THE "LET'S KILL SOME SCREEN SPACE" VENTURE

DIRECTED BY BALAJI MOHAN

STARRING: SIDDHARTH NARAYAN, AMALA PAUL, ARJUN, VIGNESH, DHANYA BALAKRISHNA, SHYAM, POOJA, SRI RANJANI, SUREKHA with RAVI RAGHAVENDRA and SURESH

I find it infuriating when a movie tells me what to do. It’s something I’d always take with a bucket load of salt. Please don’t take me wrong when I say that. This isn’t me depriving the director of his freedom, this is me asserting mine. Cinema has been a role model ever since I founded fascination; some of my biggest inspirations have been movie characters. I find strength in such didacticism that coaxes me into an illusion whose impact I’ve been found to feel even when it’s long gone. The song might have ended, but the melody would linger. That’s what Cinema does to me.

Post-Modernism broke this illusion. The intentions are as valid as they’re not, for we live in a world that can’t go around too long with more tilt to it than before. Where the message was considered vital, filmmakers decided not to sugar-coat it. Brechtian theatre, one of the strongest of precursors and possibly the core inspiration for post-modern cinema, was storytelling at its didactic best. Word needed conveyance, where the man found, in his toneless wit and his biased neutrality characteristic of a reporter, an ideal medium to get it across to the audience. He would rather crucify the crowd than put them to sleep and instruct in dream. Anaesthetics were restricted to the Hospital.

Cinema to instruct, Cinema as a medium to reform, Cinema as the single most effective propagandist device. All share the one similarity in that the message conveyed is important. The director earns his credit in only the fact that he’s come up with something that I, as the disciplined viewer, cannot come up with on my own. It’s a tricky situation. It doesn’t mean that I require the film to seduce me with stark originality, I only demand it to have enough so as to earn my respect. I could honour Christopher Nolan not for conceiving ‘Inception’ but for executing it, wherein I wasn’t entirely impressed with how the film visually turned out to be either. Do you see what I’m saying?

So you see, it’s simple. I’d not want to spend two hours on something that I already know. I do not mean this only with reference to the instructional aspect of Cinema. A film as an experience in itself loses some air when you rewind the tapes and watch it back all over again. In some cases, a closer watch makes way for new dimensions, I agree. In others, it’s as redundant as flipping through the pages of a self-help book. Like browsing through a porn catalogue when you know exactly what you’re looking for. It’s a waste of precious time.

What do you say about a self-help work adapted for the screen, then – one that teaches you how to make an omelette when you pride yourself to be a Gourmet Chef, that too? What doesn’t make for a better life better make for an amusing watch at least. Like the Ben Affleck segment in ‘He’s Just not that into You.’ Key here is connection – how much fondness the movie inspires, how effortlessly you get to swap places with characters and how, as a result, you feel as the film provokes them to feel.

'Kaadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi?’ was a fifteen minute short film. It still is the very same fifteen minute movie stretched to about eight times its length. It is unimaginative, lethargic, suffers from an incurable sort of inertia to kick-off into consideration – which is still acceptable for a short film. For a two hour movie, on the other hand, it lacks content. The short film is reverse-engineered with a storyline that could take fifteen more minutes to be resolved. The rest of the hour and a half is wasted in commentary for a film which, ideally, doesn’t require any. Am I the only person to think that, however ingeniously constructed, the idea of a film speaking to the viewer is ridiculous? I’m sick of movies telling me what to feel. Movies, with background music, overwhelming photography and excessive closeness to an undeserving character. Thank God for Ramin Bahrani.

For a movie with a title as good as a generalization; a movie which IS a generalization, considering its characters talk about ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ as opposed to ‘Him’ and ‘Her’ or ‘Me’ and ‘You,’ it is incredibly close-minded, playing to specific characters and situational stereotypes. Parvathy (Amala Paul) is erratic because her parents are in for a divorce. Arun (Siddharth Narayan) plays straight because he’s never had to struggle to earn his worth. Every man who’s seen a war would invariably make it his own. Arun becomes his own Obi-Wan. The force is universal. It needs to be mastered.

I hate those movies that extrapolate an experience to the extent of a worldview. This movie sells it as one. The content is destroyed with explanation which the movie is philanthropic about. There are very few, very rare scenes which show the actual conflict – even lesser still, the affection. We never suffer what they were suffering, we don’t rejoice when the curse is lifted. Neither is there anything remarkable about any of these characters in this systemic plotline that’s sewn together with rags of everyday scenes from the Hollywood Gazette. What ‘Made of Honor’ did with a storyline, this movie accomplishes with a lack thereof. And that they sucked is this unparalleled feat that they both achieved.

WE HAVE A MASTERPIECE!

DIRECTED BY NANNI MORETTI

STARRING: MICHAEL PICCOLI, JERZY STUHR, RENATO SCARPA, FRANCO GRAZIOSI, CAMILLO MILLI, ROBERTO NOBILE, ULRICH VON DOBSCHUTZ, GIANLUCA GOBBI, DARIO CANTARELLI with MARGHERITA BUY and NANNI MORETTI

Nanni Moretti crowns the Pope at a staging of Chekov’s ‘the Seagull.’ I don’t know if I’m allowed to call it a ‘coronation,’ I don’t even know if it CAN be called that, the unorthodox revelation it was, but I take Moretti’s stance in ignorance – that of not wanting to learn. The play is in full attendance. The seats are all almost filled to begin with, and we have a hundred more of cardinals, nuns and colourfully dressed security guards marching in. Of course, there’s nothing funnier than a play gone horribly wrong; where one actor goes round the twist and renders all lines from the script with the stage directions as well. But that’s not why they were there. That’s not why they applauded.

I do not know if ‘We Have a Pope’ self-references Chekov, I could think of cinematic analogies at most. It is as elaborate, as intensive and as comprehensive with its opinion as a Pasolini film like ‘the Decameron.’ I haven’t seen anything like it before, but then I haven’t seen much. There’s something uncanny about a parody sketch in the fact that you need to reach a level of elaboration and a reassurance in the execution of it to even consider writing it. The execution and, as a result, the end begets the means or the motivation for the same. Let me rule pastiche out of this, the post-modern vehicle that it is. Pastiche could survive on the written word and the entropy of changing colours on its coat of paint called performance.

But think about this. Anyone can sketch a parody, but it takes real craft to even start to paint the rest of the picture, let alone paint it well. And, not to mention, it takes courage in a time where the world is content with leaving the rest of its canvas empty. Like ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ or the eccentric works of Sacha Baron Cohen. Like ‘Brazil.’ Like ‘Zoolander.’ It’s strenuous in the fact that there is so much necessitated in form of production design for the sake of a script that directs no attention towards it. Of course, I speak here as a writer who finds set-designing to be a daunting task on the lines of a necessary evil.

I’ve previously seen the internal chambers of the Pope’s residence in ‘Angels and Demons.’ We’ve also been treated to a tiny glimpse of it as yet another venue for Jacques Clousseau’s antics in ‘the Pink Panther 2.’ In ‘We Have a Pope,’ I come across the chambers for a third time. I can’t recollect enough to draw similarities, but I did spend a good amount of time wondering if it’s a chartered set. I also wondered how the Church permitted it. Granted that no filmmaker ever has And, granted that no filmmaker ever has shown the Vatican in anything but poor light, the Church permits this portrayal as long as one doesn’t go too out-of-bounds with his/her depiction. Steve Martin’s whoops-a-daisy surely runs along the net-cord, but then what the hell, you know? It’s art for art’s sake, after all.

Moretti, much like the professor he portrays, is irreverent. But not blasphemous. He’s the guy who finds psychoanalytical themes in the Bible in a utilitarian’s helplessness. The character makes his own luck. The filmmaker does too. His lack of faith doesn’t hinder his commitment to the parody. The production design is detailed to intimate proportions. The detail seldom steps out of tune. ‘Angels and Demons’ demanded an aura; we could almost smell the fumes from fires kept constantly aflame, the movie – a ritual in progress. Moretti doesn’t even light candles here in ‘We Have a Pope.’ He turns the conclave to a middle-school examination hall with pencils coming down on the table together, answers being scratched out; cardinals peeking at neighbour answer-scripts. You know it’s a comedy when someone falls. In this case, it’s Cardinal Brummer (Ulrich Von Dobschutz), the joke of the show; unpopular, and thus endearing.

I hope you’ve seen ‘Runaway Bride.’ Cardinal Melville (Michael Piccoli) is like Maggie Fleming in it. He is elated at his selection. He walks down the aisle. He panics. And he runs. Before a sweeping shot across the deserted polling chamber he locks himself in – I love the arrangement when the party is over with the furniture playing victim of human abandonment – he says he ‘can’t do it.’ A physician is brought in to get him checked. His blood pressure is normal, he is able to joke and most certainly smiles gentle. The problem, as we all know, lies within. Enter Moretti as the psychoanalyst whose position is as bad as that of Billy Crystal in ‘Analyze This,’ if not worse. It’s like interviewing Nixon with a dozen Watergates to hide than just one. I hope you get what I’m saying.

But Melville isn’t like Nixon, he shows potential to cooperate. Rajski (Jerzy Stuhr), who’s kind of a secretary to the Pope, locks the psychoanalyst in for confidentiality purposes, and goes to his wife (Margherita Buy) for second opinion. The psychoanalyst finds her clichéd. He says she’s got nothing but a parental deficit card that she plays all the time. But then she works. Sometimes, the cause is not what you identify, but an elaborate Placebo. In Cardinal Melville’s case, we know there’s no need for one. He goes with the diagnosis, takes his intermission and runs away, requesting to be left alone as he goes to satiate an unrequited passion for the stage.

In the meantime, the psychoanalyst becomes an in-house patient in an asylum of his design where he splits Cardinals into continents, picking captains based on their odds of becoming the Pope as per newspaper speculations, organizing a two-court Volleyball tournament in a courtyard that looks like the Union Jack from an aerial shot. He treats them like schoolchildren where we’re shown that he has two of his own – as stubborn, as difficult to manage. He’s as Darwinist as he preaches, being both Ringmaster and the main Clown act in this circus.

Moretti is sort of a Woody Allen of Italy, in writing and in performance. I’ve watched him before as all of writer, director and performer in ‘the Son’s Room’ which won the Golden Palm at Cannes in 2001, rendering him a staple ever since. It’s a heartbreaking film about a middle-aged psychoanalyst who, along with his wife and daughter, copes with the death of their teenage son in a striking depiction of the repair process. I found Moretti to be as incredible a central character as Allen, with the right amount of sarcasm, of anger, a subtle dose of neurotic impatience (even for a shrink) to weigh it down on the other side, and he tops it all with impeccable comic timing. He’s the unabashed bourgeoisie who can afford his cynicism as he always writes his character to be. He’s like an Alexander Payne who can act.

‘We Have a Pope’ is not a study. It’s a fable – hence the ‘Decameron’ comparison earlier, in spite of the fact that it’s heavily sensitized and works as a rather exaggerated cartoon of a man who’s almost like Casper, the Ghost, in all his gentleness and romantic humour. Like Sully from ‘Monsters Inc.’ I’m killing you with comparisons, you’d have to watch the film and place him on your own.

For once, we have a parody that’s not critical of an institution but still makes fun of it with a sibling’s deliberation. Moretti stands before the Catholic Church, fearless and with nothing in his heart but his own agenda, much like Chaplin against Hitler in ‘the Great Dictator.’ It’s not a grudge he holds, but an opinion. Both films ended with the humbleness of a man who is expected to be great but who really isn’t – something that the crowd would never understand. It doesn’t have the rebel’s intention to defame an existing giant, but the romantic’s inclination to put his faith in a new one. It doesn’t want Goliath killed, it makes David stronger. That’s Fabien-Socialist, in all essence.

Of course, Cardinal Melville will be forgotten in due course of time. There will be a new Pope to head the institution. No one will have been affected, nothing will have changed. The most we’d have in hand is a lesson learned – that Oceania needs more Cardinals, at least to make a Volleyball team; they’re miserable otherwise. And, of course, that you’d have a convincing winner in Africa no matter what. It’s best to know the odds before you place your bets. That’s all I have to say.

THE SWIMMING POOL FIVESOME

DIRECTED BY BRETT RATNER

STARRING: BEN STILLER, EDDIE MURPHY, CASEY AFFLECK, MATTHEW BRODERICK, ALAN ALDA, MICHAEL PENA, GABOUREY SIDIBE, JUDD HIRSCH, NINA ARIANDA and TEA LEONI

“So you’re saying you want to rob 20 Million Dollars from Arthur Shaw, which you think he’s hidden in a secret wall-safe in his penthouse apartment – an apartment that he’s not allowed to leave and is guarded by three FBI agents, 24 hours a day. And you want to do this in a building which has the most advanced security surround system in the world. A building which we’re barred from ever entering again,” Charlie (Casey Affleck) asks Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) like an ex-receptionist asks an ex-hotel manager. It’s a yes or no question that Josh, obviously, answers with a ‘Yes.’

Caper films are all about the run-through. We don’t care about what happened before, we don’t pay too much attention to what happens after either. We seek explanations, sure, but we trust the makers with detail and their intelligence in the same. We grade them on it. We’d like them to be believable, if not right-on. It all begins with the pitch that precedes the run-through. Like Danny to Rusty in the elevator or Danny and Rusty to Reuben by his pool in ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’ We don’t know for sure what’s being suggested, but we know it’s ridiculously difficult; impossible, even. Like in ‘Charlie’s Angels’ when Dylan is tied up with Sam Rockwell and his goons circling her with smirks on their faces when she has one of her own and tells them clearly how exactly she’s going to escape, how they’d end up helping her to, and how ridiculous it sounds when she says that.

That’s the run-through. It’s an evolution from smash-grab affairs and John Dillinger styled show of power, the burst-in-burst-out kind of heists from Crime dramas and actual reality, for a fact. It’s meant to engage the audience, to count us in on their con where we’re made to see the one golden way ahead and how, absurdly enough, the bunch in focus, the team of people whose midst we’re lured into, are exactly suited to make it happen. “Pick a natural disaster,” says Nigel with all of Eddie Izzard’s British sarcasm in ‘Ocean’s Thirteen.’ Minutes later, it’s “Get me a hundred thousand dollars and a laptop.” He’s figured it out. All he has to do is go on eBay and buy one of those machines that dug the Channel Tunnel. With that, the cons turn operative. It’s a mission-accomplished-to-be.

The best thing when you’re told about what’s going to happen is not that you anticipate, but that you wait for it to go wrong. It’s like being stuck in the middle of a speech and you have the potential to swing it both ways. Films excite with their surprise package, no matter what. The little plan they have to work around this barrier. It could be stupid, it could be the cleverest of ideas, true-blue breakthrough material. Having spent the best of an hour following protocol, it’s the thrill of having the next 40-odd minutes all for yourself to guess, uncover and be satisfied/disappointed.

‘Tower Heist’ is simple. It’s set in a hotel called ‘the Tower’ and it’s about a heist. It’s a big hotel, kind of like Willie Bank's casino, which makes the process hard enough for there to be a movie on it. There’s also a reason to drive it. Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) is the chairman-figure who swims on Benjamin Franklin. His rooftop swimming pool has a hundred-dollar bill for a bottom and he has an elevator that takes him to it. And he has Steve McQueen’s Ferrari in the living room of his penthouse. All this when he’s on house arrest for securities fraud, depriving his employees of their pension pay and some, as in the case of Lester the doorman (Steven McKinley Henderson), of all of their savings.

So Josh is the faithful servant gone rogue – he lives alone and has nothing to lose. Charlie’s wife is in her third trimester where he’d need to sell the baby to pay for its birth, as he hypothesizes. Enrique (Michael Pena), the elevator-attendant will play a part because he ‘knows’ about circuitry and Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) will because he has nothing better to do. And Slide (Eddie Murphy) is the Chris Tucker of this Rush-Hour-gone-badass, who’d do it because he gets to be cool.

You don’t watch a Brett Ratner movie for intellectual value. You watch it for how he pokes fun with references. And, of course, for his black stereotype. Stereotypes in the plural, this time, for we have Gabourey Sidibe from ‘Precious’ as Odessa, the no-nonsense Jamaican maid who knows about locks like Mikayla knew about automobiles in ‘Transformers.’ In short, she’s home-schooled. As for the references, well let me give you one. Charlie, Enrique and Mr. Fitzhugh sit around a table as Josh and Slide join in. Fitzhugh jokes about them being ‘the Doberman gang’ when Charlie links it to Gregory Peck getting attacked by dogs in ‘the Boys from Brazil’ which Enrique links to ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and how he was freaked out by Hilary Swank in it. A Gold Car would sit on an elevator and not cause it to overload, security personnel fancy ‘Playboy’ than their jobs, the FBI only plays watchdog with a head shepherd in Agent Claire Denham (Tea Leoni), the love interest who never suspects.

‘Tower Heist’ has Alan Alda for a villain. You’d know what to expect from it. Aside from poking fun and the surprise (yes, the Car, if you haven’t guessed yet) is an obvious nostalgia factor. Slide presses the accelerator in Josh’s car when he’s driving – a car that I thought looked like a Mustang Bullitt, the dash being filmed in a stretch of road under a bridge that looked very much like the one in ‘the French Connection.’ Also is the central Steve McQueen reference. Now that doesn’t make ‘Tower Heist’ a film tribute. Neither is it a water-tight caper venture. But then that doesn’t stop it from being a mildly interesting, sometimes annoying and always amusing Brett Ratner fare. Does it?

CHAOS, ORDERED IN

DIRECTED BY ROMAN POLANSKI

STARRING: JODIE FOSTER, KATE WINSLET, JOHN C. REILLY and CHRISTOPH WALTZ

Two couples become four individuals in ‘Carnage.’ Then they realign. Nothing amounts to anything. In a manner not quite unlike ‘Ken Park,’ which postulated inaction in action, we come face to face with a ‘plot device’ that has nothing to do with the story we’re told. I doubt if many of you would’ve watched ‘Ken Park,’ so I’ll take the liberty of throwing some light on the reference. ‘Ken Park’ starts with Ken Park shooting himself in the head at a Skate park. A diary is found in his bag by means of which we come to learn of his friends’ circle. The film then completes a full circle right up to the starting point where it’s revealed why Ken shot himself in the first place – an absurdist detail that serves to explain the film itself.

Ken Park was the ‘plot device’ of ‘Ken Park,’ which means he had nothing to do with the film other than contribute to it its very premise. Without him, there is no ‘Ken Park.’ As I remember mentioning in my review, we would’ve had something like ‘the Beautiful perversions of Randomly-colliding Teenagers’ instead. I’m not aware if that’s the title I used back then, but I’m sure you understand.

‘Carnage,’ the film, begins with ‘Carnage,’ the poster, and, not to mention, the plot summary. It’s a Yasmina Reza play adapted to the screen by Roman Polanski and Reza herself. I might not be too familiar with the work of Reza, but I can say I’ve had my share of exposure. I’ve watched ‘Art’ being staged twice by two different sets of people giving scope enough for me to rank them. And arrive at some definitive conclusions about Reza herself as a playwright.

Reza is postmodern with her writing. A different set of actors would translate to a different version of the play. The material is toneless and hostile for the most part with bursts of passion that render themselves salient on their own accord. ‘Art’ in all its glory was a deconstructive argument about Art in the outlooks of three close friends that inevitably served to deconstruct their friendship itself. Ivan, the impulsive, heart-on-sleeve simpleton cries in the end at the wreck of faith, kneeling in the midst of shambles from the damage the friends had caused to themselves. We’re taught about eventuality and our very own wicked, selfish contributions to it.

‘Carnage’ is a lesson on insignificance; on the inconsequential. Zachary and Ethan reconcile on their own accord, not depending on the passive-aggressive interaction between their parents. We watch out of a window without zoom/perspective as a disgruntled Zachary smacks Ethan with a sizeable stick and walks away without a second look. The dispute, as we understand, began with Ethan, along with the rest of the gang, counting him out. That episode ends, and we cut to a computer screen where Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster) writes a complaint in the most hospitable of manners as her husband Michael (John C. Reilly), along with Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet), look on. The Longstreets are Ethan’s parents, while the Cowans show faint traces of shame and regret along with upper-middle class pride at having borne the aggressor, Zachary.

I do not know how much Bunuel’s ‘the Exterminating Angel’ could’ve been an influence. The most I’ve seen/heard of it was in ‘Midnight in Paris,’ where Woody Allen had cheek enough to suggest its idea to Bunuel himself, making his Gil Pender a sort of Ghost-contributor. But I kept relating throughout. It’s a film (as anyone who has watched ‘Midnight in Paris’ would know) about five dinner-guests who aren’t able to leave the house after their meal. They move, they shift around, but they just can’t leave.

In ‘Carnage’ in the guise of the Longstreets, Reza doesn’t let them. Insistence stems from hospitality, the most brutal of forces – you feed the bird to make it stay. Food here is discussion as well as the cobbler that Penelope serves the Cowans. Discussion evolves into friendly interaction with the meal and then devolves to an argument and a feud, literally, as food turns to vomit that Nancy throws up right in the middle of the coffee table – one that bears an assortment of Art magazines and catalogues and a bunch of bright Yellow, long-stalked Tulips in a big glass bowl.

Vomit is impulse where the reaction is as uncontrollable. Nancy cuts loose with apologies while Penelope struggles not to do the same with her hysterics. Destruction here was both unnecessary and unavoidable. But then it progresses to a point where it becomes deliberate when it could easily have been side-stepped. It’s like bumping into a person on the street and then it turns into an ugly brawl with both trying to cause the other as much pain as possible in a quest for self-establishment.

What I didn’t like about the film is how it steadied the pace of devolution in a case of constructed chaos. I found that to be irksome. Everything else was there to appreciate. The setup, the elegance, the performances. I liked John C. Reilly the best even though I know Polanski situates emphasis in his women. Each actor is cast in their respective comfort zone. Winslet with her hysterics, Foster with jabs of helplessness, Reilly for his laid-back gait and teddy-bear bursts of anger and sarcasm; Waltz for his presence. The script-to-stage entropy provided by a Reza work makes it the perfect Polanski vehicle, even though he plays it safe with textbook direction. The effect doesn’t lure us to stay – it asks us to. An insistence which I found to be reflected in the film itself, falling in its favour.

ON GOING DOWN WITHOUT DIGNITY

DIRECTED BY DAVID GORDON GREEN

STARRING: JONAH HILL, MAX RECORDS, ARI GRAYNOR, JB SMOOVE, LANDRY BENDER, KEVIN HERNANDEZ, KYLIE BUNBURY, ERIN DANIELS, D.W. MOFFETT, JESSICA HECHT, BRUCE ALTMAN and SAM ROCKWELL

It’s very difficult to stomach a child swearing. The immediate reaction simply has to be one of shock, where we’re made to look at more than just the movie, at the actual bigger picture. “Where did she learn that?” becomes redundant where a more relevant question is “How can they let her?” It’s like a crusade almost, the struggle between different kinds of morality. The child would come to learn all those things anyway, so how does it matter? Only in the same way as underage sexuality. What’s going to rot is going to rot, so why not cut the fuss and make some manure instead?

Trashy scripts are born there, I like to think. At the houses of people who don’t mind which movie their children act in as long as they’re made stars in the process. Chloe Grace Moretz, second-in-line behind Dakota Fanning in this rat race, said in an interview about how her language on the sets of ‘Kick-Ass’ could’ve gotten her grounded had she used it anywhere on the outside. That’s some strict parenting. Her parents really seem to put their foot down. ‘Kick-Ass’ turned out to be quite the illuminating movie where her blitzkrieg performance might even have landed her a place on the Walk of Fame. But at what cost?

The child in such a movie is supposed to signify a dysfunction that’s meant to intimidate; to come across as an instructive sort of shock. I’ve never found myself comfortable with those movies that try to ease me into the situation; that show the situation to be beyond control that we can't do anything but watch. Even worse are those that get a laugh out of it.

‘the Sitter’ is like a ‘Superbad’ about preteen siblings. Well, one of them is thirteen and is a soon-to-be-found homosexual (Slater, played by Max Records, who has had his share of mischief earlier in Spike Jonze’s ‘Where the Wild Things are’), another is Hispanic and adopted (Rodrigo – Kevin Hernandez) and likes to break than make. Which is pretty understandable, except he escalates. The third is Blithe (Landry Bender), who looks to be about ten and would probably win Paris Hilton’s ‘My New BFF.’

Writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka create a lineup that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg could never have possibly created, and they do it by the simple way of rendering their characters younger and fitting them into the same family. And Jonah Hill plays dirty babysitter against Rogen’s dirty cop in a one-man show without Bill Hader for support. Hill is Noah Griffith, faithful to Hill’s own stereotype as the overweight, foul-mouthed, catastrophic young man who, under no circumstances, would ever tone it down. I know I have to eat my words after his sensational weight-reduction bout, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Noah is a Momma’s boy, a college dropout and a loser boyfriend. That’s a ‘Cyrus’ meets ‘Get Him to the Greek’ in a ‘Superbad’ premise.

Jessica Hecht as Sandy Griffith is as hot as Marisa Tomei was in ‘Cyrus,’ with the difference being that Noah actually wants her to find someone. Her friend, a Mrs. Pedulla (Erin Daniels) has set her up with a surgeon whom she thinks she’d hit it off with. Everything looks set, Sandy is excited, Noah is happy to see his Mom like that. Then comes the news that the Pedullas’ babysitter has called in sick and there’d be no outing without someone to take care of their kids. Sandy asks Noah to step in, Noah brushes reluctance aside for his Mom.

‘the Sitter’ is a pastiche of emotions which doesn’t do justice to any. The caring son, the yearning boyfriend, the helpless victim – all are subverted by a compulsive comic stance. The timing is good but the plot is unjust. Noah and the kids embark upon this adventure from one inappropriate place to another, with wise-cracks and emotional intercepts to punctuate a mindless chase where a car is lost and regained, ‘the Hangover’ style. In the end, Blithe would have danced at a couple of unfitting places, Slater would have found out that he’s gay and Rodrigo would have blown up two toilets and a car before he learns to sweep the floor. Noah, on his part, would have lost the coke that he was getting his girlfriend (Ari Graynor) along with a handful of diamonds stolen from his traitor of a Dad to repay the eccentric gangster in Karl (Sam Rockwell) whose ‘dinosaur egg’ he wasted, thanks once again to Rodrigo. Like every loser boyfriend, he learns to let go and teaches too, but only on finding his share of interest in Roxanne (Kylie Bunbury) from school who has always had a crush on him. The kids smile from the window. Noah smiles back. All is well, or is supposed to be.

Everyone is disappointed with David Gordon Green, a filmmaker of such promise as he showed with his independent suburban movies such as ‘George Washington,’ ‘Undertow,’ ‘All the Real Girls’ and ‘Snow Angels.’ After ‘Pineapple Express,’ which was more of a Rogen & Goldberg vehicle than one of his own, he came up with ‘Your Highness,’ which, we thought, was to be his worst. ‘the Sitter’ is second-time sadness. I hope Jonah Hill loses his stereotype with the weight he’s lost. And I hope that Green finds his way back to serious cinema again. Because, honestly, I can't take this a third time.

THE 'BAD DISNEY MOVIE' MADE ELSEWHERE

DIRECTED BY CARLOS SALDANHA

STARRING: JESSE EISENBERG, ANNE HATHAWAY, GEORGE LOPEZ, WILL I AM, JAMIE FOXX, RODRIGO SANTORO, JEMAINE CLEMENT, TRACY MORGAN, JAKE T. AUSTIN, WANDA SYKES, JANE LYNCH with RODRIGO SANTORO and LESLIE MANN

Every animal movie has ‘the Lion King’ plot in one way or another. ‘the Lion King’ itself derived from Shakespeare and Greek tragedies to some extent, but I’d still like to call it ‘the Lion King’ plot. Kind of makes it an animation standard. If you remember, ‘the Lion King’ was about a misplaced protagonist getting back to where he rightfully belongs as he takes his throne in the end. He’s like the Michael Corleone of the Pride Lands with the twist of responsibility that gets him back in the game, powered by purpose, fuelled by love, supported by an assortment of the foolhardy and the failsafe.

Walt Disney pictures might not have pioneered the coming-of-age movie, but they animated it first. ‘the Little Mermaid,’ ‘Tarzan’ through ‘Dinosaur,’ even ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ for that matter. They’ve raised the question of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ much too often and they’ve resolved it as well to convincing extents. Far-fetched, yes. But convincing. Tarzan doesn’t leave the jungle, it’s Jane who stays back. It’s predominantly for the happy ending, so as to not send audiences back with a part of their hearts being taken from them than them leaving it behind as a token of having really ‘felt.’ Bolt, the dog, Rapunzel in ‘Tangled,’ who could so easily abandon the one she called ‘Mother’ for so long.

But then again, is ‘Win Win’ any different? That fine feel-good movie by Thomas McCarthy, one rooted with fondness in the American household. It dealt with a 17 year old finding home away from home; a family away from his Mother. His story was a triumph in that we know he wanted it. Like a David Copperfield away from his stepfather. But isn’t his desire just another device to manipulate us, to make us root for accomplishment of something he might not entirely desire? Patrick Kenzie in ‘Gone Baby Gone’ would put duty and moral obligation before everything. Disney would refute it, but only by rendering the other grass greener. We know who’d come out as heartless in the end.

‘Rio’ is like ‘the Lion King’ as much as ‘Madagascar’ was. Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a Blue Macaw and purportedly the last male of his kind. Like Alex the Lion, he’s taken away from the forests of Brazil as a baby and fostered elsewhere in a series of fortunate circumstances. Like Alex, again, he grows to love his place of refuge and the girl who willingly accepts him into her life. Linda Gunderson (Leslie Mann) is like the visiting crowd at the Central Zoo where Minnesota is like Alex’s New York. Alex can’t even roar right, Blu can’t fly. And he’s as convinced as Alex was in the fact that he’s found his talent and is content with it. He plays the nerd against the empty-head jock in Alex. He doesn’t have friends, though, but it’s easy for him to make some. Like Bolt, the dog, people pity him. And by ‘people,’ I mean a Red-Crested Cardinal Pedro (Will I am) and a Canary named Nico (Jamie Foxx).

Linda, on her part, is the sexy Librarian (literally) staying put until an ornithologist pecks at her door. It’s not her that he’s after. It’s Blu. He’s the last surviving male of his species and they want to take him down to Rio De Janeiro to mate with what looks to be the last female in Jewel (Anne Hathaway). The cause is bigger than the movie, obviously, but I felt it eluded. We’re looking at a bird that is almost extinct, a bird that watchers would go weak in the knees for, but we don’t feel it. To us, Blu is like Bolt, the dog, with feathers and a more characteristic voice. As much as I could find stereotype in just about everything the movie tried, I can’t help but give it to them for casting Eisenberg. Also clever is the little nudge on the ‘last woman in the world’ idea. Blu now has another reason to fall in love with Jewel. She’s all he’s got, she’s good and he can’t do better. And vice-versa.

The fact that Blu is a rare bird is double-edged, if you haven’t guessed it already. There’s a Mufasa in Nigel (Jermaine Clement) who’s a washed-out show cockatoo with thieving Monkeys to command than Hyenas. Actually, Nigel isn’t that much of a Mufasa; he’s more of the evil Roo in ‘Horton Hears a Who,’ without Dr. Seuss’ allegorical implications. Rafael (George Lopez) is Gil-meets-Gusteau where Blu does his own thinking; he’s smart. He’s like Simba with Nala for company. And Luiz the bulldog (Tracy Morgan) is like the Pelican Nigel in ‘Finding Nemo’ in a 100 percent match.

I like to think that no animated feature is unimpressive after having got its voices right. But then there are those films that have almost nothing to show. Like the ‘Ice Age’ series. Like ‘Open Season.’ Like ‘Chicken Little’ which would rank one on the worst of Disney. ‘Rio’ is somewhere in the middle. The bird is adorable with Eisenberg’s fresh exploit as exciting as Jay Baruchel in ‘How to Train your Dragon.’ The story is adequate. With the right prick at the right place, we’re supposed to have had tears as the end credits rolled. But it doesn’t do that. Linda doesn’t grow on you like Penny from ‘Bolt’ did. Jewel is no Dory. Nigel doesn’t spring a surprise like Anton Ego (from ‘Ratatouille’). Carlos Saldanha and his team have cracked the story with some high-end animation in hand. And yet they find themselves caught in a warp of the overused and the not-to-be-used.

What should have been a spectacle is reduced to a postcard at best. If I were to suggest a remedy, I’d say go hand-drawn. CGI made the procession look like Orcs marching with Samba music than a Howard Score. CGI made Linda look like a nerdy Barbie than an Ariel, Jasmine or a Tiana. What you can’t shoot, you generate. What you shouldn’t generate, you draw. Those who can’t draw ought to be content with just dreaming. And ‘Rio’ is like that dream that couldn’t quite make it beyond the software codes; where the magic, unlike Blu, couldn’t open its own cage-door.

THE USUAL SUSPENSE

DIRECTED BY SUJOY GHOSH

STARRING: VIDYA BALAN, PARAMBRATA CHATTERJEE, NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI, RITOBROTO MUKHERJEE, INDRANEIL SENGUPTA, DHRITIMAN CHATTERJEE, SASWATA CHATTERJEE, PAMELA BHUTTORIA, COLLEEN BLANCHE with RIDHI SEN and ABIR CHATTERJEE

NOTE: I'm not a 'Film-Critic.' By that, I mean I'm not obliged to praise or deride a film and be bothered about affecting its 'market value.' Which means I would not hesitate to give the entire plot away, although I have sense enough (I think) to keep the actual suspense alive and thus save your disappointment to when you actually watch the movie. Still, I've revealed quite a lot about the movie, both explicitly and implicitly. If you think that would kill the experience for you (although I doubt it would), by all means stop reading. If you think you wouldn't mind or if you'd like to test the water, then jump right in. Cheers.

Sujoy Ghosh’s ‘Kahaani’ is the perfect Sandra Bullock vehicle if you count the climax out. Have you watched this movie called ‘the Net’? It’s that movie which they used to show on HBO at least twice a week at one point of time, about a woman on the run in an attempt to vindicate herself, in a do-or-die situation. There’s light at the end of the tunnel, Indy-styled, which means she manages to get out but only just. It’s a suspense-thriller, the sort of movie you watch exclusively to find out if the end comes to justify the means, a case of disappointment guaranteed. The makers are ruthless, their story unkind. You’re expected to endure the character’s torture with the promise of a liberation which isn’t all that liberating.

‘Kahaani’ isn’t a tale of vindication like ‘the Net’ exactly, but it puts its heroine in a similar kind of situation. Vidya Balan plays Vidya Venkatesan Bagchi, a South-meets-North woman whose Tamil lasts for seconds of blurt at the onset and never after. She claims to have come from London, lands in Kolkata amidst preying taxi-drivers of which she picks the one in focus. She has a Police Station for a destination. He finds that odd. Odd for a woman with a backpack and Bumblebee glasses. Odder still for a woman who looks to be a good 7-8 months pregnant.

How pregnant is ‘pregnant’? Care has been taken in writing believability into character. Mrs. Bagchi walks like she’s pregnant, gets dizzy (even if just once) and drinks water at every turn. Nevertheless, she’s only movie-pregnant and not pregnant-pregnant like Angelina Jolie in ‘A Mighty Heart’ tried to be. It means she can do whatever a woman can normally do, except she’d do it lying on her side. She’s the carrying Indian woman who thus plays Mother to everyone. To the kid at the guesthouse, the kid at the tea-stall who knows more than he’s supposed to and another at the police station – a certain Satyaki ‘Rana’ Sinha (Parambrata Chatterjee), an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police.

Vidya is in search of her husband, Arnab Bagchi. The fact that she’s filed a Missing Persons complaint says something about the situation. People like to help her, both for her pregnancy and for the fact that in spite of it, she’s a woman who knows her way around. Like Agnes D’Mello (Colleen Blanche) at the National Data Centre who’s supposed to have commissioned Arnab for a project. She denies having come across anyone by his name but she links his appearance to what she remembers of Milan Damji (Indraneil Sengupta), whose details she can’t find on the online database. There is, however, a physical database of hard-bound files at the old premises that she directs the action-pair of Vidya and Rana to. Vidya is Arjun, Rana is her Sarathy (‘Mahabharata’ for dummies), self-proclaimed. It’s like a John Woo punchline. Which means it would come back to haunt with a flashback reminder.

Helpers turn obsolete where there’s a contract killer around – Bob Biswas (Saswata Chatterjee), a slow-at-work life-insurance agent who can’t keep things discreet in spite of his silencer gun. A spree of killings gets the Intelligence Bureau involved. You could find it hard to process. Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) calls it collateral damage. He’s a Senior Officer at the Bureau – someone between Tom Hanks in ‘Catch Me if you Can’ and John Turturro in ‘Transformers.’ You watch the movie, you know which end of the spectrum he’s closer to. He foul-mouths, but he doesn’t foul-mouth enough, which means we’re asked to take him seriously. It’s not hard. Siddiqui does well. I saw him as an Irrfan Khan replacement. Then again, Rana and Khan looked like the same character split in two, kind of reminding me even more of ‘A Mighty Heart.’

Milan Damji (not ‘Milan’ or ‘Damji’, but ‘Milan Damji’ as Vidya annoyingly keeps repeating), we learn from Khan, is an ex-IB agent gone rogue. There’s a gas-attack on the Metro that we’re shown in the beginning of the movie. He’s the one behind that attack; the one the Bureau has been after for the past couple of years. The one who has always eluded because he has inside support. These aren’t spoilers. These are things that I can conveniently lay down before you. The actual spoiler is IN THE MOVIE. Let my opinion not spoil it for you. I’m someone who didn’t like ‘the Usual Suspects’ because, well, I didn’t like being lied to for an hour and a half. I could excuse ‘the Illusionist’ for the magic and Jessica Biel, and I liked ‘Memento’ as it came from another universe. Suspense, I feel, lies in the uncovering. The 5-minute flashback reel can only do so much. This is tiredness speaking.

Vidya Balan finds a way to keep some ‘Dirty Picture’ weight and keep it sexy still. Give me two words and I’d call her ‘irritatingly beautiful.’ Like Sandra Bullock. Like Catherine Zeta Jones. The film is well narrated in a split between two kinds of faith – one to the city, the other to the woman, allusions aplenty. It’s a passable mesh of the organic and the synthetic where the music (Vishal-Shekhar) does not help. I’d have been better with a lack thereof, but that’s just me. It’s extra cheese. And as for the movie, well – ‘the Net’ was made in 1995. We’ve had Ashley Judd in 'Double Jeopardy' and Kim Basinger in a handful of such roles in the 80s. Sandra Bullock in the 90s. It’s like this: Fifteen years from now, Bollywood would make ‘the Blind Side’ and give Vidya Balan its own Oscar. And I, like now, would only be ‘amused’ at best.

A TRUST THAT WOULD KEEP YOURS INTACT

DIRECTED BY DAVID SCHWIMMER

STARRING: LIANA LIBERATO, CLIVE OWEN, KATHERINE KEENER, JASON CLARKE, CHRIS HENRY COFFEY, SPENCER CURNUTT, AISLINN DEBUTCH, NOAH EMMERICH, ZOE LEVIN with TRISTAN PEACH and VIOLA DAVIS

‘Trust’ wants a trust broken and it does exactly that. A safer replacement seems improbable, the girl in question faces the storm as she needs to. Good times – and by that I mean clearer times – would come; it’s just a matter of time. “We can’t control what happens to us or our loved ones,” Gail Friedman (Viola Davis) tells the deranged dad in Will (Clive Owen). “The only thing we can do is be there for each other when we do fall down to pick each other up.” It’s shocking how true that statement is than how shocking it is, if you get what I’m saying. A truth that Will, obviously, finds hard to accept. One that Annie (Liana Liberato) doesn’t know, which she is imparted, for better than for worse, in the course of a film that aspires to be.

Annie is 14 years old and too tall for her age which has her play volleyball, which is what matches her up with Charlie (Chris Henry Coffey) on a teen social networking website. Doesn’t the idea of it sound redundant to you? Adolescents have more than enough fun at parties to be spending time online venting about being misunderstood, but Annie does exactly that. Remember Nikki Reed from ‘Thirteen’? Well, Serena (Zanny Laird) is an arguably less antisocial version of her, and she invites Annie to her party because Annie has an older brother Peter (Spencer Curnutt) who’s about to go to college. The party ‘rocks’ in every sense of the word, but Annie isn’t interested. The glam-girls call her in for their own kind of roulette. Annie asks to go to the bathroom. Her excuse is that she has a cell-phone too expensive for her age.

Annie texts Charlie on her cell-phone and chats with him on the Mac-Book her dad buys for her on her 14th birthday – things without which she wouldn’t have been able to get in touch with Charlie in the first place. Who’s to blame? Will, obviously, throws a lot of weight on his shoulders as he tries to show a man’s might in dealing with the situation. He staggers. He breaks too in that sequence where Dr. Friedman, his daughter’s assigned therapist, utters those wise words. She’s the camera in the confession room that we’re sitting in. She’s the only person, aside from us in the audience, who knows what actually happened in that motel room. And she won’t tell.

I found this to be a fundamental problem, as impacting as the film was otherwise. It’s a plain-clothed drama than one confuddled with perspective. I was disappointed in that I knew for sure because the film told me everything. The upside, however slight, is that I know it wanted to. I was not subjected with a morality question, it wasn’t a time for ‘what if’s. The characters – by which I mean Annie and her dad Will – clash with their perspectives. Annie puts her foot down in front of whom Will’s wisdom and a dad’s helplessness are of no match. But we KNOW. I found that knowledge difficult to deal with, where I thought I’d rather be asked to pick a side.

We’re introduced to Charlie as letters on a computer screen displayed in the frame for convenience. Annie tells her dad that he’s a 15 year old high school Junior from California as they live in Chicago and hence can’t confirm. Annie wants to. They exchange pictures as Charlie excuses himself from webcam chat as he says his camera isn’t working. Anyone who’s familiar with a chat forum knows that is bullshit. Annie does too. But she is 14 years old, so a picture works well, but only because Charlie ‘confesses’ that he’s 20 and a sophomore in UC Berkeley before he sends it to her. A week later (as it seems), he’s 25 and a grad student. Annie is furious because he lied to her, not because he’s too old. He has insulted her intelligence; abused her trust. Charlie knows to talk himself back into the business. Next thing we know, he calls her to the mall as her parents drop her brother at college. Annie is dumbstruck. In her own words, he “is not 25.”

All that I’ve described happens in a quick-fire 20 minutes. The rest is about coping with the distress. Distress that, Annie believes, is unnecessary. Distress which she thinks her parents have created for themselves and most importantly for her and Charlie, ‘us’ being a devastating word she throws too frequently in her confessions to Ms. Friedman. To her, Charlie is the 15 year old who has to be 40 as society wants him to be. Like how she’s the 14 year old who isn’t allowed to be 14. Her mother (Catherine Keener) disapproves of her buying a leopard-patterned bra while Charlie gives the go-ahead. He thinks she’s sexy. She thinks he’s the only one who understands her. As long as he’s not (I’m thinking like Annie here) disgustingly bad-looking or obese or diseased, she’d be fine with him. What’s worse is that she might actually be fine with him even in spite of those details. She’s in love, she says. And she believes he is too.

This is the problem that ‘Trust’ resolves and yes, it resolves it. The problem gives birth to another problem in a process which, however, has a family to support. It’s a situation which, to its traumatic best, brings Father, Mother and Daughter together and on their toes. The only one resisting it gives in. Annie wanted her parents to trust her to do the right thing. It’s the only thing she wanted aside from that Mac-Book which she obviously can’t live without from now. But then she spurns that too. And her cell-phone as well. The FBI investigation and Annie’s thoughts don’t read from different databases, processed by different processors. In the conclusive scene, Agent Tate (Jason Clarke) breaks news to her with proof that the man in question is, indeed, a sex-offender. I’m well aware that this revelation is a spoiler. It was for Annie. It was, for me too, but for a different reason.

‘Gone Baby Gone’ left the decision with us as much as it left it with Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck). ‘Trust,’ on the other hand, seals the case. I understand that what I expected is not what the film wanted to be, but that, I thought, doesn’t stop me from expecting it nevertheless. Think about it. Annie is as fragile as she smarts away from being. What ‘Charlie’ does to her is, indeed, a crime. I personally disbelieve in such predatory romance, arising from a surplus and a lack thereof that has nothing to do but with gender and age. Like between Work and College, between College and High school, between High and Middle. I draw the line between such admiration and intimacy. So does Schwimmer. We both were conservative when I wanted only one of us to be and I wouldn’t budge.

This is the only thing about ‘Trust’ that disappointed me. It’s not a morality question, it’s not an action-consequence presentation. It’s has a firm hold on its didacticism leaving nothing to question. An alternate film inside my head had Will and Agent Tate deciding upon what’s best for Annie, deciding to break her faith, deciding to show her pictures of victims of a sex-criminal whom they don’t know, who might actually NOT be their Charlie. That, I thought, would give food for thought, putting one’s foot down like that before a girl who does it like it’s second nature. It’s a sad decision to defeat a human being (let alone a 14 year old) to put her in her place, but I wanted that decision. And I was disappointed when I didn’t see that being made.

But that doesn’t stop ‘Trust’ from being an overwhelmingly brilliant film. And an important one at that. It’s gripping and it picks poise over rawness and brutality. Sometimes it gets too picturesque although never too graphic. It’s good. I’ve never tolerated a film that hyped its content in the course of its presentation, saving little for talk-shows and press-releases. In this case, I excused it. I trusted ‘Trust’ with the fragility of the content it handled. And I can safely say it didn’t let me down.