I loved it…! This is James Cameron’s labour of love and it was worth the hype for me. Brilliant movie to be enjoyed in 3-D IMAX. 5/5….
Will grab most number of oscars easily!
best movie, best animation, best animated character, best screenplay, best art decoration. Mr Cameron delivers and how!!
Will easily be the highest grossing movie till date… poetry in motion…!
No doubt, this is THE movie being talked about in every form of communication! There is a high dose of Kaminey being dished out to the Indian people! But, unlike the “Pardesi” song from Raja Hindustani, it is not at all irritating!
Kaminey is the movie with which Indian Cinema has woken up! It is an intelligent movie. I liked it so much that I have already seen Kaminey twice.. ! That in itself is a compliment because it has been years since I say a Hindi movie twice in as many days! As we all know how good the movie is, I will not go into praising it and dashing out superlatives like Amazing, mind-blowing, etc etc!
Kaminey is good cinema, but its no pulp fiction! Pulp fiction I saw thrice – it bowled me over each time!
To me, Kaminey was about as entertaining as an Amitabh movie in his hey days…. (Lawaris, Amar akbar anthony, Hum, etc)
Sure, the last fight scene was mind blowing… the movie was very nicely done, and the loose ends were tied up nicely… wait, its apt to say, there were no loose ends left in the movie!
To say “the movie made u think” (as per paper reviews) means one’s brain has been kept idle OR one didn’t watch good movies for a fair amount of time… To say that it is an intelligently made movie is putting it more realistically!
The key to Kaminey’s success is its subtlety! If you go to the theater expecting to Priyanka heave her chest in your face, then you will get to watch it, but you will be disappointed later on because there is very little in the movie for audience titillation!
Why do I say this? I first saw Kaminey in a swanky multiplex. The audience got up for the National Anthem and I was left stunned by an Inspirational Instrumental National Anthem jig done against the backdrop of Kargil showing the Indian Army! As much as I am against the idea of playing the anthem in a movie theater, I was touched! If patriotism will be forced upon the audience, this is how it should be done! Show a youthful India, A dashing India, A powerful India – and not a bunch of talented oldies crooning away while shaking their wrinkled faces and bald heads in an attempt to ‘show’ emotion while they display it in their talent. Its too emo, its too mushy! Its weak! I digress!
The multiplex experience was controlled! silent! mute! It was interrupted by people talking on their cell phones saying “yes sir, ho jayega sir”. God damn it! Turn the fucking thing off! I was tempted to grab one cell and throw it, but (thankfully) none were in arms length! (back to the movie) – At the end, no one clapped, no one expressed what they felt about the movie… they walked away in silence – Me and my friends sat they the end credits. Some educated idiots 2 rows ahead of us stood up to leave, then decided they want to watch the credits standing – result….? I saw a bald head alongside Priyanka and Shahid! I stayed silent and didn’t let my mouth get the better of me! It was a multiplex after all!
Just to get a perspective of a different audience, I saw it in a singleplex where one would not go with ones family coz its too run down! The Kaminey experience there was amazing! The audience took part in the movie, they hooted, jeered when things happened in the movie. They even booed when Shahid launched to tell a tale at a crucial time, or dug in to find protection while piggy chops was getting hot and heavy and was all ready for action! Yes, they too talked on the phone during the movie, but they said “Movie dekh raha hoon. Baad mein call karta hoon” (Am in a movie, will call later). They scratched their heads during the interval because the movie was too intelligent for them! It was either that OR it was because Priyanka was already done shaking her bosom and they were wondering, now what!?
The common thread in both the experiences was – no one was asking any questions on the plot! That speaks a lot for the director and the guys responsible for the screen play and for the story writers! This is what gets Kaminey MOST of its points! Taut story telling! No loose ends left for the audience to tie up! One reason i watched it a second time was to find faults and I did find one… but it was a fact and not a flaw – Just before the interval, Shahid does not say SH as FA while singing a song – 2 explanations…. it was an English song OR he was singing! Who cares! The sequence that follows is absolutely brilliant! Bhope-tope exchange is THE highlight of the movie for me! Smooth flow! High tension! The movie runs like a finely tuned sports car! Blows your mind away!
The audience in the multiplex did not say much during the regional dialogues in the movie about Mumbai/Bombay and about Marathi Manoos and the so called ‘outsiders’! However, the ones in the singleplex were not afraid to voice their support during the ‘outsider’ moment and during the ‘Jai Maharashtra!” moments! It is Sweety in the movie who says it best when she chooses her man over regional politics! At the end of the day, it is about being happy and feeling loved and wanted! Nothing else matters!
Fact is – 1) Aids and pregnancy will get you if u don’t use protection! 2) Vada pav rules over McDonald! 3) Changing Bombay to Mumbai will not give the city more power! 4) Politics is a (dirty) game! Don’t get played by it. 5) Drugs dealing is still rampant everywhere in the world 6) There is no high like a power trip!
Vishal Bhardwaj has touched these topics and presented them very nicely in Kaminey. The movie is as much educating as it is entertaining! The director took a chance by making such a brilliant caper and its paid off well! Kaminey is THE movie of 2009! GO WATCH IT! It is no Pulp Fiction! VB is still a long way from QT…. but the road chosen is fantastic!
err.. did I say I was not going to use any superlatives? Who cares! They were FUperlatives! Go figure!
My rating: 4/5
PS: For those who thought there was too much Marathi in the movie (Smita), it was the Bengali that got to me in the movie! 
If a movie is made in Hindi, it should have sub-titles for ALL the other languages in the movie! However, this tiny caveat is not at all a deterrent to stop me from watching Kaminey again!
Ok, here it is – the much awaited “T4 Spoiler post” by public demand!*
*(read public = CP)
Read a few reviews praising the movie on IMDB.
Fail to understand how anyone can give this lousy movie a rating of 10 – It can happen only if they have not seen ANY of the movies that T4 has been “inspired” from.
(the count presently stands at 13 movies!)
Fail to understand how a Terminator movie was beaten by “Night at the museum” and still had a 7.4 rating on IMDB.
Fail to understand why of all the reviews written on the movie, none have been scathing of the movie and are trying to play down the lousiness of the movie. The most honest review was one that said “Ben Stiller finishes off Terminator Salvation”. Why? Because it presented box office collections for the long weekend.
T4 – 53.8 Million
Night at the museum starring Ben Stiller – 70 Million!
Numbers don’t lie. You cannot mellow them down like reviews written by paid scribes!
Here are reasons why T4 sucked and a few suggestions to make it better!
1. The 1st hour of the movie is just building up the plot.
2. The 2nd hour tries to show all the cool action that you have watched in the trailers! By then you are too bored to find it cool, especially if the trailers are in HD!
3. The people in the movie appear well groomed – not helpless and desolate (as they should be in a post-nuclear world)
4. The machines are collecting people to take them to a facility and then kill them. Why? Are you going to harvest them for making nuclear batteries?
5. Just use the robotic arm for picking up the people to crush them! Its more efficient instead of transporting them to a shed and THEN killing them!
6. (7.) In fact, why use the arm at all? Why not just carpet bomb the world and kill everyone.
7. (8.) Whats the use of killing ALL the people? Or even capturing them? Were the machines just trying to find something to keep themselves busy? -
“Gee, we built so many extra nuclear batteries. We’ll have to build some terminators to use them now.”
“Gee, now there are extra Terminators, so lets kill some people even though they are not much of a resistance!” groovy! (FYI, that’s what Bush did in Iraq. Its not the future, its the past!)
8. (6.) In the beginning of the movie, John Connor looks at a nuclear blast happen and survives without even getting a pimple on his ass.
9. (7.) You cannot kill a terminator by shooting it with a gun! Its stupid! The bullets will just bounce off!
10. (8.) Once the gun is empty, you cannot throw it at the Terminator and say “die!” – No, that will not kill it either, unless you are trying to kill it with your stupidity!
11. (9.) When you see a 30 foot “Transformer type” robot coming at you, you should know you cannot outrun it in a pickup truck!
12.(10.) The “predator” in the Arnold movie was a better killing machine than the Terminators!
13. (11.) The bat-man like bike dispatched from the robot’s leg was not meant to be ridden by a human!
14 (12.) When there is a nuclear blast, you cannot communicate on radio!
15. (13.) You cannot blow up a nuclear battery plant and possibly escape in a helicopter! You will die!
16. (14.) The nuclear battery plant – the source of the terminator fuel – had minimal security! Even some banks these days have lasers to guard their facility!
17. (15.) If the terminators are heat proof, why not have a “heat-moat” around the plant that will kill humans, but allow the terminators to move in and out!
18. (16.) After killing all the humans, what will Skynet do? Grow potatoes? Or try to create a Issac Asimov inspired SIMS world by building fornicating robots!
19. (17.) The human-robot removes a computer chip from his brain and survives without a hitch! Did he run a test to check if the chip – embedded in his brain – was not vital for his survival? ha!
20. (18.) The same human-robot throws a chair at the display screen thru which Skynet communicated with him – even I know that not going to kill Skynet! Whats the point in that? Just run and save John without trying to reason with an AI computer that has almost succeeded in destroying the world!
21. (19.) If you are going to argue with Skynet, at least make sure you have some logic that would throw it into an endless recursive loop that will lock it up!
22. (20.) He could have installed Windows Vista on the computer – That would have caused it to crash every 30 minutes!
23. (21.) The patches required by Vista would cause Skynet to reboot twice every week. The humans can use that time to infiltrate and capture Skynet!
24. (22.) Putting charcoal over an airbrushed actor does not create an authentic desolate look! Try to get some make inspiration from Mad-Max if you have borrowed a few scenes from it!
25. (23.) The transformer type robot in point 9 raised the count of “Inspired movies” to 14!
26. (24.) Considering all the above points, this post should be called “your ticket money saving post!”
27. (25.) Add your own reason here!
Movie review: Terminator Salvation (2009)
Sacrifice lunch hour to book tickets.
Build up hype to watch it FDFS.
Spend evening trying to sleep.
Make the mistake of turning on the television!
Catch “Pirates of Caribbean” and “Take the lead” on TV.
Lose sleep.
Catch the movie at 12:01 am. FDFS!
Come back disappointed.
The 1st half of the movie is spent in building up the premise of the story. The 2nd half is where all the action is.
The scenes in the movie will remind you of -
1. Black Hawk Down
2. Matrix
3. Matrix:Reloaded
4. Mad Max – Road warrior
5. Crank 2
6. Death Race
7. T2
8. I am Legend
9. Doomsday
10. T3
11. Dark Knight
T4 is a mish-mash of all these movies with some original “spice” thrown into it. The mix does not work for these reasons.
1. I have seen all these movies – just this year. I did not want a refresher course!
2. In this month alone, there were 3 other movies released – “X-Men Origins: Wolverine“, “Star Trek“, “Angels & Demons” – All were better than T4, even Wolverine, and I did not like wolverine that much!
3. I have not even watched “Angels & Demons” yet
4. I thought T3 was a bad movie
5. The music in some places felt like it was from a Hindi movie (Zanjeer is the one that came to mind)
6. Unlike Star Trek, no one clapped in joy when the movie ended (Star trek still got claps 3 weeks after its release!)
The movie evoked the similar feelings as watching Matrix Reloaded. The action was good, but the story was weak. It felt like this movie should have been an “in-between” movie. Like Matrix Reloaded, its too weak to stand on its own. And since Matrix reloaded was released years ago, this one was highly unoriginal even in its action. Come on man! Its a T4 movie. Try to show something original.
Seems like to me, the movie was made to cater to video game fans! Did someone in marketing forget, the movie has to be a hit for the other franchise to be successful? The plot is full of gaping loopholes! The action is barely passable. This one fits in the category of movies where all the cool scenes are already shown in the trailer.
The 1st half stands on a rating of 5/10. The second half stands at 6/10. This brings the avg rating to 5.5/10.
Disappointing for any movie.
For a T4 movie, that’s very disappointing! Especially when you stay up in the middle of the work week to watch it. I know, you will still want to watch it and judge for yourself. Be my guest. I’ll wait for you at the “frustrated fan party” right here! remember, there are no refunds! You are warned. No salvation in this movie!
Some of the trailers look good – Eagerly awaited movies are – Surrogates (Bruce Willis), Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law (i think)) {One has to find solace in something, right? We all live on hope after all!}
Lets say that there is a race. The important emelents of a race are the drivers and cars, right? While that may be true, the race track too provides a big part of the entertainment. A good racetrack should have a blend of straights and twists. Too much straights and the cars just zoom past the audience… Too many twists and there is not enough thrill of speed. The right blend of straights and twists and you get a good racetrack that provides good entertainment. In a movie, the racetrack is the story.
The story in Race just has too many twists to pick pace… The viewer kind of feels like get a serving of noodles after being promised jalebis! The good thing is that the twists in the plot are spread well apart but the comedy is just horrendous! Instead of giving relief to the audience and allowing them to digest the twists, it adds to the headache and makes one cringe at the pathetic humor. With Akshaye Khanna cracking SMS jokes about alcohol being a slow killer while being drunk… to Anil Kapoor giving sexual “hints” to his secy using fruits as a metaphor in “not so subtle” dialogues that dont make you laugh most of the time. At one point, he even gropes her boobs under the guise of checking her heart rate… seriously?! Why can’t I do that in my job without the fear of getting sued… (and a black eye!)
Saving grace! Skin, skin n more skin! Good locales. A race tracks and cars. Nice designer outfits!
The babes provide good eye candy – at the end of the movie, it was difficult to judge who was better looking, a wet Bipasha or a wet Katrina! Tough choice indeed! 
Feel free to cast ur vote in the comments (multiple selections allowed). Sameera was wasted as was Johnny Lever. [As a friend put it - Sameera can't even play dumb properly] Ladies can pick between a shirtless Saif, a shirtless Akshaye or a fully clad Anil for ogling.
Verdict:
All the horse racing and the car chasing was lost in the stripping as the twists spun out of control! The mish-mash made the 2.5 hour movie feel like a 3.5 hour movie that came with a free headache. Really, thats all I have to say about the movie… Its not worth wasting any more brain power! The poor comedy killed most of the few brain cells I had left! (most of the few – see, there’s your proof!)
2.5 / 5
If you liked Crank, you will love Crank 2 or Crank: High Voltage!
Yes people, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have made my favourite movie even better and now its even electrifying-ly funny(pun intended!).
The movie is Rated R for frenetic strong bloody violence throughout, crude and graphic sexual content, nudity and pervasive language.
The movie is produced by Lakeshore Entertainment and Lionsgate (Lionsgate is the same company that produced the SAW movie series! Exciting bunch of people they are!)
Cast
Jason Statham is Chev Chelios, this time he loses his heart! (not figuratively, but literally!) [Check out the pic]
Dwight Yoakam is Doc Miles, who still has massages from nude ladies and has “Chocolate” for his receptionist. (Any guesses as to why she is called Chocolate?)
Amy Smart is Eve – still blond, but now smarter (lives up to her name, eh!) and savvier (she now has an iPhone) Did I mention she is a stripper?
Corey Haim is Randy - Randy is a pimp, ladies n gentlemen!
[You can see Eve tossing Randy on a car in the pic]
Efren Ramirez is Venus - he is Kaylo’s twin brother – also gay with FBT – Full body turrets!
Reno Wilson is Orlando (Again, I forgot who he was… He must still be unimportant!)
Keone Young is Don Kim - a syndicate leader
Art Hsu is Johnny Vang - A guy who is carrying Chev’s heart in a ice box! (yep, seriously!)
Ling Bai is Ria – a prostitute saved by Chev who is now smitten by him [Pic on right]
David Carradine is Poon Dong - A 100+ year old mafia honcho who wants Chev’s heart and other “well endowed” body parts to keep living his racy lifestyle!
Billy Unger is Young Chev - Watch out for the talk show part in the movie. Its too funny!
Jamie Harris is Talk Show Host and Geri Halliwell is his mom.
Joseph Julian Soria is Chico - A gang .. oh well, see the freaking poster on the left.. lol!
The plot is once again, super simple - Crank 2 starts where Crank left off – Chev falls from a chopper, bounces off a car and lands splat on the street! Before the medics can get to him, he is scooped off the streets (literally with a shovel!). Having survived a deadly Chinese poison 
– the Beijing cocktail, the gangs want him for his body parts, starting with his heart. So they cut him open n take it and replace it with an artificial 4 chambered battery powered one! (Seen on the left. PS: The heart used in the movie is an actual artificial heart!)
Unfortunately, the heart is designed to sustain the person and is not meant for vigorous, stressful activities! And if you know Chev’s lifestyle from Crank, its anything but peaceful! The external battery sustaining the heart is ruined in 10 minutes of him getting it. The internal power only lasts for a short time before the 4 chambered plastic pump would stop. Chev has to keep him self electrically charged by any means necessary to stay alive! The premise has now been set for a lot of weird, shocking, funny moments in the movie!
Oh yes, he also has to retrieve his original heart that has been implanted in Poon Dong after killing a bunch of people while trying to stay alive! no problem at all.. lol!
Like its predecessor, this movie too has its share of unrealistic moments and pushes the ‘reality’ envelope a lot many times! People who have not watched Crank and who do not know what to expect will find asking themselves “What? How is that possible?”. But for the fans of Crank, its all good! Why you ask?
Because this is Crank 2! People going to watch this movie would expect to see something shocking (another attempt at pun), violent, crass and outrageous! They would expect the “in-your-face” outrageous-ness! Without showing these things, the movie would not be fit enough to bear the title of Crank!
********** Warning! Spoilers ahead!!!!!! **********
Here are a few reasons why you should watch this movie!
1. It has Jason Statham in it! The guy simply knows how to entertain! I like his sarcastic dry wit displayed throughout the movie!
2. Random violence!
3. Random nudity!
4. Boob busting moments – A stripper gets shot in the tits and the silicone oozes out of her boobs! Excellent premise for Crank 2 the video game for ones with a twitchy trigger finger!
5. A sex scene on a race track where Eve ‘rubs’ against Chev to generate static electricity to keep his heart pumping while he is pumping her and a horse jumps over the pair in heat! (How freaking cool is that!) I was LMAO in the movie with the others viewers! (A semi drunk girl even shouted “oh yeah” in the audience! lol)
6. The violence is so big, the directors had to resort to clay-like animation to depict it! It was so freaking cool for me coz it reminded me of the 60′s tv show for kids called Giant Robot (It was aired in the 80′s on good ol‘ DoorDarshan!)
7. It has bare chested men of all sizes – tattooed, fat, fit, scrawny, muscular! take your pick and ogle away ladies! (don’t miss the tongue and nipple clamp on Chev on yer right)
When the movie is “Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, sexuality, nudity and drug use”, the audience is pretty much forewarned that this movie is not a family drama, right? So whats the point in trying to write a clean revu of a dirty movie. Here is your warning then….
Warning ! This revu is only for adults. It contains crude language along with references to drug use 
If you cannot handle foul language, better stop reading right now – no sh!t !!
“Crank” is a smelly, yellow form of “meth” that is usually snorted. However, this review is about the movie by the same name and not about the crude form of “crystal meth” used for addiction and for getting high. For news on crystal meth see – http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/drugs/crystalmeth.html
Cast
Jason Statham … plays Chev Chelios, a professional assassin who gets poisoned and has to keep himself pumped with adrenaline to stay alive
Amy Smart … plays “Eve“, a dumb blond bimbo who is slow in getting things in perspective but good for sex !
Jose Pablo Cantillo … plays Ricky Verona, a rival of Chev Chelios
Efren Ramirez … plays Kaylo, a gay-funny-filler-type character in the movie
Dwight Yoakam … plays Doc Miles, a smart resourceful doctor who fixes up Crazy Chev and likes getting massages from nude ladies
Carlos Sanz … plays Carlito, a two timing syndicate leader who deals in drugs, guns and prostitution
Reno Wilson … plays Orlando (I forget who the hell he was…. must be unimportant… )
Edi Gathegi … plays an Haitian Cabbie driver who gives Chev some Haitian drug made from plants (he refers to Chev as a crack-head and calls the drug “Haitian plant sh*t”…. LOL)
Keone Young … plays Don Kim, another syndicate leader and a rival of Carlito whom Chev is supposed to kill
Valarie Rae Miller … plays “Chocolate” (yeah.. that’s her name). She is Doc Miles’ assistant cum receptionist (pun intended) and is unscrupulous
Yousuf Azami … plays an Arab Cabbie (he has a scene involving a reference to Al-Quaida that happens so suddenly, its funny)
Written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Produced by – Lakeshore Entertainment, Lions Gate Films, Radical Media and GreeneStreet Films; Crank is a bad-a$$ action packed adrenaline pumping funny movie that will get you high !!
In the plot, the lead character gets poisoned with a Chinese drug called “the Beijing cocktail” that has no antidote. The drug is inhibiting the absorption of adrenaline in his body eventually shutting down his heart and killing him. To stay alive, he has to keep himself pumped with adrenaline. This leads to a series of crazy events as the protagonist tries various means to stay pumped up while trying to stay focused at the same time and extract vengeance on the people who have poisoned him. While this is certainly not a whodunit, I’ll still only say this much about the plot as you’ll want to see and enjoy the rest yourself.
The plot is slick and simple ! No need to use too much brains… This is a movie that you can just sit back and enjoy. However, its not brainless either – It has repeat value !! I have seen it multiple times and it has managed to keep me in splits each time !! That’s how a good action movie should be. It should keep you well entertained amidst all the violence and Crank does just that and does it beautifully !! There is not dull moment in the movie. Once you get into its groove and move along, the thrill ride it’ll take you to is spectacular !!
I liked the movie as i’m a fan of Jason Statham. He is like our own Sanjay Dutt (an actor from India) – A cool bad a$$ who is like able !! His movies are crazy, but they are guaranteed not to bore you and the action is cool, humor is dry and sarcastic and the dialogues are even cooler. You will be entertained… period !! Fultoo paisa vasool !!
The movie has its share of goofs and some are very obvious. The lead character gets shot, but is later seen walking normally. While falling from a chopper, he has enough time to call his GF and leave her a message on the answering machine … (yeah right !!) Point is – This is not a technically perfect movie and you have to take some scenes with a grain of salt. Although existent, the goofs are few and far in between and I still recommend the movie in spite of these goof-ups.
Top 10 reasons why should you watch this movie ?==============================================================
1. There is a car driven thru a shopping mall that winds up sideways on an escalator.
2. There is a sex scene where the protagonist screws his literally Blond girl-friend in a china town with a bunch of teenage school girls watching and cheering him on !
3. There is a lot of drug use in the movie.
4. It has a Nokia phone in it with a really cool ring tone that generally wakes up the lead character after he has passed out while doing his many crazy antics in the movie.
5. It has a lot of gun action and a couple of cool car chase scene.
6. It has 2 hand chopping scenes and one scene where a sewing machine is used on a hand – Tatopoulos Studios has done the special effects just for these two scenes.[note: one of the hand chopping scenes is actually very funny - After chopping the hand from the arm, Chevy tells his side kick - a f@g - "Wanna hold hands ?" and throws the chopped hand at him - Now you tell me people -- to be able to make a joke like that when you are dying - isn't that funny and cool... !!]
7. If you can handle crude language and drug abuse, along with the start to end action, the movie is interspersed with a lot of humor for the audience.
8. If you want to learn how to steal a bike from a cop at a traffic light !
9. If you want to have some cheap but cool fun
10. If you are a Jason Statham fan. Though I must warn you, if you are not, there is a good chance you might become one after watching this movie
Question- Why are you still reading the fcuking revu, punk !! Get your b#tt to the store, pop the dvd and get your adrenaline pumping, but do it after leaving a comment else you’ll get a bullet in your a$$… punk !! – The movie is full of such dialogues n lingo.
Fist published here by me.
One question whose answer remains doubtful in the movie is – Whose baby was it? I put my money on Leo Caprio – whats your take…
The movie is rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, some strong sexual content and drug material – The review is rated only PG-13
When the stakes are high, Insurance is everything! And when you are a mole for the police in the mafia that already has a mole in the police – you can never have enough insurance!
A quick review of the movie would be that it was released in 2006 and it won 4 Oscars in 2007 for Best Achievement in Directing, Best Achievement in Editing, Best Motion Picture of the Year and Best Writing- Adapted Screenplay. Mark Wahlberg was nominated for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. These awards alone would be reason enough to watch this movie. For a complete list of awards, pls see http://imdb.com/title/tt0407887/awards
Even with a cast like Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga can you be sure the movie will be good? Not unless you have a director like Martin Scorsese putting it all together.
The plot is simple. The Irish Mafia and the Massachusetts State Police both have their moles in each other’s organization. The execution is complex – this is where the movie won its Oscars. The irony shown in the story is superlative – Leonardo Caprio (William M.’Billy’ Costigan Jr.) comes from a crime family that he hates, so its relatively easy for him to penetrate the mafia. hailing from a rich family, he hates his roots so much that he prefers to join the police even if it means leading a life of poverty and hardship. Matt Damon (Det. SSgt. Colin Sullivan) hails from a poor family and since he was a kid, he has been granted numerous favors by the mafia don who treats him like a son – even he joins the police force, but not to serve and protect, but to act as a mole for the Irish crime boss – Played by Jack Nicholson – flamboyant, gutsy, crafty, womanising drug dealer, Frank’s character shows considerable amount of flair that suits his role as an Irish mafia boss. His character is the one to watch out for in the movie – even after so many years, he still has tremendous screen presence and will entertain you in his inimitable style. The casting was perfect as Billy, played by Caprio was cast along side Frank, because Matt Damon certainly could not have played Billy’s character as convincingly and craftily and stood up against a capricious Frank as well as Leonardo did.
But for me, it was Mark Wahlberg as Det. SSgt. Dignam and Martin Sheen as Det. Capt. Oliver Queenan who impressed me much. Together they both played the good cop – bad cop extremely well with Dignam constantly teasing and taunting Billy to keep the fire alive in Billy when he gets tired after living a dual life as a mole. At those times, Queenan plays a father figure in Billy’s life and earns his trust convincingly. Credits to Mr. Scorsese for showing this scene, along with many others, in a few frames that would take 3-4 pages of intense writing for a good author to aptly describe. Indeed, if The Departed were a novel written by a dead author, the writer would be lying peacefully in his grave knowing that justice has been done to the book thru this movie!
All the actors – again, thanks to Scorsese’s direction – get into the skin of their characters, which makes this movie almost like watching a 5 star rated play on the screen. But as this is a movie with opportunities of retakes, it cannot be given 5 stars by me – even though the director is good enough to be compared with other top dogs competing alongside him. I say that because I have seen better directors in Quentin Tarantino and Stanley Kubrik who have managed to satiate the film-freak in me more than Mr. Scorsese did. I cannot help but place The Departed next to Pulp Fiction and it manages go neck to neck with it in terms of entertainment, repeat value and suspense (that in itself is a big compliment to this movie). However, the suspense in The Departed is very tautly managed – I was watching it for the second time, and yet the movie seemed very fresh to me and the ending gave me immense satisfaction – which is why I chose the opening of this review carefully.
The sound editing, the film editing, the screenplay, the casting, the art-direction, the special effects is all top notch – the movie makes all these aspects stand out. The spray of blood shown during executions is very realistic as is the sound of guns being fired during a fight. The “popping” sound of the fire exchange changes when heard thru the police radio – excellent attention to details! Eyes used to convey the lust and lunacy of a mafia boss in a scene was shown extremely well without making the scene gross or showing excessive skin. The craftiness and complexity shown in the only strong female character in the movie was superb (played by Vera Farmiga) – credits to Mr. Scorsese for handling the emotions and the on-screen passion very well and tastefully. The change in the face of a tired and exhausted pill-popping mole Billy is very much noticeable, thanks to the make-up that was done just right.
All in all, this is a brilliant piece of movie making that can be watched over and over every couple of months and it’ll keep entertaining you – but as I had already seen movies like Pulp Fiction and A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrik) that were made ages ago this movie, I cannot give The Departed a 5 star rating – It still gets a stellar rating of 9.8/10 – definitely worth keeping in the collection of all movie connoisseurs!
!! Spike !!
PS: This review is dedicated to my very good friends Lalit (MS id – bildebej) and Ipsi (MS id – ipshonlu) for our Italian discussions that sparked the writing of this review – cheers mates !
Note: This review was originally written by me here. I watched the movie again today and that gave me the perfect opportunity to use my best friends, copy and paste to migrate it to my blog. I’ll be moving my stuff from the old site to the blog as and when time permits.
When life is portrayed realistically on celluloid and captured in its raw, unadulterated form, one gets a beautifully surreal movie like Slumdog Millionaire. I saw this movie when a friend at work – we share similar tastes in movies – could not stop raving about it! He is an American who has visited Bombay and has seen the poverty there. Another recommendation came when I was watching a show on the telly and the Razzie recommendations were being dished out (for the curious cats, Paris Hilton’s The hottie and the nottie topped the list of that recco!). It was during that segment that the anchor mentioned that Slumdog Millionaire is a must see movie! It was settled then!
Note – the story will not be revealed in the review. Read to your heart’s content!
Simply speaking, the movie captures the story of two slum-kids and how they make lemonade when life throws lemons at them. Only, the movie captures it brilliantly! I cannot help but compare the movie with a classic heart touching movie – Children of Heaven by Majid Majidi! (Yes, Slumdog is really that good) It is also made like a documentary – meaning, the realities of life are not sugar-coated to make it easy for the audience to swallow the movie. In fact, it is this unadulteration that makes the movie a must-see for anyone interested in knowing the real Bombay!
Having grown up in the city of Bombay and travelled across the country, I can vouch for the authenticity of the scenes shown in the movie. The plot of the movie itself was quite in-genuine and most of the movie is a flashback. A tea-seller from Bombay has his shot at becoming super-rich overnight when he is 1 question away from winning the Indian version of Millionaire. He is suspected of cheating as he has reached that point in the show by answering national and international questions with ease. He also plays with the show-host’s ego when he steals the show from him with his dry-witty-straight-from-the-gut replies to verbal insults from the show’s host (played by Anil Kapoor). The show ends for the day when Jamaal (played by Dev Patel), suspected of cheating is taken in by the police for questioning. The movie is a narration of his life story to the inspector (Irrfan Khan) and the hawaldaar (Saurabh Shukla).
The movie shows how Jamaal and his brother grow up being poor Muslim kids in the city of Bombay (I hate the name Mumbai). They are typical slum-kids who enjoy the simple pleasures of life and learn everything about life from the best teacher there is, life itself! The movie shows various phases in Jamaal’s life – each phase being a new chapter in the story of Jamaal’s life that are interlaced by the questions on the TV show. While all the chapters are written in flashback, the final chapter cuts to the present and the story unfolds to bring us to the climax of the movie. Each chapter unveils a new twist in the plot, teaches the character of the movie a new lesson in life and leaves the viewer glued to the seat, with ever-growing suspense. (If anyone told you that art-movies are boring, Slumdog Millionaire surely breaks that perception!)
Having given us movies like Trainspotting, The beach, 28 days later, Director Danny Boyle gives us yet another masterpiece – perhaps his best till date. The movie is also co-directed by Loveleen Tandon who has worked on contemporary art-movies like Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair, Earth and The Namesake. Loveleen has ensured that the movie retains its Indian authenticity in each scene.
After watching the movie, I was discussing it with my American friend and that led to many interesting observations about life. The movie reminds us of the adversity faced by Billions of people in developing countries like India and Africa – while the privileged few lead a sheltered life and take many things for granted. The conclusion of our discussion was that richness and poverty is a relative thing – you consider yourself rich or poor depending on where you hail from – not very profound, but worth mentioning none-the-less as the conclusion was achieved in 5 minutes while sitting in the confines of the office and without the aid of any ‘truth-serums’ (read alcohol)!
Slumdog Millionaire is a wonderful movie that shows the harsh realities of life while telling a lovely, romantic, wise tale os the struggles and triumphs of Jamal! The acting in the movie is top-notch as is the direction, screenplay, music, editing – the best part of the movie would be the screenplay and direction! I wanted to pick the story, but a bad screenplay and bad direction can easily ruin a good story.
Conclusion – In case you are still in any doubt, let me re-iterate! GO WATCH IT! You will love it for its realism. The movie has a rating of 8.7/10 on IMDB. I give it 10/10 as it portrays the true and real Bombay on the big screen in a surreal way! Love it, Love it, Love it!
