Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 9:18 AM
Genre: Crime/Drama
Starring: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Ty Simpkins
The life of a happily married couple gets disrupted when Lara (Banks) gets arrested for the murder of her boss which she apparently did in a fit of rage. John (Crowe) is convinced that his wife was not responsible for the murder and is finding it hard to live with the truth that she has been sentenced for a life term in prison. He decides to break into prison, free his wife and escape from the country. However, breaking into and getting out of prison is not as easy as John thinks it is. The movie tries a decent concept but it gets too slow and boring. Some unnecessary parts were over-stretched and the lack of good thrills and suspense completely killed the show for this movie. The only good part was the last half an hour and probably if the entire movie was like the last bit, it would have been so much better to watch. Being a Russell Crowe movie, I tried hard to appreciate and understand it, but it seems the movie doesn't take too kindly to people liking it.
Thumbs up: Last half an hour
Thumbs down: Slow and boring plot, Russell Crowe's presence didn't help the movie too much
Rating: 5.8/10
Average Movies,
Crime,
Drama,
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Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 6:19 AM
Genre: Crime/Drama/Romance/Comedy
Starring: Keanu Reaves, Vera Farmiga, James Caan, Peter Stormare
What happens when you go to jail for a crime you never committed? Henry (Reaves) found himself in that position when he unintentionally became the getaway driver for a bank robbery he never knew he was a part of. After getting out on parole, he thought he might as well rob the bank, now that he has already served the prison sentence for it. He learns of an underground passage which leads from the bank vault to a theatre on the other side. He manages to convince his prison friend Max (Caan) to get out on parole and aid him in the job. In order to have regular access to the theatre, Henry gets friendly with Julie (Farmiga) the lead actress of a play whom he first meets when she ran him down on the streets and later during the play rehearsals. He later manages to secure himself a role in the play which allowed him to dig up the tunnel and get to the bank vault. What he doesn't realise is that the harmless friendship soon blossomed into something he never wanted to happen. The movie is a very typical open and shut romance movie with the most obvious ending. In spite of flaunting a decent star cast, the performances were no good which made for quite a boring watch. The humour aspect of the movie is almost non-existent and manages to throw up less than a handful of small snickers. Wait for the DVD if you really want to watch it.
Thumbs up: Nothing
Thumbs down: Plot and performances
Rating: 5.8/10
Average Movies,
Comedy,
Crime,
Drama,
Romance,
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Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 6:55 AM
Genre: Biography/Drama/Crime
Starring: Vidya Balan, Rani Mukerji, Myra Karn, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub
The sensational Jessica Lal murder case rocked the Indian society back in 1999 and put a question mark on the countries judiciary, political and law enforcement system. Jessica (Karn) was an average Delhi girl and aspiring model who gets shot one night by Manish Bhardwaj (Ayub) simply because she refused to serve him a drink after the bar shut down. There were over 300 people who witnessed the cold-blooded murder and Manish, along with his two friends, was subsequently arrested for the murder of Jessica Lall. Manish's father was an influential politician who used his power and money to bribe each and every witness to retract his/her statement and manipulate every possible evidence to point that Manish is innocent. Sabrina (Balan) Jessica's younger sister, aggressively pursues the case for seven long years when ultimately in Winter of 2006, the court lets Manish walk free. The decision shook the foundations of society and left the entire nation aghast. Meera (Mukerji) a renowned journalist was amazed by the outcome of the case and she too, like the million other Indians, knew that Manish was not innocent and what was happening is not justice. The movie has managed to recreate the events quite nicely but Bollywood still needs to learn some lessons from Hollywood on portraying real life stories. Many names and incidents were changed or altered in order to be politically correct but it is an aspect that destroys good cinema. The movie is powerful with some good performances by Vidya Balan and Rani Mukerji. The soundtrack too helps in keeping the powerful and aggressive spirit of the movie alive and would leave you with a good feeling after its over. A good watch which sends out a clear message to the audience to never give up and stand up against injustice and wrong-doing.
Thumbs up: Good performances and a nice aggressive feeling
Thumbs down: Stretched movie with some slow bits
Rating: 8.1/10
Amazing Movies,
Biography,
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Drama,
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Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 4:32 PM
Genre: Adventure/Biography/Drama
Starring: James Franco, Clemence Poesy
A mountaineer and adventurer, Aron Ralston (Franco) goes on a canyoneering trip to Blue John Canyon, Utah, where he slips and falls into a crevice and gets his arm stuck between a boulder and the canyon wall. In the middle of nowhere and with scanty resources, he has little chances of survival. His every attempt at rescuing himself does not work and in the end he needs to resort to desperate measures. Whilst being a hostage to the canyon, Aron revisits all his life's memories, regrets his mistakes and apologises to people he hurt. The movies title denotes the number of hours Aron spent trapped in the crevice before finally being rescued. The story is based on a true life incident which occurred in April, 2003, subsequently after which Aron's story gained national coverage. The movie is quite slow but thankfully Danny Boyle has managed to make it a little less boring then it could have normally been. The movie is a simple narration of the actual incident and there really isn't too much to the plot. Probably if the movie was made like a documentary with in-between footage of Aron's actual recordings and photographs, the movie might have just been a bit different, might. If your expecting any of the Slumdog Millionarie drama and energy then you would be sorely depressed. Good but nothing fantastic.
Thumbs up: James Franco delivers the role with perfection
Thumbs down: Slow and some gory and graphic scenes
Rating: 7.4/10
Adventure,
Biography,
Drama,
Good Movies,
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Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 12:11 PM
Genre: Comedy/Documentary/Action
Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Steve-o, Jason 'Wee Man' Acuna, Chris Pontius, Preston Lacy, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey, Phil Margera
Would you walk on a tightrope across an alligator pool with raw meet attached to your underpants? Would you play dashing cars with golf carts? Would you go deep-sea diving between sharks with shrimps in your underwear? Would you roll across a room filled with mouse traps almost naked? If you answered yes to any of the above questions then your probably one of the above mentioned persons starring in the movie, in case you said no then welcome to the world of Jackass. Jackass is an MTV TV show which telecasts mostly the above mentioned actors performing insane stunts. The show garnered a huge fan following in the United States and hence a compilation of these stunts got together to form the first Jackass movie. If you have never seen one of their episodes or have no idea how insane they truly are, my advice, watch one TV show before venturing into this 90 minute torture. The movie is plagued with ridiculous insanity which would appeal only to those who are fanatics of the show. There are some really funny moments but many parts are utterly gross and completely unwatchable.
Thumbs up: Some really funny and 'sane' stunts
Thumbs down: Other completely ridiculous and horrible stunts
Rating: 5.7/10
Action,
Average Movies,
Comedy,
Documentary,
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Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 2:51 PM
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman
Gifted with an extremely powerful sense of smell, Jean-Baptise Grenouille (Whishaw) knew that his life would be something out of the ordinary. He grew up in an orphanage and quickly realised his ability and its powers behind it. He could recognise a scent from miles away which gave him the ability to know and do more than anyone else. One night he smelt a girl so lovely that he could not resist her and his mind lost all control. After murdering her he smelt her as much as he could but quickly realised that he couldn't preserve the smell forever. Craving for the knowledge to preserve smell, he encountered Giuseppe Baldini (Hoffman) the once renowned perfumer of Paris who has now lost his touch. Jean-Baptise worked for him and hence learnt all that he could in the art of distilling and preserving smells and all that he wished to know on making the perfect perfume. With all that knowledge and skill within him, Jean-Baptise sought to make the worlds finest perfume, something which no one would have every smelt or imagined. The movie has a very interesting story line to it but it has its own set of flaws which bring it down. The first and most obvious dislike with the movie is its length due to which a lot of parts become a bit slow. After a while the movie feels stretched and you wish you could urge it to move on. Dustin Hoffman did not seem to fit into the role, although he did put up a good performance. His American accent and style did not allow him to be a fine Italian perfumer that he was supposed to be. The movie also has a lot of graphic scenes, although its not gory, but yet it might be unwatchable to some. All in all a brilliant movie with some fabulous performances, but with a nip and a tuck here in there, it could be much better.
Thumbs up: Great performances, good plot
Thumbs down: Length
Rating: 7.0/10
Crime,
Drama,
Good Movies,
Thriller,
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Posted by Bell Mattew
Posted on 10:09 AM
Genre: Action/Crime/Comedy/Drama/Romance
Starring: Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan, Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Sonu Sood
Salman Khan has managed to create an atrociously huge fan following who praise and worship him each day. His movies are made keeping his fans and mind and would appeal only to them. Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan) is the local cop who has a style and attitude of his own. His step-father Prajapati Pandey (Khanna) has no affection for him and Chulbul hates his step-brother Makkhi (Arbaaz Khan) since he receives all the attention in spite of being a dimwit. The local politician, Chedi Singh (Sood) runs multiple illegal businesses which Chulbul is trying to put an end to. Singh tries to get even with Chulbul by attacking his family and turning his step-brother against him. Its the ultimate test to win back the faith of the family and put an end to Singh and his evilness. Like I mentioned before, the movie has the very cliched Salman Khan antics which entertains only a Salman Khan fanatic audience. Over the top and extra-dramatic action sequences adorn the movie which can be entertaining but not for long. Sharp and attitude-ridden dialogue delivery comes free with Salman Khan. Although these are elements that might gross out critics and the average consumer, its actually quite fun to watch and forget. You can find multiple faults in everything the movie does, but it was meant to be that way. There really is nothing to watch out for in the movie except to sit back, point and laugh at the craziness and forget about it.
Thumbs up: Different from the lot
Thumbs down: Over-dramatic, over done and would not appeal to all
Rating: 6.3/10
Action,
Average Movies,
Bollywood,
Comedy,
Crime,
Drama,
Romance,
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