Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Anyone who has seen some of his previous movies (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Deathproof) will tell you that Quentin Tarantino is an acquired taste. So distinct is his style of script-writing, direction and editing that it’s impossible not to tell his movies apart from someone else’s. But for the first time – and this is coming from a self-confessed Tarantino fanboy – I think this directorial style has gone against him while making Inglourious Basterds.

The movie is set in World War II and the Inglourious Basterds is a platoon of Jewish American soldiers under the leadership of Lt. Aldo Raine, played by Brad Pitt. Their only job is to land in Nazi-occupied France and kill as many Germans as possible, as gruesomely as possible.

Meanwhile, a Jewish cinema-owner in Paris (played by French actress Melanie Laurent) is going to be screening a huge premiere with all the major heads of the Third Reich showing up for it.

Of course, the Basterds hear of this and decide to blow up the theatre somehow. And so does the cinema-owner herself!

'A 100 Nazi scalps, or die trying!'

Tarantino’s masterful script-writing skills show throughout this movie, with his trademark intricate plots that bring several different threads together to form an explosive situation – it’s almost as good as one of Frederick Forsyth’s novels (but don’t go in expecting a factual history lesson; this is still a Tarantino movie, after all). And really, is there anyone in the whole of Hollywood who writes more memorable characters?

The movie’s title is quite misleading, in a way, as the Basterds themselves aren’t the central point of the film. Pitt, especially, seems like a bad casting choice and the film would have benefitted with a lead actor who was more… ‘American’.

The Basterds do feature in most of the major scenes, but the real stars of the movie are Laurent and the incredible Christoph Waltz, who plays Col. Hans Landa, nicknamed ‘The Jew Hunter’ for his ability to sniff out Jews in hiding. The immediate comparison I can think of to his role is that of Willem Dafoe playing Detective Paul Smecker in The Boondock Saints.

Beneath the exaggerated genius, there is a quiet, understated menace to Landa throughout the movie, unleashed in one final scene. If ever anyone in a Tarantino movie deserved an Oscar, it’s Landa as Best Supporting Actor.

Christopher Waltz as Col. Landa will make
you want to stand up and applaud

The dialogues are vintage Tarantino: drawing analogies to convey the Nazi perspective on Jews; lightening tension-filled environments with the odd quip about genitals; and somehow making the language itself seem more cold-blooded than the person who says it.

At times, the direction does benefit from the Tarantino touch. There are just a handful of people who can pull off conversational scenes as well as he can (Kevin Smith and Thomas Schlamme being the only other names that pop into my mind immediately). I had read an interview by Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of Men In Black, where he talked about how writing long conversations is difficult enough, but directing the same is even more so. Tarantino does it with ease, probably helped by the fact that he writes his own screenplays.

Still, overall, I feel it would have been beneficial to have Tarantino write the script and get someone else to direct it – say Spielberg, Stone or Ridley Scott. There are quite a few scenes in the movie where it seems like the director has a hangover from his last endeavour, the campy Deathproof. His style is intact, it’s just that I do think it does not go well with this script.

Oliver Stone showed how well he could handle Tarantino’s scripts with Natural Born Killers and I can’t help but imagine how amazing Inglourious Basterds would have been under the direction of the guy who gave us Platoon.

But by no means does that mean you shouldn’t watch the movie. Watch it for the script-writing; watch it for the dialogues; and most importantly, watch it for Christopher Waltz delivering a performance that will make you want to stand up and applaud.

Rating: 7/10

Review: State of Play

Real investigative journalism, I have been told, is about facts, conviction and the courage to stand tall in the face of adversity, ala Woodward and Bernstein. In real life, though, it’s altogether a different ball game. Working in a newspaper, I’ve realized true journalism doesn't hold much water against the immutable law of business: ‘Thou shalt not throw a spanner in the wheels of Profit (read: advertisers)’.

Still, fiction demands certain liberties, so we will take a page out of Rahul Dravid’s style and leave this one well outside the off stump. State of Play is no All The President’s Men, but it’s still not a movie to be missed out on.

Directed by Kevin MacDonald, the film has a stellar star cast with names such as Russell Crowe, Helen Mirren, Jeff Daniels, Rachel McAdams and Ben Affleck. This one almost slipped under my radar given the low amount of publicity it received – given that it’s summer time in the US, networks aren’t quite interested in marketing anything that doesn’t have ‘blockbuster material’ written all over it. But, being a patient man with a good amount of free time, I saw the movie because movies about journalism interest me. And hey, it’s Russell Crowe – how bad could it be?

State of Play is a good remake of a British television series of the same name, which aired in 2003. In the movie, Crowe plays Cal McAffery, a crime journalist who is somewhat of a relic in this new age of Internet blogging. But being a good traditional reporter, he has his contacts in every related department in the city, where he can sniff out a good story.

Russell Crowe as “Cal McAffery, a Journalist in the Washington Globe

The film starts with a petty thief being murdered for apparently no reason whatsoever by a professional assassin (depicted by two gun shots, one in the head and the other in the heart). What's strange about the incident is the critical wounding of another innocent passerby – a fact that grabs Crowe’s attention.

This is followed by another mysterious incident where a young girl is killed in a subway. She just happens to be the lead research attendant at the office of Congressman Stephan Collin (Ben Affleck) and also a secret lover of the ‘happily married’ congressman. A little digging around reveals that his office is investigating the US-Iraq war and the US government’s outsourcing policies related to it.

What follows is a chance discovery by Crowe to arrive at a larger, sinister plot where politics, business and war merge to make for one roller coaster of a ride complete with deception, intrigue and pot boiler situations.

Congressman Collins investigating the outsourcing of US Army Defense contracts

Here’s a bit of a spoiler, but honestly, there’s no way you couldn’t have seen this coming: Yes, this is another conspiracy movie about the US government’s secret hush-hush cover-ups. This time it involves PointCorp (a company loosely crafted after Blackwater, infamous for killing of 17 Iraqi civilians during the war), the US Army and its malpractice of outsourcing international defence contracts – namely getting ex-militia mercenaries to fight the wars in Iraq in the name of world peace and WMD’s.

The movie gets a bit loose towards the end, when it bites a bit more than it can chew after Crowe realises that ‘outsourced’ international warfare is just the beginning and the ultimate aim of this conspiracy is the outsourcing of the fabled Home Land Security of America.

A thought after watching the movie, was the amount of interpersonal relations and addition of new characters seem like a vestigial remnant of a television series building the complexity of its main characters hoping to add another season after a successful first. This level of complexity works in a series where the writer has reel time to develop it. But in a movie, if not handled well, can seem pretty confusing and force fitted.

Mirren, McAdams and Crowe playing characters which are probably more documented in the TV series

For example: The history between Crowe and Affleck going back to their college days where they were dorm buddies. A connection that is touched very lightly and taken for granted by the script writers. Another example is a past affair between Crowe and Affleck' wife Anne Collins played by Robin Wright Penn - an angle which would have had significant focus in the series but has to be deciphered by the viewer in the movie.

Congressman Collins and McAffrey reminisce their old college days

Characterization is where the movie excels. I liked the character of Helen Mirren who plays Cameron Lynne, the publisher of the Washington Globe. Well characterized and fits the bill of a publisher perfectly, she walks the thin line between a good story and sound business woman.

Hard nosed publisher Cameron Lynne played by Helen Mirren

Rachel McAdam playing Della Frye is a rookie online blogger for the Globe. And as with any young entrant in the field of journalism she dreams of making it big. She does get her wish fulfilled as she is unwillingly paired with Crowe who like a seasoned but fair veteran manipulates her to do the dirty ground work of following up on a potential story.

Rachel MacAdams as a cub online reporter in the Globe

What I didn't like though is the lack of use of Jeff Daniels as Republican George Fergus. His character is probable a very important one but somehow mysteriously ignored. A great loss as I think Daniels is an underrated actor able to deliver some crackling performances in 'The Squid and the Whale' and 'Good Night and Good Luck'.

Still, credit is due to the men behind the movie who have done a remarkable job to create a good two hour shortened version of an entire season and make it an gripping one too.

All in all, this is a highly enjoyable movie when you are in pensive mood and do make sure that you get the subtitles on as the dialogues can get a bit heavy during certain scenes.

Rating: 7/10

The Sting (1973)

Over the past few days, I’ve found that when someone asks me for a movie recommendation, my first question is, “Have you seen The Sting? Paul Newman, Robert Redford?” The duo is more famous for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, but if you ask me, this one has finer performances makes for better viewing too.

Everybody likes a good ‘heist’ movie. From Ocean’s Eleven to The Italian Job, these are the few times we find ourselves rooting for the thief. Sure, they’re rogues and scoundrels, but they treat their profession like an art and to see a grand plan being pulled off perfectly is an absolute thrill.

The Sting revolves around a ‘talented, but small-time’ conman named Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford in a role that you will associate him with for the rest of your life), whose gang inadvertently steals the money of a criminal banker, Doyle Lonnegan (played by a forgettable Robert Shaw).

The dangerous Lonnegan sets his men on them and one of the gang members gets killed, but not before giving Hooker the number of an old friend who is regarded as the master of the long con.

A vengeful Hooker makes his way to meet Henry Gondroff (Paul Newman in one of his best performances, epitomising the movie’s tagline: ‘All it takes is a little confidence’). On hearing about his friend’s death, Gondroff and Hooker decide to embark on the greatest and most dangerous con: rob Lonnegan of a massive sum of money.

Gondroff rounds up his old gang of con-artists, each with their special skill, and sets off to hatch an elaborate scheme. Given the high stakes and the dangerous reputation of their target, they need to deceive Lonnegan and take his money without him ever suspecting a thing. It’s a long con, so it requires patience, time and an incredible amount of hard work and investment; but with rich rewards!

Meanwhile, Lonnegan gets tired of the incompetence of his dirty cop – the pitbull-like Snyder – in locating Hooker, and so decides to put his best mercenary on the job.

The plot gets thicker as the FBI pulls up Snyder and blackmails him into giving them Hooker when he finds him. Agent Polk’s real target, though, is Gondroff, who has evaded him for quite a few years now and he doesn’t plan on letting the conman escape this time.

And slap-bang in the middle of all this, Hooker falls for the waitress at his regular diner and a romantic pursuit ensues.

Through the course of The Sting, there’s a change in the relationship between the wily Gondroff and the arrogant Hooker, slipping into a mutual admiration, with a bit of a mentor-student dynamic. The movie is filled with great dialogues and little ironies, such as Gondroff warning Hooker throughout the movie that revenge doesn’t make anything any better, and yet stepping out of retirement for this one big sting on the man who killed his friend.

Hooker is clearly the protagonist in this, as Redford digs deep to come out with a performance that matches the much more experienced Newman. When you think Newman, you think ‘Fast Eddie Felson’; and after this movie, when you think Redford, you will think ‘Johnny Hooker’.

And yes, no review about The Sting could be complete without the mention of its greatest contribution: the immortal theme. I didn’t know that this tune (The Entertainer by Scott Joplin) originated in the movie till I watched it and read up on it. It’s one that can’t be placed immediately, so it’s best to hear it here or play the YouTube video below.

So there we have it: Two of the greatest actors and one of the best teams in the history of cinema; a grand sting to rob one of the richest and most dangerous men in America by the greatest long con artist in the country and the brightest upcoming star in that field; a hitman and a dirty cop, hot on their trail; an FBI agent obsessed with hunting down ‘the one that got away’; a budding romance; and an immortal background score. What more could you ask for in a movie?

Rating: 8.5/10

[Review] G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

G.I. Joe had been an integral part of the early years of almost anyone who is above 20 years of age now. As kids, everyone had a bunch of action figures, watched the cartoons religiously and debated long and hard as to who would win in a fight between Duke and Flint (who cares if they’re on the same side?), or Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

G.I. Joe – The Rise Of Cobra takes us to the beginning of the Joe vs Cobra saga, weaving the story of how the two factions came to be and started a bitter rivalry that would eventually go on for ages (without any of the characters showing any signs of aging themselves, of course).

The evil McCullen, chief of the major arms manufacturer M.A.R.S., has created a new nanobot-based weapon that spreads like a virus and can physically tear apart an entire city within hours. Of course, he wants to use this to take over the world. At his side is his trusty mad scientist, simply called ‘The Doctor’, who injects the nanobots in humans to make them completely obedient to his commands, creating an army of zombies. Others in the M.A.R.S. camp, which will later go on to become the Cobra camp, include the Baroness, Storm Shadow, Zartan and a whole lot of braindead agents.

Can you guess which ones are the baddies?

Out to stop him are the G.I. Joes – a covert team of premium soldiers gathered from across the world (but centred in the USA, of course), where you expect every guy to be like the one in Men In Black who shouts “We’re looking for the best of the best of the best, sir!” Well, every guy except the protagonists, naturally, since they have to be cooler than the rest. The Joe team has the usual lot of favourite characters making an appearance, including Hawk, Duke, Scarlett, Ripcord, Snake Eyes, Heavy Duty and Breaker.

Making a movie out of a franchise that has such a huge following and long history can be tricky. You have to be respectful of where it came from, while still grabbing the big bucks at the box office to spawn sequel upon sequel. There will always be two kinds of viewers for a G.I. Joe movie: the ardent fan who knows the Arashikage clan as well as he knows the name of Shipwreck’s parrot; and the average Joe (sorry, couldn’t resist) who has just gone to the cinema for a good action flick. Director Stephen Sommers has managed to delight the latter, but the former would be fuming by the end of the movie. Figure out which of the two categories of movie-goers you fall into and only then should you decide whether to give this one a chance or not.

WATCHED AS AN AVERAGE JOE

If Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was a masterful thesis on the subject of ‘How to create a summer blockbuster’, this one is a research paper on ‘Simple formulae for a popular action flick’. G.I. Joe is not going to blow you away, but you won’t come out disappointed if all you wanted was some mindless carnage with a few cool special effects.

The movie has every single cliché that you could think of, but it’s still pulled off as well as a film of this sort is supposed to have. The marriage of spandex with Sienna Miller is bound to please every red-blooded male in the audience, as would the laser-shooting guns and super-armoury of the Joes.

The introduction of exoskeletons for the Joes was a great idea, as it allows Sommers to run wild with an incredible action sequence in Paris. If you have played games like Prototype and Crackdown and want to know how they would look in a movie, this is where you can see it.

Doors are for sissies!

Needless to say, in a movie like this, you don’t ask questions like “But why couldn’t Snake Eyes have done something there, why was he just standing around?” Nor should you question why the top scientist at a secret base conducting illegal experiments for one of the world’s biggest arms manufacturers is using Norton Internet Security to protect his data. Sigh.

Sommers has deviated heavily from the history of the normal G.I. Joe franchise, but looked at from the perspective of a movie-goer who does not care about that, the storyline is plain enough to please.

At no point should you expect a riveting dialogue or true wit – this is a ‘leave your brains at home’ action movie, and as long as you treat it as such, you will come out of the cinema hall with your sanity intact and enriched by the long shots of the spandex-clad Sienna Miller.

WATCHED AS A G.I. JOE FAN

For fans of the G.I. Joe franchise and any geek, the only advice would be to stay as far away from this movie as possible. Keep in mind that exposing yourself to this blasphemous representation of everything that you loved is going to destroy all the sweet memories of your wonder years. This is not a trip down memory lane; it’s more a nightmare on Elm Street.

Fun fact #1 – Cobra Commander’s identity has been revealed, and given a wonderful back story that ties in with some leading G.I. Joe characters. And no, it’s not Snake Eyes as depicted in the comics. More importantly, his identity has been revealed!

Fun fact #2 – The Baroness and Duke were in love and engaged to be married before she decided to wreak havoc on the world by joining Destro. Nope, no revenge stories about Snake Eyes here either.

Fun fact #3 – Snake Eyes, in fact, grew up with the Arashikage clan, and Storm Shadow really killed their master. Nope, there are no shades of grey about Storm Shadow’s character, no involvement of Zartan; just a simple story of young Storm Shadow being jealous of young Snake Eyes.

Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow – a full 30-second battle. Sigh.

The movie is full of such strange and unnecessary deviations from what it is a great background story created in the comics. The relegation of Snake Eyes to a fringe character from his clear prominence as the protagonist in the actual G.I. Joe franchise will not please any fan. Oh and yes, Duke takes down Snake Eyes while sparring. Yup.

Deviations from a storyline to further the cause of a plot are usually welcome. In Spider-Man, Sam Raimi did away with the whole ‘Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s first girlfriend who was killed by the Green Goblin’ angle, and it worked brilliantly. Christopher Nolan changed The Joker’s origin in The Dark Knight, and made him much cooler and a lot more menacing than the books ever did – an absolute stroke of genius.

But in G.I. Joe, it seems that Sommers has just decided not to read any of the comics and come up with his own interpretation for the characters on a whim. It is not as if he couldn’t have done more with the characters or kept to their original story; it’s a conscious decision that backfires completely, creating a series of stereotypes that end up not making a single character endearing.

In the end, you’ll be glad to see this scene, since the credits roll right after it!

Rating: 5/10