Piku

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Irrfan Khan, Moushumi Chatterjee and Jisshu Sengupta(Syed)
Director: Shoojit Sircar
Genre: Comedy, Drama


A quality watch, long awaited from Bollywood. Must watch for all the Bengalis and as well the non Bengalis :)


You may look forward to:

• Amitabh Bachchan is slowly and gradually making his mark in generation today Bollywood. Acting father to the leads had become very cliche for all the actors of his age. His recent pick in movies has a niche touch, which brings out a virtuoso performance at his impeccable best. Amitabh Bachchan will be remembered forever for roles like this
• Deepika Padukone is as well trying to make her mark with some unusual scripts and non commercial caricatures. She does absolute justice to the role of  'Piku'. Yes linguistically Amitabh appears every inch a Bengali, while Deepika is an ornamental Bengali :) Nevertheless, She looks good and appears head strong, suits the characters demand on her
• Irrfan Khan is an amazing actor, goes without saying. He looks much younger and a very interesting character, with a lot of positive vibes
• Shoojit Sircar creates a hilarious movie with a very simple story line. Perfect juxtaposition for an entertaining film
• Moushumi Chatterjee and Jisshu Sengupta, are the other real life Bengalis in their short but descriptive roles. Worth a mention! Specially Moushumi Chatterjee on screen after a long time

What you can sleep over:

There are certain scenes which is exaggerated a lot more than required, resulting in too much chaos. However, we understand, the characters were written in this fashion, yet chaos under limit would be better appreciated

The dampeners you should be aware of:

No dampener, apart from the sudden burst of chaotic scenes!



My Rating: 4/5

1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

Gabbar is Back

Cast: Akshay kumar, Shruti Haasan, Suman Talwar(Digvijay Patil), Jaideep Ahlawat(C.B.I Officer), Sunil Grover(Sadhuram),Kareena Kapoor Khan and Chitrangda Singh
Director: Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama



Average flick for a weekend watch



You may look forward to:

• Akshay kumar is back in his action hero avatar, most of his movies these days look alike.You can see many connotations of Salman Khan from 'Jai Ho'. His attempt in pulling the mass and spreading social message works as far as its Bollywood :)
• Suman Talwar has a fair role for a powerful businessman a.k.a bad man :D
• Of all the junior artists, Sunil Grover has a decent role, something significantly better than all the other starcast
• The movie is entertaining, and do not bore you, very typical of Bollywood drama

What you can sleep over:

The entire female cast of the movie....well, you can actually sleep over :) Main lead Shruti Haasan just cant act, but she continues to look ravishing. Same goes for Kareena Kapoor, she is busy doing special appearances or doling out flops. And not to forget, we have another eye candy Chitrangda Singh, unfortunately even Honey Singh couldn't help driving the item number to a chart buster. In spite of all that, I still wont list them in dampeners, as they continue to play the role of an eye candy :)

The dampeners you should be aware of:

• Jaideep Ahlawat is wasted, he has done pretty major roles earlier, he is all hype and no work. All he does in the entire movie is to holler over the officials below him in the hierarchy :)
• The intent of the movie is noble, but the execution is more or less poor. It is a lot filmy, every aspect however true, are way too blown out or exaggerated. So in case you want to draw any inspiration out of this movie, will be a complete failure :) No such hero is going to come, neither can the people change the situations narrated in the movie with the said approach :)

My Rating: 2.5/5

1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle(Rhodey),  Aaron Taylor-Johnson(Pietro), Elizabeth Olsen(Wanda), Paul Bettany(JARVIS), Anthony Mackie(Falcon), James Spader(Ultron) and Samuel L. Jackson(Fury)
Director: Joss Whedon

Genre: Action, Sci-Fri

Does not meet the expectations, had high hopes from the year's biggest release

 

You may look forward to:

  

• For all the action lovers, there is just too much of action throughout the movie, right from the first scene till the end
• The entire star cast is work as usual, i guess the only good part is to have an opportunity to see your favorite Marvel characters in the big screens under the pretext of the movie "Avengers"

 

 

What you can sleep over:

• Robert Downey Jr has a very trivial role in this movie. For long its difficult analyzing he is a hero or he is not! An enemy of his own!! You do not see 'Tony Stark' making use of the many techie jargons nor any interesting set of dialogues to fathom, as well minus 'Pepper Potts' meaning minus any chemistry
• Chris Evans is more or less wasted. Post 'Captain America: Winter Soldier', he could have been utilized so much better
• Chris Hemsworth is always wasted, more this time where he is seen partying and cracking jokes, not much of interaction with his 9 realms and demi gods and frosty giants, with some bit of hammering here and there

 

 

 

 

 

The dampeners you should be aware of:

• Just too much of chaos, for the entire stretch of 2.5 hrs. Too many characters resulting in the lack of focused screen presence of the actual team of Avengers. The most stupidest of all being the addition of JARVIS in a physical form as Vision
• Action has its own beauty when shown in terms of various acrobatics or stunts, the action in this movie is war like, everyone is bashing every other machine, and you can’t keep watching only war for 2.5 hours. Its monotonous and boring
• There is practically no story at all. Either it is action alone or a few stupid scenes showing family angle of 'Barton' or chemistry between 'Romanov' and 'Hulk' and that they want to quit for love and just disappear amidst war!!! Yes, believe it!! Was tough digesting that for me too! :)
• 'The Avengers' was fun, cos you could enjoy small tussles amongst the various characters, enjoy the dialogues, all of  which are largely missing in this movie
• The character of Ultron has super potential and it started building pretty good, until his threat turned out to be ignominious, blame to the chaos all through the movie amidst so many characters and unwanted action

 



My Rating: 2.5/5

1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

 

Unfriended

 

Cast: Shelley Hennig, Moses Jacob Storm(Mitch),Renee Olstead(Jess),Will Peltz(Adam), Jacob Wysocki(Ken),Courtney Halverson(Val) and Heather Sossaman(Laura)

Director: Levan Gabriadze

Genre: Horror, Thriller

A pass time horror flick. Watch, not wasted; do not watch, nothing wasted :D

You may look forward to:

• The tech savvy spirit who uses Skype and Facebook to victimize you :) The marketing idea of the movie works pretty much to pull the audience to the theater at the minimum
• The first half of the movie wont disappoint you, you at least will look forward to the second half

What you can sleep over:

• All the actors do their job well! But nothing much for them to perform. I would say Moses Jacob Storm of all does a fairer job of acting :)
• The movie from the beginning to the end, keeps running at the same pace, nothing big happens even in its second half, thankfully it doesn't lose the pace either :P

The dampeners you should be aware of:

 

 

The major dampener of the movie is its low grade in gory content. The movie doesn't have much of spookiness already, and what could have made it a worthy watch is the gory part, which the director has missed at large. Alas! A horror movie which doesn't scare you is a failure in itself. At least it wasn't a headache watching it :)

My Rating: 2/5


1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

It Follows

Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist(Paul),Olivia Luccardi(Yara),Daniel Zovatto(Greg), Lili Sepe(Kelly) and Jake Weary(Hugh)
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Genre: Horror, Mystery


Weird Horror Story, not meant for regular horror loving audience



You may look forward to:

• The first half of the movie, when things are weird but interesting. You wait to watch more, you wait to unravel the mystery. First half does intrigue and catches all your attention
• All the actors, in their small bits, do their jobs fine, nothing extraordinary howsoever

What you can sleep over:

You do get your share of spooky elements, but they are not enough




The dampeners you should be aware of:

Weird plot, weird characters, weird ending. What makes this movie a headache is the climax and the end. The mystery behind such weird nonsense, is never clear. The whole story, nor the sacrifices of the men towards victim for lust is justified. The whole thing is just very gibberish


My Rating: 1.5/5

1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

Furious 7

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker,Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez(Letty), Tyrese Gibson (Pearce), Chris Bridges(Tej),Nathalie Emmanuel(Megan), Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell(Frank Petty) and  Djimon Hounsou(Mose)
Director: James Wan
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller


Watch this movie for amazing action and for Paul Walker



You may look forward to:

• Fast & Furious series is known more for its action than its story. James Wan gladly delivers to its promise with Furious 7, entertaining its audience with splendid action scenes, barring a few predictable building hopping ones :) This movie certainly lives upto its hype
• Goes without saying, more than Vin Diesel, the show stealer was Paul Walker, body double or not. He is no less than an equal lead with some amazing action  sequences credited to him. His brother does a commendable job of finishing the movie not hurting any nuance of Paul Walker himself. And the final tribute to him, was definitely an awwwww moment for all!!!
• Vin Diesel is in his best of shape with a sexy voice. He in ever essence is the deserving lead of the team
• Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges and Nathalie Emmanuel, has well defined roles and they are good at their respective caricatures. Specially Gibson :P
• I always miss an elaborate role for Dwayne Johnson in the F&F series. Nevertheless, with his thunder cookie appearance, he still makes a mark :)
• Kurt Russell and  Djimon Hounsou, didn't have a lot of role to perform, but with such a huge star cast, it ain't easy giving everyone a fair screen space within the limited time frame. And with this limited screen presence, they did a fair job worth a mention

What you can sleep over:

Jason Statham, Oh Boy! Came out to be like any other carbonated soft drink, comes with a lot of fizz and once the fizz is out, he does nothing more than just bombing everywhere. I expected him to come out to be a tough competition for Vin Diesel. Alas! Even the face off between Jason Statham and Vin Diesel wasn't as impressive



The dampeners you should be aware of:

• The end was so Bollywoodish :D Vin Diesel unnecessarily wounded to death, when we all know, he cant be dying :D And voila, he is alive, the therapy being emotional bull shit from his girl friend
• And of course, you ain't supposed to apply logic into F&F series. So just sit back, relax and enjoy the action :)

My Rating: 3.5/5

1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy

Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Neeraj Kabi(Dr. Anukul Guha), Anand Tiwari(Ajit), Swastika Mukherjee(Anguri Devi), Divya Menon(Satyawati) and Meiyang Chang(Kanai Dao)

Director: Dibakar Banerjee 

Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller

An unexpected quality watch. If you like thrillers, this is a must watch :)

You may look forward to:

• Sushant Singh Rajput single handedly pulls the entire movie on his shoulder. The entire starcast is a set of unpopular actors, you will hardly remember having seen on screens in commercial movies. But Sushant Singh Rajput does an incredible job of intertwining the audience with every little step in his investigations and as he progresses, you keep eliminating the doubt of the one pre conceived notion that he might try copying Sherlock Holmes, from either of the known actors like Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr.
• The story moves slow step by step. Dibakar Banerjee does a very good job of creating just the right amount of expectations and curiosity from the end, so that it doesn't look under played. And as the climax arrives, it certainly does startle you. Job done :)
• Neeraj Kabi does a fab job, he being all the while a suspicious character right in front of you, never raises an iota of suspicion against him. His character has a lot of weight
• I like Anand Tiwari personally, he does roles of innocent category :) This being the only straight forward character in the movie
• Meiyang Chang has a decent role, he is cute as usual :)
• Cinematography of the movie is pretty interesting, it retains the old world charm and no over exposure to vivid colors. Impressive picturisation

What you can sleep over:

• I am not very sure if the character of Swastika Mukherjee is supposed to like the way it is from that era of Bengal, but i certainly think, she wasn't exactly very convincing at seduction. But never mind :D
• Divya Menon has a puny role, nothing very interesting, but yet she deserves a mention

 

The dampeners you should be aware of:


No noticeable dampener, which is actually a huge plus for a Bollywood Detective flick :D Where you do want to apply logic and yet the director doesn't fail you :)




My Rating: 4/5

1- Poor  2-Average  3-Good  4-Very Good  5- Outstanding

Dragon Blade

Cast: Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody(Tiberius), Lin Peng(Moon) and Jozef Waite(Roman Prince)
Director: Daniel Lee
Genre: Action, Adventure, War


It is an entertaining watch, the Chinese way :)



You may look forward to:

• Some part of it associates with the History of Silk Route trading of that era. How Romans happen to come along the way of the Chinese is fascinating, so are the beautiful sets. However, rest of it is pure masala flick
• Jackie Chan is the only major role in the entire movie. He doesn't give you a lot of action, but doesnt give you any less either. He plays the role of a warrior who is otherwise a supporter of peace
• John Cusack in the second lead, from the Roman empire. He has a significant role, that he is never been seen before, he does a commendable job at it
• Some bad men are just as sexy as Adrien Brody, there is something attractive about this man, even in his crude best
• The only female worth checking out for being Lin Peng, she performs some nice martial arts, besides looking her best to allure :)
• Jozef Waite is worth a mention, he is super cute and super mature in the film

What you can sleep over:

Apart from the actors mentioned above, the casting crew is huge, but rest of them do not have much to perform

The dampeners you should be aware of:

The story, in reference to the history of Silk Route is very briefly picked up, just a portion of it, the part shown is less politicized and hence less complicated, in turn leaves the movie with a dragging story line. Even the moments of war were not any precise and doesn't have any lasting impact




My Rating: 3/5

Run All Night

Cast: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris(Shawn), Joel Kinnaman(Mike), Boyd Holbrook(Danny), Génesis Rodríguez(Gabriela), Vincent D'Onofrio(Harding) and Common(Price)
Director: Brad Ingelsby
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller


Very typical of Liam Neeson movies. Enjoyable!



You may look forward to:

• Liam Neeson does a good job for his age. He isn't from the leagues of Stallone or Arnold, age certainly shows up on him. Nevertheless, he has his own legacy of movies which works pretty good for the audience, every time you watch
• Ed Harris looks like a convincing bad man in the backdrop of a business honcho. His friendly chemistry with Liam Neeson and thence the revenge to follow, very well done. His character has multiple shades of gray, which makes him interesting
• Joel Kinnaman does a good job, shoulder to shoulder with Liam Neeson. Though he would suit better as a villain than a good man :D
• The story is pretty much straight forward, not many twinig, however pace of the movie along with plenty action scenes keeps it going strong

What you can sleep over:

• Boyd Holbrook and Génesis Rodrígueze hardly has any major role. Yet, worth a mention
• Vincent D'Onofrio and Common had strong enough roles but alas not much to perform

The dampeners you should be aware of:

There are no specific dampeners barring the fact that you never get anything new in the Liam Neeson legacy of movies. Irrespective of complete starcast, Liam Neeson owns his movies, leaving hardly any space for anyone else to perform except for the antagonist :D
So if you want to score equal with Neeson as well as deliver a hit movie, choose to be the villain :D




My Rating: 3/5