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

October 21, 2016

Cast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Robert Knepper

Director: Edward Zwick

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is both the title of the new Tom Cruise film, and could also work as the punchline for this review. Because frankly it’s an underwhelming action movie that lacks the suspense and the high-adrenalin thrills that have come to characterize the Top Gun star’s favorite genre.

Cruise plays a former military policeman-turned-vigilante who’s off the grid but tends to show up when he smells trouble and lets his fists fly. It’s a role he reprises from the moderately successful 2012 film “Jack Reacher”, which was based on a Lee Child novel. In this film, also adapted from one of the books in the author’s series, our titular protagonist is determined to clear the name of his longtime military contact.

No sooner has Reacher shown up for a potentially romantic dinner with Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), than he learns she’s been framed for espionage and imprisoned. Of course he kicks and punches a bunch of people while breaking her out of prison, and then they’re on the run. But not before they pick up Samantha (Danika Yarosh), a 15-year-old girl who may or may not be Reacher’s long-lost daughter, and is thus a target for the same bad guys who’re on their tail.

It’s a serviceable plot at best, but the action is nothing to write home about. In the previous film, Christopher McQuarrie staged some memorably brutal fight sequences, but “Last Samurai” helmer Edward Zwick, who’s on directing duties here, brings such a generic, anonymous style to the fights and chases that very little of it leaves an impression. Even the villains here are your stock bad guys; sneering assassins and military bigwigs with none of the menace that Werner Herzog brought to the last film.

Cobie Smulders is beautiful, but she has virtually no chemistry with Cruise. Good thing she’s more than just the romantic interest here, playing a woman as tough and self-reliant as Reacher.

Cruise meanwhile, his signature hundred-watt smile replaced by gritted teeth during most of the film, is as earnest as you expect him to be, dutifully going through the paces. There are stray moments in the film that remind you just why he’s still such a magnetic movie star, but this film does little to add to his wattage.

I’m going with two out of five.

(This review first aired on CNN News18)

October 14, 2016

Cast: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones

Director: Ron Howard

Inferno, directed by Ron Howard, the third film based on the Dan Brown novels, once again relies on the credibility of its leading man, Tom Hanks, to make up for its occasionally puzzling and frankly preposterous plot. It’s a handsomely mounted film with intriguing twists, but even Hanks probably can’t help rolling his eyes at all the script contrivances.

When a tech billionaire (Ben Foster) obsessed with over-population kills himself after creating a plague to drastically reduce humanity’s numbers, someone’s got to find the virus and save the world. Our trusted Harvard professor and internationally renowned symbologist Dr Robert Langdon (Hanks) is pretty beat, having survived a wound to his head and currently suffering from temporary amnesia. Still, with some help from a pretty English doctor (Felicity Jones), Langdon dashes around Florence, Venice, and Istanbul, using clues from Dante’s epic poem and various works of sixteenth century art to decipher the location of the deadly virus, while simultaneously being pursued by all manner of suspicious elements.

This is essentially pitched as the brainy version of a James Bond or Jason Bourne film, but to be fair, Inferno is more accessible and packs more thrills than The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons. A clutch of wrong choices, however, derails the film’s breathless pace, particularly a forced romantic track between Langdon and a World Health Organisation director (Sidse Babett Knudsen).

Langdon himself emerges an increasingly stiff protagonist, although Hanks’ everyman charm rescues the character from sinking into an abyss of complete dullness, particularly in a scenario where he doesn’t have access to his most valuable weapon: his fast-thinking brain, which is compromised from the amnesia and the disturbing visions he’s consumed by. Thank god for Irrfan Khan though. The Lunchbox star, cast as the head of a shady consulting group, is the only one here who appears to be having any fun at all, delivering cheeky lines with a straight face and generally disrupting everyone’s best laid plans. Irrfan stands out from among a sizeable ensemble cast, and is one of the best things in this average film.

There’s a lot of running around ancient historic landmarks and the illusion of urgency. But the big problem with Inferno is that it never really creates a palpable sense of danger despite all the chases and gunshots. You know Langdon will crack the mystery in time, and you know everything will turn out just fine. But it never keeps you at the edge of your seat, worried that he’s cutting it too close.

I’m going with two-and-a-half out of five for Inferno. It unfolds at a crisp two hours, and despite its shortcomings there’s enough to enjoy. You might want to give it a chance.

(This review first aired on CNN News18)

October 14, 2016

Cast: Emily Blunt, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Hayley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Edgar Ramirez, Alison Janney, Lisa Kudrow

Director: Tate Taylor

The Girl on the Train, adapted from the runaway bestseller by Paula Hawkins, is a reasonably gripping suspense thriller that never quite hits the high notes of 2014’s Gone Girl, to which it will inevitably be compared. That film, based on the book by Gillian Flynn, benefitted enormously from the moody, ominous tone set by David Fincher and his signature creepy atmospherics. This one must settle for The Help director Tate Taylor’s faithful but frankly unremarkable approach.

Emily Blunt plays Rachel, the lonely alcoholic ‘girl’ from the film’s title whose life has spiralled out of control since her divorce from Tom (Justin Theroux), whom she still calls and stalks repeatedly, much to annoyance of his new wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). While commuting every day from the suburbs to New York’s Grand Central, she stares wistfully at the home she once shared with Tom, and into the home of another seemingly perfect couple whose lives she has become obsessed with.

So when she spots Megan (Hayley Bennett), the beautiful young woman of that house, kissing a man who is not her husband, Rachel takes the betrayal personally. Blind with booze-fuelled rage, she decides to confront her, only to wake up the next day, bloodied and bruised, and to the news that Megan has gone missing. As desperate as she is to know what happened, Rachel also begins to suspect herself, afraid that one of her drunken blackouts may have gone worse than usual.

Director Tate Taylor’s strictly functional treatment is a far cry from the tense stylings of Fincher’s direction, but he successfully translates the novel’s fiendish twists and its intertwining plotlines to recreate that compelling narrative on screen. Sift through the red herrings, though, and it’s not hard – for those like me who haven’t read the book – to solve the mystery at its core.

It’s a good thing then that the film is held together by a remarkable, albeit harrowing performance from Blunt, who is never afraid to plumb the depths of Rachel’s misery and degradation. The other actors are in good form too, particularly Bennett as the doomed Megan, Luke Evans as her husband Scott, and Alison Janney as the officer conducting the investigation.

Violent, dark, and never easy to watch, The Girl on the Train puts its women through the wringer, and leaves you to negotiate its deceptive, unreliable narrators and time jumps. It’s not a perfect movie but a very watchable one. I’m going with three out of five.

(This review first aired on CNN News18)

October 07, 2016

Cast: Madina Nalwanga, Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo

Director: Mira Nair

Roughly 15 minutes into Mira Nair’s new film Queen of Katwe, and your defenses are down. Good luck trying to resist the charms of this uplifting true-life drama.

A young girl from the slums in Uganda discovers that she’s a chess prodigy, and with help from her coach she pursues her dream of becoming a champion and moving her family out of abject poverty.

Sports films tend to stick to a predictable template, and this one too follows the beats of many an inspirational underdog story. But it’s also an unusually affecting film that transcends the familiar formula.

For one, Nair’s depiction of African culture is rich and captivating. Katwe, the sprawling slum outside Kampala, the capital of Uganda, is a rough neighborhood, but Nair makes the most out of the locations with plenty of vibrant colors. She also does a great job of bringing out the best in her cast.

Newcomer Madina Nalwanga stars as Phiona Mutesi, the nine-year-old protagonist and future chess champion, whom we first meet selling maize in the street to help support her family. Nalwanga, whom Nair discovered near Katwe, effortlessly conveys both the character’s shyness and determination, her wide-eyed fascination when she first stumbles onto the game, and even her crushing disappointment on the occasions when she realizes she has a long way to achieve her dream.

As her widowed mother Harriet, unwilling to let go of her pride while all along struggling to provide for her children, Lupita Nyong’o is nothing short of a revelation, capable of expressing multiple complex emotions with a single glance. Afraid initially that Phiona may be setting herself up for heartbreak in chasing a dream that’s out of her reach, Harriet is suspicious and dismissive, and Nyong’o conveys a mother’s protective instinct most naturally. Then there’s David Oyelowo, who infuses warmth and kindness and empathy into the role of Robert Katende, a soccer player turned missionary who sets up a chess club, notices Phiona’s talent, and grooms her for international tournaments. In the hands of less competent actors, the inspiring coach and the stubborn mother might have been reduced to stock caricatures, but Oyelowo and Nyong’o never let that happen.

There is humor in the interactions between Katende’s ragtag group of chess prodigies who travel around Africa and to Russia. And there are several metaphors about how the strategies of chess apply to life itself. To her credit, Nair never shies away from showing the hardships of poverty, homelessness, and a lack of food and education. The film is stronger, and its message clearer because of that.

I’m going with three-and-a-half out of five for Queen of Katwe. The blatant sports-movie clichés aside, this is a genuinely moving film with winning performances.

(This review first aired on CNN News18)