Rangoon

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My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Saif Ali Khan, Richard McCabe

The movie is set in 1944, the time of freedom struggles of Mahatama Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose, and Work War II. Julie (Kangana Ranaut) is a spoilt actress who used to be a gypse, until she was rescued at 14 by Rusie Billimoria (Saif Ali Khan), a successful movie producer, and now is his mistress. Nawab Mallik (Shahid Kapoor) is a serious, stoic soldier assigned to be her bodyguard, on the trip to Indo-Burma border. In that entourage, is a Indian National Army loyal, carrying a valuable sword from a Maharaja to be given to INA to fund their freedom struggle. Enroute, the Japanese forces attack and Julie with Nawab are separated from others, and fall in love with each other. Nawab takes his responsibility of a bodyguard seriously and successfully returns Julie to the destination, there ensues a series of events full of intrigue, action and suspense.

All the three main characters of the movie are crafted carefully and are immensely intriguing. Shahid Kapoor is one of the most brilliant actors in Bollywood these days, and delivers the role of a stoic soldier shouldering responsibilities way beyond his stature, to the T. Kangana Ranaut's performance steals the show. It is so powerful that it shadows over everything else. And everything else isn't much. The story line, while sounding good off-hand, was killed by poor execution. Eroticism was prioritised over plot, drama over direction. At some points it looked like a spoof of a heist movie. The first half was only a build up to what audience can expect from the second half, and second half was anti-climactic. The dialogues were clichéd, the songs over long, unnecessary background details of characters, made the movie long and tiring. It lost the focus from the love-triangle in a war torn land and freedom struggle and instead, focussed on multiple insignificant things, like bad Hindi accents of Britishers. Vishal Bhardwaj has broken the hearts of many hard-core cinema lovers. He does deserves a mention for creating the sublime music this movie has. All in all, this movie should be missed.

Jolly LLB 2

My Rating: 3/5 stars

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Huma Qureshi, Annu Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla

It is a classic David vs Goliath story. Jagdish Mishra, alias Jolly (Akshay Kumar) is an assistant to a big shot lawyer in Lucknow. He hasn't been given much opportunity to practice law, only earning small sums by fighting petty cases. His reality is at odds with his ambition. He wants to have his own chamber, earn a lot of money and buy Gucci dress for his wife, Pushpa Pandey (Huma Qureshi). In comes a case for the big shot lawyer, and Jolly seeing this as an opportunity to get money, cheats the applicant, who is a pregnant lady. His actions nag at his conscience and Jolly decides to fight the case.

This potentially interesting movie suffers as a result of the shifting priorities of the contemporary film industry, where the focus is on dramatization and tangential story lines, rather than telling the story the film is supposed to tell.That is what plagues this seemingly interesting movie too. The case, the crime, the timelines have a step-child status and deemed unimportant. The prime focus shifted to the non-conventional relationship Jolly has with his wife and courtroom humour, delivered by the judge. The whole burden of making this movie interesting is borne by Saurabh Shukla, who delivers the performance of a quirky judge perfectly. In fact, all the actors are cast aptly and deliver what is expected of them. But there is no compensation for a poor execution of a good plot. Annu Kapoor is a good actor, so is Akshay Kumar. There was a lot that could be squeezed into 2 hours 18 minutes movie, like debates in the court, background on the accused, which would have made for a good movie. If anyone wants to watch the movie, go expecting good humor, good acting, and a few far spaced good dialogues. The rest is meh.

Manchester By The Sea

My rating: 3.5/5 stars

Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges

The movie shows a short period of life (with flashbacks) of a single man, Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), living in Quincy, Massachuttes, working as a janitor in one of the apartment buildings. One day, he gets a call informing him of the demise of his brother, Joe Chandler (Kyle Chandler) in Manchester, due to a heart attack. The brother had a heart condition and it was a matter of time, till his heart gave out. Lee goes to Manchester where he finds out that he is named the guardian of Joe's 16 year old son, Patrick Chandler (Lucas Hedges) by Joe. This, along with returning to Manchester, brings back a lot of memories for Lee, to escape which he had moved to Quincy. The movie follows his attempts at cementing a life with Patrick and dealing with his tragic past, which is quite a fight for him and Patrick.

The movie is very simple, which holds a lot of appeal for the viewer. The story is straight, albeit mighty depressing in parts. Casey Affleck reaffirmed what we all knew already, that he is a tragically underrated actor. The Oscar nomination is well deserved. The performance of each and every one of the actors was perfect. The story line is something we all want to see, a down-on-his-luck guy stands tall and strong in the face of adversity and turns things around, because really he is a good guy. The movie had left me wanting more, despite all the goodness. I would have liked to get some closure, instead of the convenience of the ending. Unlike all the movies which fall under this umbrella, there was no take-away, The story line abruptly took a thrill-less twist, and I felt dejected.  I will not say more or I will be giving out spoilers. Suffice it to say, it is a good movie, not a must watch but definitely not regretful.