The Russell Crowe starrer is one of the better movies to have hit the screens this year. It’s subtle, suspenseful and at times thrilling. The cast is pretty good, with Crowe (Cal McAffrey) donning the lead role of a brusque, burly, veritable investigative journalist. With Helen Mirren (Cameron Lynne) as a hard nosed editor, Rachel McAdams (Della Frye) as a tough cookie blogger, Ben Affleck (Stephen Collins the congressman) as a sinful and now repentant public official and an array of cameos from some lesser names the movie has a good package of talent.
The movie starts off with a thud, when a young lead researcher, Sonia Baker, for an up-and-coming hotshot congressman (Collins) gets apparently murdered. This comes as a jolt to Collins’ professional pursuits and rocking of his personal foundation. The Congressman who leads a group of fellow like-minded colleagues is in the midst of investigating a scandal surrounding a private consultant/security/military/everything firm named ‘Pointcorp’. ‘PointCorp’ is the beneficiary of sizable military/police contracts in the middle-east and are being investigated for malpractice and corruption.
Mcaffrey the lead investigative journalist for ‘Washington Globe’ newspaper captures your eye as a smart, influential and contacts-rich journalist. He seems to have stumbled upon a couple of drive-by murders of a young black youth and a budding pizza entrepreneur. Thanks to a washed-up petty criminal McAffrey finds some interesting material linking Ms Baker and the young black murder-attempt victim. Collins is meanwhile at the eye of the storm as allegations about his extra-marital affairs surface thanks to some nosy publications. Collins, who is under relentless attack from the media tries to get some friendly cover and pays a visit to his pal McAffrey.
Collins confides about his illegal relationship with Ms Baker to McAffrey, but contends she was murdered when everyone seemed to think it was an apparent suicide. A theory about PointCorp’s involvement to marginalize Collins by linking him in a public morality stench evolves. McAffrey agrees to follow the trail of the evidence on Baker’s suicide-murder but tries to console his friend Collins on how to approach the morality onslaught. McAffrey investigates the link between the young black youth, who while recovering at a hospital is murdered, and Baker. As information flows on how the youth came into possession of Ms Baker’s whereabouts emerge, a stronger link between Baker’s and the drive-by murders of the youth and the pizza man emerge.
McAffrey enlists the help of a young and at times cocky blogger Della, they have their moments which draws a few laughter, investigate the 3 murders. As details emerge on Baker’s relationship with Collins and an apparent hitman being employed to kill Baker, the plot thickens. McAffrey keeps Collins apprised of the developments and thanks to some insider help from a whistle-blower in PointCorp, McAffrey is able to track down the hit-man and nearly gets killed. As further evidence comes to light the McAffrey team gets a break when they crack a PR firm hotshot, Dominic Foy, for PointCorp and find out more about Ms Baker. As details emerge about the background of Baker and the real intention of why she got hired by Collins, the whole plot plays out as a setup of Collins for his eventual marginalization in the PointCorp investigation.
McAffrey works tirelessly to pin more evidence and at the same time is under undue pressure to produce some headlines for their struggling newspaper. McAffrey finally seems to have caught a break when Dominic confesses on tape about the knowledge he has on Baker. There still seems to be a missing piece to the whole puzzle as McAffrey works on the finer details and evidence to link Baker’s killing with PointCorp, when he finds out a startling truth, thanks to a thinking mind and an insatiable thirst for honesty and contempt for false-truths. How and what McAffrey finds out while on his pursuit to link the murder and PointCorp is part of a predictable yet thrilling end.
The movie is thrilling and scary in not a gory sense but how pragmatic this whole plot is, the potential for outside forces to influence anything, the real role of journalism and the dire future it faces [Check this entry on Newspaper], the 24/7 tabloidish world and the presence of some real honest investigative reporters. Overall this movie is definitely worth your ticket… B-.
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Movie review: 13 B Mein Sab Khairiyat Hain: Fear has a new address : Suspense and Soap come together
As concoctions and inspirations go, the movie 13 B is one of the most intriguing cocktails that confront the cine-audience. If we are to describe the movie in singular words, I will choose.. bold, novel, suspenseful (though not edge of the seat thriller stuff), rich, compact, intense. You get the idea, the movie is done pretty well. It’s not one of the great movies to hit the screens this year, but it is certainly one among the intense and certainly watchable ones out there.
Once again, kudos to the backroom team, the art direction, sets, editing, screenplay and direction are quite good and the BGM fits in nicely in most scenes. The cast is simple and effective, the characters are concise yet involved in the whole picture.
At the heart of the movie is a concept that many find hard to come terms with, the evil-ghost spirit concept. The movie is not intended to make you believe they exist, the movie does not even attempt establish the validity of such existence, it merely takes you on a ride where just like Gods and angels are assumed to care for us, evil and spirits are out there to complete unfinished business. What is different from your regular B-grade scare-crow movie is that there is a decent attempt to show civility, while there is blood its not gory, while there is fear its not unbearable, while there is an incredulity that washes your thoughts its not strong enough to not give the story a chance.
One other idea that is somewhat novel in this movie is that, the spirits use living characters as their vehicles to complete their unfinished business. So while they scare these characters they don’t put them into coma or beat them to death like other senseless movies.
The first half was no nonsense, it gets right to the story, no candies, no hulchul… a nice big family moves into the stomping grounds of a once famous mansion that has since been demolished for the monstrosity also known as apartments. The family is subjected to some special treatments along the way, getting bucket loads of good and pitchers of bad news. The lead character, Manohar (Madhavan) has done a credible job. He does what he does best, which is put in decent effort and put out the best output that he is capable of, which he has done in this character. Mannu and a bunch of his family members move into the house and immediately he faces a streak of events that make him believe some alter-force could be in effect in their apartment. A very lively participant that is not a living object in this movie is your very own idiot-box. Precisely around 1pm everyday, only in Mannu’s house a serial seems to air, the soap is eerily similar to the events that are taking place in Mannu’s life. At one point the soap overtakes and stops resembling current events in his life and starts providing future events too. And oh what a coincidence those exact events that happen in the serial seem to happen to Mannu’s family.
The only leap of faith that the director asks you to take is that, spirits and alter-egos not only exist but they are next-generation ready, that they can communicate to you, not in the typical door slamming, tree falling, car failing methods.. but through your television and mobile phones.
The eerie resemblance of events in the serial to his life, makes Manohar travel the path of an investigator and the first half ends with a nice punch. I honestly thought the movie had been on for 2 hours, but it was barely 70 mins in, credit to the director for just cutting out any non-required scenes and packing it all with suspense and thrill. The second half takes a not so typical or atypical tone, as Manohar goes on a quest to get behind the serial and its story. He has a friend in need among the cops to help him out.
Along the way, we learn about the family that may have lived in their land a few decades back and they follow the trails of a gory massacre and eventually the killer gets punished.
The movie is simple and fresh, high marks for editing, story, screenplay and direction, good performances by the cast and overall a decent venture and not a bad way to spend your money. As with any movie, you have to allow the director some leeway and if you are prepared to do that then this movie will be a good watch. Don’t expect a swush-buckler but this certainly a good movie and worth watching once. Rating : B-
Once again, kudos to the backroom team, the art direction, sets, editing, screenplay and direction are quite good and the BGM fits in nicely in most scenes. The cast is simple and effective, the characters are concise yet involved in the whole picture.
At the heart of the movie is a concept that many find hard to come terms with, the evil-ghost spirit concept. The movie is not intended to make you believe they exist, the movie does not even attempt establish the validity of such existence, it merely takes you on a ride where just like Gods and angels are assumed to care for us, evil and spirits are out there to complete unfinished business. What is different from your regular B-grade scare-crow movie is that there is a decent attempt to show civility, while there is blood its not gory, while there is fear its not unbearable, while there is an incredulity that washes your thoughts its not strong enough to not give the story a chance.
One other idea that is somewhat novel in this movie is that, the spirits use living characters as their vehicles to complete their unfinished business. So while they scare these characters they don’t put them into coma or beat them to death like other senseless movies.
The first half was no nonsense, it gets right to the story, no candies, no hulchul… a nice big family moves into the stomping grounds of a once famous mansion that has since been demolished for the monstrosity also known as apartments. The family is subjected to some special treatments along the way, getting bucket loads of good and pitchers of bad news. The lead character, Manohar (Madhavan) has done a credible job. He does what he does best, which is put in decent effort and put out the best output that he is capable of, which he has done in this character. Mannu and a bunch of his family members move into the house and immediately he faces a streak of events that make him believe some alter-force could be in effect in their apartment. A very lively participant that is not a living object in this movie is your very own idiot-box. Precisely around 1pm everyday, only in Mannu’s house a serial seems to air, the soap is eerily similar to the events that are taking place in Mannu’s life. At one point the soap overtakes and stops resembling current events in his life and starts providing future events too. And oh what a coincidence those exact events that happen in the serial seem to happen to Mannu’s family.
The only leap of faith that the director asks you to take is that, spirits and alter-egos not only exist but they are next-generation ready, that they can communicate to you, not in the typical door slamming, tree falling, car failing methods.. but through your television and mobile phones.
The eerie resemblance of events in the serial to his life, makes Manohar travel the path of an investigator and the first half ends with a nice punch. I honestly thought the movie had been on for 2 hours, but it was barely 70 mins in, credit to the director for just cutting out any non-required scenes and packing it all with suspense and thrill. The second half takes a not so typical or atypical tone, as Manohar goes on a quest to get behind the serial and its story. He has a friend in need among the cops to help him out.
Along the way, we learn about the family that may have lived in their land a few decades back and they follow the trails of a gory massacre and eventually the killer gets punished.
The movie is simple and fresh, high marks for editing, story, screenplay and direction, good performances by the cast and overall a decent venture and not a bad way to spend your money. As with any movie, you have to allow the director some leeway and if you are prepared to do that then this movie will be a good watch. Don’t expect a swush-buckler but this certainly a good movie and worth watching once. Rating : B-
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