In fact it’s philosophical. The blast was just a metaphor. Of course it’s made well and shocks you but the shock was more due to what had happened rather than how it had happened. You’re not awed by how well it was shot. You’re shocked by what it can do. If that’s not master filmmaking I don’t know what is.

Nolan blends Aronofsky in the form of the leading ladies, Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) and Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) and Terrence Malick in the form of bomb (think ‘Tree of Life’). Emily Blunt looked bony, weak but with a heart of a warrior and Florence Pugh, was both enigmatic and sad. She felt like one of those Woody Allen’s Femme Fatale. Nolan has always had great female characters but the Aronofskian way of dealing them was something unexpected.

Coming to Cillian Murphy. In a world of McConaughey’s and Bale’s he doesn’t get noticed enough but its one role which I’m sure Tommy Lee Jones would have been proud of. He almost gets to the level of ‘There Will Be Blood’ but of course ‘Oppenheimer’ is not a film like that where it’s only about him. The makeup and the way he’s worked in his body was done to perfection, without any show off.

This is a once in lifetime film. In fact this phase from ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Mission Impossible’ to ‘Oppenheimer’ could be the greatest one month for any Hollywood fan. But it was more than that for me. I felt like my life has become a complete circle by watching some of my most memorable characters on screen in a span of one month for one last time. It’s a phase where one gets to watch great films and probably, when I look back at old age, this might be the greatest phase of my movie watching. From Archimedes to Albert Einstein, I’ve seen it all. This part of my life, this little part, is called happiness.

Movie Review – True Grit

Questions over answers

Coen Brothers movies are always curious. It satisfies my appetite not just emotionally but cinematically as well. That’s quite a rarity. Even in the film that I don’t like, I love the way they handle the movie. Especially the way its shot, the location and the frames. It’ll always be top notch. So being a western, for which, cinematography remains an integral aspect, I was naturally curious about the movie. But ‘True Grit’ didn’t appeal to me emotionally as much as it did cinematically. The craftmanship got better of the movie than the personal connect.

• 

Somehow the tone of the movie reminded me of ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’. May be ‘True Grit’ would have served as one of the inspirations for it and I’m looking at it in the other way because I watched ‘True Grit’ later. Anyways both the movies work in same way. A morbid distant way from one’s self where one couldn’t entirely connect with the movie. The scenes in ‘True Grit’ where they take the long path makes us wonder what we are supposed to think. It’s a typical western scene where one would feel the heat and dust of the landscape.

Claimed as revisionist western, it stays true to the genre where we don’t get to root any of them. Be it the protagonist or antagonist. The only bright spot is Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld). What a treasure trove Hailee Steinfeld is. In that way too it reminds of ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ because it had a similar character in the form of Trudi Fraser where Julia Butters was terrific.

The film opens with a dead mans daughter trying to search the murderer to avenge her father’s death. She goes to any lengths to achieve it. For a western, it was an unlikely opening. Be it man or woman, it’s always protagonist centric and runs high on machismo. But here we see a confident little girl of fourteen years searching for her father with no hint of being scared. She shows her grit openly and admirably in the opening scenes. The first act worked wonderfully well because of her. The bargain scene was one of the highlights of the first act.

The film starts to wane from the introduction of Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). From there it becomes a story of only Cogburn. Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) too joins in the pursuit of getting to Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). There is a huge ego clash between the two but they help each other out during the right moment. There were two moments were they mutually help each other but nothing is dramatized to show the friendship angle because they’re not friends. It’s just a man’s way of lending a helping hand. Mattie Ross, even though acts all brave, the way she exclaims and jumps with joy in the scene where LaBoeuf kills people from a good distance is pure bliss. If other scenes showed what an actor she is. This scene showed how good she could react.

Guess ‘True Grit’ is beyond me. I couldn’t say that I didn’t like it. Guess it employed the elements of Western greatly and made a proper genre movie. But for me it didn’t work. Mainly because of characters who looked plasticky. I neither could vie for them, nor could hate them. What’s more disheartening is that ‘Fargo’ worked like hell for me. Roger Ebert had rightly quoted a quote which I had requoted a number of times. ‘Fargo’ is the reason why one would watch cinema. It’s one of the simple pleasures of life. Don’t get me started on ‘Fargo’. So, when it’s a movie by the makers of ‘Fargo’ it’s disappointing to be disappointed by the film.

Movie Review – The Informant!

Quirky, stylish memorandum

One gets the clue right away from the title. The movie name is ‘The Informant!’ and not just ‘The Informant’. Only after watching the entire movie, it was evident what the title meant. All these single worded titles like ‘The Machinist’, ‘The Negotiator’ etc. make for serious films and quite naturally I thought ‘The Informant!’ also would be on the same lines. But the way it turned out to be was quite a funny experience.

Being a Matt Damon fan, I was naturally intrigued in the movie and for a change he doesn’t play a tough guy who saves people or a naïve guy who gets saved by someone. He is someone who plays a goofy character and does surprisingly well. It’s a movie similar to ‘The Wolf of the Wall Street’ but Mark Whitacre is no Jordan Belfort. Whitacre is such a loser when compared to Belfort. Belfort in fact is a superhero when compared to Whitacre. And that’s what makes the movie special. Like it or not, the comic tone of the film is what sets it apart from a number of one worded movies which start with ‘The’.

Mark Whitacre, a rising star at the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), starts explaining about the benefits of corn to his kid, to us and to everyone who is watching. Even during the dinner, he eats corn and am sure even the drink he drinks contains corn or its byproduct. Because for him, everything in the world is associated with corn. He’s such a corny guy in that way.

At some point he discovers about the price fixing scandal and joins with the FBI on that case. Later he gets promoted in ADM and tries to shoo it off but FBI compels him on getting that. Till that point he has all our sympathy. We feel sorry for him to have been such a naïve guy and getting his life jeopardized for the benefit of people but things turn awry post that.

He becomes a “double o fourteen” agent because he has twice the smartness of 007 and gets in the mix of things with FBI. At various junctures we hear a variation of Bond music too. What I thought to be satire of Bond was actually a joke on him. Nevertheless, the music and the cinematography stand out in the film apart from the performances. The way it is made to look an early 90s film is brilliant. Generally, we see it happen in a Robert Rodriguez film but that’s something which is used only as a fun making tool and not an authentic representation. But here it’s more real and gets us transported to the era.

Only after we get to know his first lie, do we discover all his previous lies. A constant source of irritation envelopes around his character. The fact that Matt Damon was chosen for such a role makes us harder to believe because he normally doesn’t come as a bad guy. Here too he is not an outright bad guy. Whether he requires therapy for his lies or does he lie even about that is a question that always lingers in the mind.

In the end, after spending a considerable amount of time, he delivers a mature speech. Coming from a bald-headed guy we think at last he had come to terms or accepted the fate or his therapy is successful but like how Vikram pushes of the wrong doer from train in ‘Anniyan’ he bumbles something about the amount he had stolen. We can’t help but laugh at that.

Movie Review – Contagion

Dedicated to Corona

I’d have never watched this movie if not for Corona. This is not my type of movie at all but thanks to it appearing in a million columns about how eerie the similarity were I thought I’d give it a try. Plus, it was by Soderberg so I knew I’d not be disappointed at least.

Like how horror films works for people who get afraid by it, this film is better watched now, during corona eve. In fact, typing this gives me creeps as to what would happen to me for being so unsympathetic. But if that’s the case, meme creators would have died a million deaths by now.

It was a serious film alright but the onset of seriousness right from scene one was commendable. This is the thing which Hollywood A-list directors are really good at. Even if it’s a crappy film, they make it look good with the making. And with every arriving characters the seriousness manifolded. One good way of using the stars. When you have so many A-listers you tend to feel that the subject would not be run of the mill.

Thanks to the ongoing epidemic, the words ‘isolation’, ‘quarantine’ and ‘social distancing’ didn’t sound like Greek and Latin. Wish it had sounded like Greek and Latin and the film had been alien to us. My bad that it wasn’t meant to be that way. Like I used to say, things were lot better when ‘Corona’ was just a beer.

The movie is a thriller right from scene one my making important stars die a paltry death in first few minutes, it gives us even more serious tone. An idea beautifully employed in ‘Hurt Locker’ where the bigger star dies within minutes and smaller one survives till the end. Here in ‘Contagion’ as everyone are stars, all the deaths are big.

I loved the Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Mitch (Matt Damon) story because of the ‘affair’ angle. Normally when someone dies, that person gets the whole of sympathy which made me feel bad for Mitch. Being a fan of Matt Damon I already have a soft corner for him and on top of it his situation is as hopeless as he gets into any of his films. The other story involving the teenage daughter of Mitch was funny too. Adding misery to Mitch.

The scientific details of the film were not really clear for a layman in me but the way it was projected, it was made to look serious. In that way it succeeded. The angle involving Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) and Sun Feng (Chin Han) didn’t really work for me. Even though that’s a thing to ponder. It’s wrong for everyone. Both powerful and the powerless.

Overall, even though it’s not a film to be missed, it’s definitely watchable.