The Wolf of Wall Street

The yardsticks of judging films of a certain genre seem to be dug to the depths of inflexibility. We now know exactly when to expect a slow motion sequence, when to break into tears of pity and when to clap for a motivating monologue. And when an amateur rebel of a director comes around with something unconventional, we are ready to pan him down with a misguided sense of knowledge. Conventions, with their now predictable structure have crippled the audience and critics alike. Films, especially the popular ones, have become mere opportunities for wannabe's to broadcast pseudo-intellectual inferences and opinions.

Not us! We know what we're talking about.

An intervention is called for. And not from anybody vulnerable, trying hard to make their mark, but from someone well established and authoritative enough to righteously shove the intervention into people’s throats, basically-a big Daddy. Enter, Martin Scorsese.

A vigilante filmmaker with a large cache of cameras? We need Nicolas Cage to play this guy.

The Wolf of Wall Street is a surprisingly surprising film. With a biopic, that is unusual. Scorsese has challenged the film fraternity by using a genius technique which is disturbingly successful only when it is hidden. The film does not necessarily track the turning points in Jordan Belfort's life, what it does though is that it shows all the instances that highlight the intricacies of the character. These instances might not lead to the next phase of his life but they sure tell you what kind of a person Jordan Belfort is.

There are two separate questions- What is the story of Jordan Belfort? And who is Jordan Belfort? 'The Wolf of Wall Street' answers the second question. Does it do so reliably? We will never know, because it is based on a book written by the man himself. All we can do is laugh at his insanely money, drugs and sex driven life, as it slides down as much as it possibly can. And we get ample moments to laugh. So many moments that you start to feel guilty for laughing at a hard working man's tragedy. But hey, he is a crooked man isn't he? What might have been an immensely intense biographical drama becomes an immensely engaging study of a character. And does it come to a conclusion? Well the story does, but the character doesn't.

The character just keeps drinking.

So go watch it for Dicaprio's potential Oscar winning performance and Scorsese's relentless efforts towards quality film-making. Watch it for the humor and for the seeming light heartedness. Watch it for its aggrandizement of everything wrong, and for the challenge that it puts to your mind. Consume it all as food for thought. It is tasty food.

The Wolf of Wall Street is not unconventional. It is neo-conventional.

IMDB Rating: 8.7/10 (This rating will probably decrease in the following weeks)

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 76%

Should you watch it: Yes

My Rating: 3.5/5

Primal Fear (1996)

I return from nearly two weeks of silence with apologies. My end of term examinations are going on at the moment, which is leaving me completely burnt out. For better or worse I’m back and if you've read any of my earlier reviews you’ll know that I can whine on about how a film sucked or I can heap praise on films I loved. Well I could whine on for quite some time about how midway through Primal Fear you feel in your gut that this is a good movie, but it could have been much better.

Every time I try to be critical, people say I'm whining. Great Lord Ebert protect me from these creatures. 

Movies in Hollywood in the old days would be describable in seven words, something which hasn't changed over the years; in fact that was part of the pitch to producers. For example the 7 word treatment of Avatar is “Pocahontas with big blue aliens and humans”. For Primal Fear it is “Courtroom drama involving murderer and egomaniac lawyer”. For most of the movie it just plays just as that, a good courtroom drama, but nothing very special, especially for a person living on the 21st century. The story itself is simple. The murder of an Archbishop, a beloved member of the community, is the biggest story in the city. A hotshot lawyer, played by the smooth talking, silver haired Richard Gere, becomes the defense counsel for the alleged murderer, played by a very young and younger looking Edward Norton.

Richard Gere: proving that lawyers are always profitable, even if you're only playing them.

Now I will give you the reasons I found this movie good and not great or bad but just good, and since I’m still in exam mode I’m going to do it bullet points:
•Richard Gere gave a good performance, so did Laura Linney (the female lead). Frances McDormand (Fargo) also gives a standard-good-actress performance.
•Edward Norton delivers a fantastic bit of acting which I think launched him to fame. This is one of the people in the industry who should have won an Oscar by now. His act and more specifically his character keeps the show going.
•The script was pretty good. The direction and the editing were good. There were some electrifying scenes somewhere in the middle and right at the end of the film, but to balance it out the director must have deliberately kept a few scenes slow and crappy. For example: the crappy (I have no high brow English for you, I used it all up while bullshitting in my written exams) scenes between the two lead lawyers who just happen to have a romantic history behind them.

"Don't make me angry. I give away my parts to Mark Ruffalo when I'm angry."

In summation nothing particularly stands out in this movie except Edward Norton and the last five minutes of the movie. Over the years movies have developed something called the big reveal which has been brilliantly executed in the past in films like The Usual Suspects, The Prestige and The Illusionist. The reveal takes place in the last few minutes and usually blows your mind. And in that aspect I would rate Primal Fear ten out of ten for a marvelous reveal. 

IMDB rating: 7.6/10

My rating: 7.5/10

Killing Them Softly (2012)

I have always been keen to watch movies, good ones or much awaited ones, on the very first day of their release. I like to watch the very first show. I give myself a false sense of superiority and gain some enjoyment seeing a film before anyone else. Sometimes not only do I get to experience the pleasure of watching the film before others, but I also get to tell the ones who didn't show much interest to begin with that there was a film they could watch. A good film. A film to look out for. This is one of those films.

A quick plot review makes it sound like one of the many post-Scorsese gangster tales which involve a lot of well written moderately profound dialogue and some stylized violence. Here's the IMDB blurb Jackie Cogan is a professional enforcer who investigates a heist that went down during a mob-protected poker game. 

I went in expecting a heist gone wrong. I expected Brad Pitt to be the stone cold ruthless assassin type, great for action sequences imparting wisdom in forty words and two pop culture references. I expected Ray Liotta to be a mob boss getting riled up and spitting out his words at the camera.

A few of my wishes came true. What I truly witnessed was an allegorical tale of the recession. An economy supported by gambling breaks down. Troops are sent in to rectify the situation and bring the economy back to its feet. But the troops aren't as effective as expected. Beneath a layer of cool criminal speak lies an essay on America and the events that unfolded during the time period of the 2008 presidential campaigns.

What enhances the film and its core idea are the writing, the direction and the cinematography. The cinematography is superb. I wouldn't be surprised if the cinematographer got a nod come Oscar season.  A few scenes stand out in my head; a character injects himself with heroin, a character gets shot. The writing and the direction are intelligent and well paced. The acting is top notch. Brad Pitt is stellar as usual and Scoot McNairy gives an authentic performance.

I had one complaint. I greatly admire the use of allegory in film. But sometimes the allegorical elements are too blunt. District 9 was subtle with its references to apartheid. This film is just too ham fisted with the direction at a few points. The allegory is not there for us to pick up. It's hammered home, repeatedly. And that ticks me off, a little.

All in all a good film. One of the better ones of this year. The film  has the potential to remain a good film or to be hyped as a great film as it deals with issues close to America (remember The Hurt Locker? Neither do I).

IMDB Rating: 7.3/10

My Rating: 7.5/10

Watch it in the theater? Yeah, it's good.

OMG Oh My God! (2012)

Today I succumbed to boredom and watched a Hindi movie. Why don't I watch Hindi movies? Before you Hindi speakers start commanding that not only should I know Hindi but I should watch plenty of Hindi movies here are a few reasons (in bullet points):

• I cannot comprehend Hindi completely. I need a friend to translate some of the more difficult (shudh Hindi) words. I am from West Bengal. We speak Bengali there. You know, one of the other 18 official languages of India.
• Hindi films are just not as good as international cinema. Notice here that I said international cinema and not Hollywood. There are many great Hindi films out there. But I found out that it takes me a larger amount of time researching the quality of a newly released Hindi film than to actually watch the film.
• Even films with different concepts and/or new ideas have the same formulaic crowd pleasing shit shovelled into the script.
• Too much plagiarism.
• Too many songs.
• Overall corniness.

As you can see I have my reasons for not watching Hindi films. However, today I went out of tedium and my love of Paresh Rawal.

The film begins like a generic comedy. It generates chuckles from the juxtaposition of a religious background, devout wife and a holy idol and stature shop, against the atheist shop owner Kanji Bhai (Paresh Rawal). I was prepared to walk out of the movie when I heard the Prabhudeva-led item number "Go Govinda". I believed that was the movie subtly telling me and my godly friend Govinda (a.k.a. Krishna) to get the hell out of there as it was going to get painful. 

A few minutes later I was thankful that I'd not left as the movie had swiftly descended into one of my favourites, religious satire. Kanji Bhai disrupts a religious festival and is cursed by a Hindu priest. His shop is destroyed and the insurance company refuses to reimburse him for his losses as the earthquake that destroyed his shop was an "act of God".

It is here that Paresh Rawal gives a marvellous performance as a non-believer. And Mithun Chakraborty proves that he's still got it as he lampoons religious cult leaders with all their quirks and vanities. This film had me hook, line and sinker, the dialogue was funny, thoughtful and logical. 

Suddenly a wild Akshay Kumar appears! 

And I felt that the film had lost me. What could have been a ground breaking film descended into the murky waters of "this is India, so no atheism allowed". You see, in a film that challenged the very existence of God the filmmakers decided to introduce God.

Overall I have to say that I liked the film. It put forward some well written arguments. It challenged Big Religion and all the scams, rackets and insanity that went along with it. But I kept thinking that this film could have been much better without God making an appearance. It could have been a spectacular struggle of man against society and his eventual hard won triumph. It was the struggle of man against society and his eventual hard won triumph. The spectacle was cheapened by God's arrival. This film asks the right questions but it falls short. This is the sort of film that should teach a person to question their beliefs. To think and question instead of blindly following. To offer a different point of view. What it does is question our rituals and our inane practices. It tells us to not fear but love God. It does a good job of that. 

I'd hoped that it would question God too.

IMDB Rating: 8.9/10 (sometimes you shouldn't trust IMDB, this is one of those times)

My Rating: 6.5/10

Should you watch it: Yeah, why not? It is funny. And for the atheists/agnostics who like me had hoped for more, here's a George Carlin routine that never gets old:

Hearts in Atlantis (2001)

In a not very happening town, on a not very happening street, lives an eleven year old boy called Bobby Garfield. Bobby-o wants a bicycle that his single mother can’t afford. But every kid is hasty about becoming a grown up and every grown up is understanding. So Bobby-O tries his best. His mother is cynical, therefore never happy. And Bobby has to make do with an adult library card as a birthday gift. The relationship as you must have guessed by now is going downhill. The approaching of teenage makes things worse. Enter, an old man, who takes the word “strange” as a compliment. Mr. Ted is their new neighbor and also the most enigmatic personality Bobby-O has ever met.

No I have not revealed anything. It would take more than that to reveal the thick plot of Hearts in Atlantis, a film that almost tricks you into thinking that it doesn’t have any plot to it.

The film has enormous names to boast of. Anthony Hopkins plays a major character and the movie itself is based on Stephen King’s collection of novella of the same name. Had I revealed these trump cards before, you wouldn’t even have cared to read the review any further. But that is where we miss the point, don’t we? Does a film become great just because of the names associated to it? Or does it become great because those great people had some belief in the story? Something clicked in Stephen King’s mind when he wrote those stories. Something clicked in Hopkins’s mind when he was presented with the idea. Now there’s a reason to watch a movie.

A mention of Stephen King’s name raises a question- is it a horror movie? Well that depends on your interpretation of the word ‘horror’. Is it all about seeing the ghost beneath the bed? Or is it about thinking of the ghost beneath the bed? The latter one is the kind of horror that King specializes in. The concept of horror in this movie is a little more profound. The fear of losing to time, the fear of realizing that our heroes are human, that our parents make mistakes too and that nothing is permanent. Not even our home. It may never be the place you dream of going back to.

Anthony Hopkins gets into the skin of Mr. Ted and becomes a mystery to us, right from the moment he pops up as the new neighbor. His eyes tell a different story in every movie. This time they are hiding something, something terribly painful and horrific. The movie then invites you inside, makes you feel welcome, hands you a hot cup of evening beverage and settles down to tell a story that might not be very new, but engaging and moving nevertheless. Important relationships are explored here. Painful realizations, reinforced.

To dump this movie into a particular genre would be unjust. It is a piece of storytelling you might want to indulge in when you are alone, on a rainy Sunday evening. Your state of mind just might give you a new comprehension.

Hearts in Atlantis, just like Kubrick’s The Shining, focuses more on the stuff that is not supernatural. It understands King’s writing and creates memorable images from the most trivial of instances. Isn’t that how memories are made in the first place?

It is not a great movie, it’s far from it. But there’s nothing wrong with it.

IMDB Rating: 6.8/10

My Rating: «««««

Moon (2009)

As you might have guessed from the title of the movie it's set on the moon. "Sarang" is a lunar base for mining helium-3 at the far side of the moon and it is manned by a sole crew member Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell). An artificial intelligence assistant named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) is his only companion. We are told helium-3 is an energy source and it is found in abundance on the moon. Sam is serving out a three year contract with Lunar Industries Limited and is down to his last two weeks. Sam Bell has a wife and a two and a half year old child back on Earth. Soon conflict arrives, but not in the form of an alien bent on eating him but something far more (pause here for effect) human.

This is the debut feature film of Duncan Jones (Source Code) and it's incredible to see what he has done with a budget of 5 million dollars. Interesting side note: Duncan is the son of a certain David Robert Jones also known as David Bowie; Duncan himself used to be known as Zowie Bowie. The direction was crisp and clear. Sam Rockwell as the only human to appear for most of the duration of the film delivers an incredible performance and never fails to lose our attention. That is a testament not only to his acting abilities but also the script and it's terse yet dramatic tone which gave me goose bumps. This film could have been transformed into the regular science fiction explosion fest with the wrong people (Michael Bay) but I'm very thankful that the director made it the way it is, small and quiet. It could be argued that that film was cheated out of an Oscar nomination or two, as both the acting and the writing were superb. But then again this was the year the Academy failed to nominate Matt Damon for his role in The Informant and it awarded Best Original Screenplay to The Hurt Locker over Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

Three other aspects worth mentioning here: the cinematography, the art direction and the music. It will surprise you to know that in this day and age of CGI madness a science fiction film was made using mostly models and some good camerawork. The music was supplied by Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan). Mansell's claim to fame is Lux Aeterna from the film Requiem for a Dream is used by every jackass who wants his play or movie trailer to sound dramatic and morose. The soundtrack is just perfect for the film as it escalates the drama without distracting the audience. Another noticeable Oscar snub. Does the Academy hate the British? Maybe it tried to be apologetic by giving four awards to The King's Speech the next year.

This film has been lying dormant in my computer for about a year and I'm a little angry at myself for not watching it earlier. I recommend it highly for those who appreciate the thoughtful sci-fi films like 2001, Blade Runner or Sunshine.

IMDB Rating: 8/10

My Rating: 8.5/10

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Moonrise Kingdom was released over two months ago in the United States. I waited in anticipation for a film that was touted to be the best film of the summer. But I'd forgotten that I lived in India. I would be lucky to see a film that did not rely on explosions to fuel its plot forward. I was relieved to find out yesterday that it had finally arrived to cinemas in India and rushed to watch one of the first shows.

The story takes place on an island; a rustic, colourful setting that accentuates the story and its charm. The plot begins with a boy running away from his summer camp and a girl fleeing from her family. We find out that they have been corresponding for a year and this escape has been planned. A rescue party  comprising of the girl's parents, a policeman, the camp's scoutmaster and his scouts fan out and search for them. Hilarity and romance ensue. I do not want to reveal any more of the plot as I'm afraid that it will harm your viewing experience.

The adults are played by a star studded cast, the sort of cast only a summer superhero movie could afford. Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and Harvey Keitel. The above line represents millions of dollars worth of acting power and billions of dollars worth of entertainment value. But you'll forget all of those people as soon as you see the young lovers. Played brilliantly by Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman the two young protagonists run the show. Their characters are so well written that you wish to know what happens to them a few years down the line. And the actors playing them are such natural actors that you wish to know what happens to them a few years down the line (and you hope that they don't turn into Lindsay Lohan).

Everything else about this film is as exceptional as the acting and the writing. The camera-work and the director's use of colours and symmetry add a warmth and charm to the film which makes everything seem natural and true. Moments of childishness rather than bringing out the jaded adult bring out the carefree playfulness in us. I even found myself wishing that I had run away with camping equipment as a kid. Sam, the boy scout, puts established badasses like Han Solo to shame by virtue of sheer ballsiness. And the music. It just ties the film together. Quirky and zany, the music is simple and effective. If I had to sum up the film in one word it would be "charming". The charm of the film lies with its story and characters and the way it all flows seamlessly. Seriously, I would not change a single thing about this film. I'm looking forward to viewing more of Wes Anderson's work.

P.S. - My new favourite cinema theatre is PVR Cinemas at Phoenix (Pune). Nine screens and tasty snacks, what more do you need?

IMDB Rating: 8.3/10

My Rating: 9/10

Worth going to the theatre for: Yes, definitely yes!