Rajeev Masand – movies that matter : from bollywood, hollywood and everywhere else

November 25, 2011

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner

Director: Bill Condon

It’s hard to feel much sympathy or affection for characters who spend even the happiest day of their life brooding, after subjecting us to three previous films in which all they ever did was sulk over being separated from each other.

In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, fourth installment of the ridiculously successful Twilight franchise, Kristen Stewart’s mopey-eyed Bella Swan prepares for her wedding and her honeymoon with pasty-faced vampire Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson. For close to thirty minutes the camera floats lovingly over the glossy wedding, where vampires and humans set aside their gnawing differences to mutually toast the couple.

On their Brazilian honeymoon, Edward and Bella finally get into the sack to consummate their romance, and the morning after, she wakes up with bruises on her body, and the bed reduced to shambles. Roughly fourteen days later, she discovers she’s pregnant.

Given that Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books and these films they’ve spawned come loaded with messages of abstinence, you’d think someone would have reminded them to carry birth control to the honeymoon. But no! Poor Bella must now pay the price for their foolishness by carrying around a little critter in her belly that’s possibly a human-vampire hybrid. When the foetus hungers for blood, it sucks the life out of Bella who starts to wither away, until someone comes up with the wise idea of quenching its appetite by feeding Bella blood in a Starbucks styrofoam cup.

On the werewolf front, Taylor Lautner’s Jacob is still in a funk over his second-place status for Bella’s affection. Yet he hangs around like a doormat when she gets sick, and even feuds with his wolfpack when they decide to attack her before she can deliver another bloodsucker into the world.

This penultimate film in the saga starts off promisingly, but swiftly sinks into the quicksand of silliness that has dogged this series since after Catherine Hardwicke’s moody first film. There’s a scene in Breaking Dawn Part 1, in which the wolves stand around and chat like normal people – it’s by far the film’s stupidest scene, followed closely by an underwhelming action sequence between vamps and werewolves that shows us just how poorly CGI can be used.

Among the film’s highlights is a freaky birth scene, and a nice cliffhanger that hints at Bella’s fate as we head into the final chapter of this saga that will arrive in cinemas next year. The romance between Bella and Edward is gently filmed in those lush honeymoon portions, but what’s missing is the adequate dramatic tension as their situation gets more somber.

Breaking Dawn Part 1 is an improvement on both New Moon and Eclipse, but it’s still got so much unintentional humor and clunky dialogue that only fans of the series – or Twi-hards as they’ve come to be known – will still be able to embrace it. I’m going with two out of five for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. If you’re not a fan, look at it this way – there’s only one more film to go, and then we’re rid of them once and for all.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

November 25, 2011

Cast: Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Al Pacino, Nick Swardson

Director: Dennis Dugan

If you’re not easily offended by Adam Sandler’s usual schtick of toilet humor and racist jokes, you’ll find there’s plenty laughs in Jack and Jill. The film sees Sandler perform double duty as Jack, a successful ad-filmmaker in LA, and Jill, his twin sister from the Bronx who comes visiting the family for Thanksgiving.

Sandler’s terrific in the film’s early portions playing sarcastic, straight-faced Jack, but as the whining, self-pitying Jill, he’s just…a drag. The problem is: no efforts are made to present Jill as a real character; it’s just Sandler wearing women’s clothes and talking in a silly voice. The filmmakers might be too lazy to do something about that, but they obviously recognize the problem, and address it in a comical scene in which a character peeks under Jill’s skirt to make sure she’s not a man.

Because it’s hard to take Jill seriously as a real person, your heart never really goes out to her, although she’s clearly meant to be the victim here – the poor, unwanted sister that nobody loves. You find yourself rooting instead for Jack, the impatient brother with the never-ending stream of insults.

Of course you’ve got to be a fan of Sandler’s to enjoy the film’s typically crude humor, which includes everything from repeated fart gags and toothless old ladies being smacked in the face, to racist jokes about Mexicans and Indians. It helps that the gags come fast and furious, giving you little time to think in between the laughs.

The film’s side plot, in which Jack must get Al Pacino to star in a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial, lends itself to possibly the most embarrassing extended cameo in recent memory. Yes, Pacino shows up in the film as himself, and aside from one or two smart scenes in which he spoofs his own ‘intense’ image, the thespian does an awkward routine in which he literally chases after Jill, smitten by her Bronx appeal. You cringe as you watch the Oscar-winning actor indulge in such contrived comedy.

Jack and Jill is one of those films that’s incredibly funny in portions, but there are also long stretches that are unforgivably boring – like that sickeningly schmaltzy climax. I’m going with two-and-a-half out of five for Jack and Jill. If you’re an Adam Sandler fan, the film packs enough laughs to deserve a viewing.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

November 25, 2011

Cast: Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain, Sissy Spacek, Allison Janney

Director: Tate Taylor

It’s easy to see why The Help, a rousing melodrama about racial prejudice set in 1960s Mississippi, became an instant crowd-pleaser when it released in the United States this summer. Like 2009’s shrewdly sentimental Sandra Bullock starrer The Blind Side, this is a patronizing tale that addresses white guilt and cleverly mitigates it.

To be fair though, The Help is genuinely moving, it has moments of delightful humor, and it’s held together by two spectacular performances that make it an easily likeable film despite its flaws.

Emma Stone stars as Skeeter, an aspiring journalist in Jackson, Mississippi, determined to document the life experiences of African-American maids who face all kinds of humiliation and bigotry at the hands of the white folks they work for. Defying her upper-class background, and angering her insensitive friends, Skeeter conducts a series of secret interviews with these long-suffering domestics, who describe what it’s like to dedicate one’s life to raising white people’s children, while struggling for time and money to look after their own.

Viola Davis plays Aibileen, a maid who works for Skeeter’s best friend, and the first to volunteer for this project which sees several black women meeting on the sly to tell their personal stories. Davis puts you through the wringer, using her eyes and her expressions to communicate years of fear and oppression, and it’s hard to hold back the waterworks when she reveals the tragic story of her offspring. The second winning performance is delivered by Octavia Spencer who plays Minny, a feisty black maid belittled by her racist employer (Bryce Dallas Howard). Prone to a bad temper and tantrums, it’s impossible not to root for Minny as she gets her revenge on her smug boss.

Adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel, The Help knows exactly which buttons to push and when. There are some sympathetic white characters played by Sissy Spacek and Jessica Chastain, but for the most part the film banks on the resonance it’s likely to strike with audiences everywhere, and the sense of guilt and shame it evokes. Far from perfect, the film’s disturbing suggestion that it took a white woman to mobilize the black maids into speaking up for themselves, seems to undermine the very point of the story.

Yet the film works because it’s well-intentioned, and its sincerity comes through despite its shortcomings. I’m going with three out of five for The Help. It’s a feel-good entertainer about a sensitive, prickly issue. Watch it for its solid acting.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

November 18, 2011

Cast: Voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Pink, Sofia Vergara, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon

Director: George Miller

Much like Scrat, the acorn-obsessed sabre-toothed squirrel in the Ice Age movies, it’s Will and Bill, a pair of shrimp-like krill (voiced by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) that practically steal Happy Feet Two, although they’re only side characters in the film’s central story.

This moralizing sequel to 2006’s Happy Feet sees Emperor Penguin Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) set off to find his runaway son, after the little fella takes off with two of his pals when he’s laughed at by the flock for being unable to tap-dance like the rest of them.

For what’s essentially a kiddie film, there’s way too much sermonizing here; and if the earlier film didn’t drill home the point that there’s no shame in being different, then this one beats you on the head with it! A subplot about Mumble’s little son Erik finding his role model in the mysterious flying penguin Sven (Hank Azaria) lends itself to more preaching.

Happy Feet Two has some beautiful scenery and at least two elaborate musical numbers, but what’s missing is the light directorial touch that was needed here. The film feels calculated and manipulative on occasion, which comes in the way of your embracing it wholeheartedly.

Which brings us to the krill… Pitt and Damon’s comic banter as the tiny red crustacea is what delivers the film’s most genuine laughs. “I’m one in a krillion,” puns Will, the rebellious of the two, as he swims away from the swarm in search of adventure, even as Bill nervously contemplates a gay allusion. These feel like the only smart portions in an otherwise all-too-generic film.

I’m going with two-and-a-half out of five for Happy Feet Two; it’s enjoyable in the same way that vanilla ice-cream is: safe and familiar.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

November 18, 2011

Cast: George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood

Director: George Clooney

The Ides of March, directed by George Clooney, is a meaty, fast-moving political thriller about betrayal and disillusionment. And although it makes no new revelations about politics or politicians, it keeps you glued to your seat thanks to some terrific performances from its delicious cast.

Clooney himself takes the role of charismatic Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris, who’s in the throes of a crucial campaign for a shot at the Democratic nomination for the White House. On his team are his trusted campaign manager Paul (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his idealistic but ambitious press secretary Stephen (Ryan Gosling). Just when it seems like Morris is on the verge of clinching the presidential nomination, his campaign threatens to get derailed because Stephen makes the mistake of meeting the rival camp’s campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) and starting an affair with a teenage intern (Evan Rachel Wood).

Expectedly, the film flirts with such themes as the compromises of modern politics, the price that must be paid for integrity, and the loss of innocence. Alas, these revelations aren’t of an earth-shattering magnitude, and the film feels naïve for presenting them as such. But despite its shortcomings, The Ides of March works as a tight thriller that sustains dramatic tension throughout.

The cast is first-rate and delivers credible performances across the board, but the film belongs to Ryan Gosling. As the rare honest man in a dishonest business, he plays the part with a shrewd balance of cockiness and naivete. And as the film progresses, Gosling tracks the character’s transformation perfectly.

I’m going with three-and-a-half out of five for The Ides of March. It’s an intelligent, if somewhat simplistic thriller. Watch it for the solid acting that’s on display.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)