Bad Company (2002)

Genre: Action/Crime/Adventure

Starring: Chris Rock, Anthony Hopkins, Peter Stormare, Kerry Washington

An attempt by the CIA to buy back a nuclear warhead in the black market goes bad and they end up losing a valuable operative, Agent Kevin Pope (Rock) to the hands of rival buyers. In order to complete the mission, Pope was needed as the Russian seller, Vas (Stormare) would not sell to anyone else. The CIA discover that Pope had an estranged twin brother where both did not know of the others existence. Enter Jake Hayes (Rock) a New Jersey resident who makes money doing random tasks just like any other person of his kind. The CIA recruit him and have 9 days to train him to look, talk and walk exactly like his twin in order to convince Vas that Pope never died. Agent Oakes (Hopkins) is in charge of the entire mission and must make sure that Hayes is well trained and does not mess the deal which could potentially cost thousands of American lives. Chris Rock's performance is not fabulous but does the job to make the movie interesting and entertaining. Watching him transform from typical street to typical CIA is fun and very much Chris Rock. The movie is like just any other spy movie whdre an American law enforcement agency is chasing after terrorists and bombs but Rock's appearance lighten things up greatly and makes this movie a wholesome entertainment. 

Thumbs up: Chris Rock and his humour

Thumbs down: Run of the mill storyline

Rating: 6.8/10

Batman (1989)

Genre: Science-fiction/Action/Crime

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Michael Gough

The rich billionaire who is an antique dealer by day goes by the name of Batman at night. He prowls the city and gets rid of all the scum and filth and wipes the streets of Gotham City clean. Few people know the truth about Bruce Wayne (Keaton). Not just about Batman but also about his personal life and past. He leads a very quiet and secretive life and before long the beautiful and charming photographer, Vicki Vale (Basinger) enters his life and manages to change everything. Jack Napier (Nicholson) is a criminal mastermind of Gotham City who has an unfortunate chemical reaction which leaves him with an altered appearance and the knack of laughing all the time, hence he is now known as the Joker. The Joker blames Batman for his appearance and seeks revenge and his revenge will  be the lives of one and all of Gotham City. His threat is about to turn into reality only if Batman can stop him and bring him to justice. The movie is a very typical superhero movie with the good winning over the bad and the usual damsel in distress who needs to be rescued from the hands of the good for nothing villain. Apart from Nicholson's exceptional performance, the movie is the average entertainer. It marks the start of a long line of Batman movies which live up to this very day.

Thumbs up: Jack Nicholson

Thumbs down: Average story, nothing exceptional

Rating: 6.3/10

Vantage Point (2008)

Genre: Crime/Action

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, Eduardo Noriega, Ayelet Zurer, Said Taghmaoui, Edgar Ramirez, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Alicia Zapien

A world political summit to end terrorism is being held at Salamanca, Spain where leaders of various countries would come together to sign an agreement to end terrorism once and for all. The movie revolves around a unique plot structure where the events of a single day are shown in multiple flashbacks from different points of view of various people at the summit. The movie shows the occurrences through six vantage points, which is, a news reporter Angie (Saldana) and her producer Rex (Brooks), US Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes (Quaid), undercover Spanish police officer Enrique (Noriega), American tourist Howard Lewis (Whitaker), US President Ashton (Hurt) and terrorist Sam aka Suarez (Taghmaoui). Although the plot layout is interesting, the start of each of the six points are similar which gets a bit annoying to see and hear the same clips and audio over and over again. The movie becomes interesting and picks up pace towards the end to quickly wrap the plot and get over with it. The story, in isolation, is very basic and short but the focus predominantly lies in the same event happening through the eyes of various individuals. Interesting movie and can be recommended for a one time watch for action and crime enthusiasts.

Thumbs up: Unique plot structure

Thumbs down: Gets a bit annoying to watch the same footage too many times, basic story

Rating: 6.5/10

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Crime

Starring: Jason Bateman, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Day, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Collin Farrell, Jamie Foxx

Remember that dinner with friends where someone throws a completely stupid idea and everyone plays along and agrees to doing it knowing full well that its just a stupid joke? And remember the next morning when you wake up and you actually think you might want to after all execute that thought that randomly came up over yesterdays dinner? Three friends, Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dayle (Day) contemplated over the thought of killing their bosses and after a few days that thought started moulding into a real thought. Nick's boss, Dave Harken (Spacey) is a maniac who squeezes every drop out of his employees and treats them like slaves. Bobby Pellitt (Farrell) is Kurt's coke addicted boss who has no interest in the company or anyone's welfare and simply wants to have one big party all the time. Dale's boss is the super-hot and sexy Dr. Julia (Aniston) who is a sex maniac and is trying to get Dale to sleep with her. That may not seem all that bad for most people but Dayle is due to get married and he fears being disloyal to his fiance. The trio decide to kill the three bosses and make their life better and approach the first black shady man they meet, Mr. Motherfu***r Jones (Foxx). The movie is cleverly set against the backdrop of the global recession with dwindling job opportunities and showing people doing almost anything to earn some money. Its got a different edge to it and is definitely a good fun watch. A lot of working folk might associate themselves with the feeling of killing their bosses and this movie captures that exact moment. Its not laugh out loud funny but its definitely worth the entertainment.

Thumbs up: Great fun, good plot

Thumbs down: Would have been a repeat watch if it was crazy funny

Rating: 7.1/10

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery

Starring: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson

Alfred Hitchcock, murder and crime in the same sentence go very well together. His movies have spearheaded the crime and murder investigation genre and had put a heavy focus on detectives. Tony Wendice (Milland) is a reasonably well to do, married and middle aged man who used to love to play tennis. He married Margot (Kelly) who didn't want him to pursue the sport for whom he was forced to give it up. Margot had an affair with an American crime novelist Mark Halliday (Cummings) about whom Tony later learnt about. His regret for leaving tennis for his wife and now she leaving him for another man pushed him to the edge where he started plotting her murder. His carefully crafted plan involved C. J. Swan aka Captain Lesgate (Dawson) who was to execute the plan and murder his wife. Yet the most well-crafted plan always has a flaw, the most obvious flaw that is undetectable but yet too obvious. The movie crafts a perfect mystery and the character of Tony Wendice, the smart and thoughtful man who thinks far and thinks well and does justice to the plot. The only chink in the erstwhile formidable armour is in the plot itself. The entire crime scene is revealed early on in the movie with the murder itself taking place. Now that you know exactly what happened, its only a matter of solving it. This leaves little room for a climax and stunning end and the audience is more or less prepared for the outcome. A great murder mystery nonetheless which is simple and sweet, to the point and does not have any complicated parallel stories to lose focus of the main plot.

Thumbs up: Great performances and good crime scene

Thumbs down: Not a very strong climax

Rating: 7.6/10

Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller/Mystery

Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring, Justin Theroux

Pronounced and read as: Mulholland Drive. Profound and deep movies with layered meanings and multiple interpretations are always a difficult watch for the average audience and appeals only to critics, movie fanatics and visitors of film festivals. Betty Elms (Watts) is a struggling actor who has arrived in Los Angeles to become a movie star. Her aunt is a veteran actor who is currently on vacation and has hence decided to lease her massive house to Betty to stay in. Meanwhile, a failed murder attempt inside a limousine sees the victim (Harring) escaping from the crime scene and sneaking into Betty's' aunts house without any one's knowledge. The victim cannot seem to remember her name and assumes the name of Rita. Betty at first thinks she is her aunts friend but later learns of the true story. Betty's childish detective instincts come to life and she tries to unravel Rita's mystery and find out who she exactly is. Meanwhile, a movie director, Adam Kesher (Theroux) is threatened by the mafia to cast a girl of their choice for the lead role in his upcoming movie rather than the actress that he selected. The two major plots are flanked by multiple irrelevant smaller stories that do not make any sense or add up during the initial stages but some culminate right towards the end. The movie is ridiculously long, slow and heavy. Right till the very end the average viewer would have no idea what the past two and a half hours were all about. One would probably need to Google interpretations and meanings of this movie just to simply come to terms with what they just saw. The performances are fabulous, no doubt, but the movie is strictly for minorities and not for the masses. That aside, the thought process that might have gone into this movie to create is an achievement in itself and much praise goes out to director David Lynch. Watch only with a lot of time and an aspirin in case your not prepared for it.

Thumbs up: Brilliant plot conception, good performances

Thumbs down: Too deep, profound, sow and heavy

Rating: 7.3/10

Ken Park (2002)

Genre: Crime/Drama/Romance

Starring: James Bullard, Stephen Jasso, Maeve Quinlin, Tiffany Limos, James Ransone, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Wade Williams, Adam Chubbuck

The individual stories of 5 American youngsters and their encounters with sexuality and family life. Ken Park (Chubbuck) whose friends tease him by reversing his name to 'Krap Nek' (Crap Neck) shots himself in the middle of a skateboarding park. Shawn (Bullard) a boy who knew him, narrates his life story along with that of his friends. Shawn shares a sexual relationship with his girlfriends mother, Rhonda (Quinlin) without the knowledge of anyone else. Peaches (Limos) lives with her overtly-religious father and who has lost her mother at a very young age. Her father resents her relationship with a boy and beats him for sharing a sexual relationship with her. Claude (Rasso) needs to tolerate his drunk and violent father who believes his son is not man enough and resents his skateboarding and everything else that he does. Tate (Ransone) is an unpredictable, unstable and sadistic psychopath who lives with his grand parents. He hates his grand father because he believes he cheats in Scrabble and his grand mother whom he believes invades on his privacy. The movie's title is disconnected from the main plot and although Ken Park's suicide intentions are revealed it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the main characters apart from their common friendship. The movie is slow and is filled with a lot of extreme sexuality and nudity which comes across as being very unpleasant. It has a very deep and artistic approach to itself and is not recommended for all.

Thumbs up: Natural performances and acting

Thumbs down: Too high on sexuality, slow

Rating: 6.3/10

Barb Wire (1996)

Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/Science-fiction

Starring: Pamela Anderson, Victoria Rowell, Steve Railsback, Temuera Morrison, Jack Noseworthy

Have you watched a movie with the lead performer being someone who should never actually be in that role? Like an industrialist, a sports persons wife, an ex-politician or in this case, a porn star. The year 2017, the entire United States is engulfed in a civil war with Steel Harbour being the only free city in the country. Barb Wire (Anderson) is a mercenary and the owner of a bar in Steel Harbor. She struts her stuff, shows too much cleavage, has her legs exposed at all times, flaunts a 17" waist and can perform insane stunts wearing skin-hugging tight leather outfits. And there is something about a pair of German contraband contact lenses that can allow anyone wearing them to pass through a retina scan without any problem and a whole bunch of people trying to get their hands on it for a variety of reasons. There is too much skin show, in case I forgot to mention that, with everyone speaking in loud whispers with a thick, seductive and I'm-too-sexy touch added to it, especially Miss Anderson. The movie is a complete washout and although I would like to say that the movie is good enough at least to ogle at Pam, that too does not quite happen. The plot is badly glued together, randomly evolving and does not quite get to you even after pausing the movie and thinking about it for half a day. Is there enough already to suggest this is avoidable?

Thumbs up: HAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHA

Thumbs down: I'll write a blog post about that

Rating: 3.6/10

Kahaani (2012)

Genre: Drama/Thriller/Crime/Mystery

Starring: Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chatterjee, Saswata Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui,

Good performances, an enticing storyline and a superb climax is just what the doctor ordered to make a good movie. Vidya Bagchi (Balan) arrives in Kolkata from London to look for her husband who mysteriously disappeared suddenly. Her husband, Arnab came for an assignment to Kolkata and suddenly stopped answering telephone calls and any form of communication. A local police officer Rana (Parambrata Chatterjee) agrees to help her in her quest to seek her husband. The hotel in which she claimed her husband was staying in denied him ever checking in along with the National Data Centre (NDC) the company in which he was supposed to have been working for. Suddenly Arnab Bagchi does not exist and nobody, right from his parents address, school records, professional records do not seem to match the claims made by Vidya. What does emerge is Arnab's uncanny resemblance with Milind Damji, a man with a shady past with an obscure link with Arnab. Vidya realises that in order to get Arnab, she must find Milind but Khan (Siddiqui) the commander-in-chief of the NDC warns her to step out of it or she might lose her life. The movie is very gripping and keeps you wondering and glued to your seat right till the very end. No matter how many theories you might cook up half-way through the movie, it would all go for a toss once the climax is out. The only low points was the forced romance in a true Bollywood style, which thankfully was without any unnecessary song sequences. The movie is beautifully shot against the backdrop of the Bengali festival of Durga Pooja which adds power and aggression to the movie and a huge scoop of character. Vidya Balan has shined once more with some superb acting and has definitely made a mark for herself in the industry, if Dirty Picture hasn't already done that.

Thumbs up: Astounding performances, gripping plot

Thumbs down: Climax might seem a bit far-fetched too few, forced romance scenes.

Rating: 8.5/10

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

 

Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery

Starring: Steve Martin, Michael Caine, Glenne Headley, Anton Rodgers, Ian McDiarmid

A nice, enjoyable movie with some mystery, humour, twists and a sprinkle of fun is always a good watch. Some recipes never go bad. Lawrence Jameison (Caine) is a suave and sleek Englishman who makes a living out of tricking rich woman off their money. He is English in every aspect that you can imagine and has a very methodological, well-planned and characteristic form of executing his cons. Freddy Benson (Martin) is as American as anyone can be and is Lawrence's counterpart from across the Atlantic. They both meet in a small French town which is Lawrence's home turf that Freddy is threatening to overtake. Freddy's raw, unsystematic and shabby style of working fails to impress Lawrence who underestimates his skill. The duo decide to have a face-off where they both would try to con the same lady of the same amount of money and the winner takes it all. The movie is a brilliant spectacle of fine performances from two very accomplished artists and is a delight to watch. The half-way mark feels a drag with slow developments but once you get past the poor patch, its a thrilling climax for an astounding twist of events.

Thumbs up: Great performances, fun watch

Thumbs down: Can get boring and dragged in some bits

Rating: 7.0/10