I haven’t written a Hindi movie review since Band Baaja Baaraat, not because there have been no films worth writing about, but because none have seemed to need the extra attention, or have required that I share my point of view on them beyond a recommendation. Like the previous film by the same team, however, Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is a deceptively simple but intricate creature, which pleases me on all the levels at which I enjoy watching movies. Once again, I’ve been given a film I do have a few things to say about.

Ranveer Singh returns in this, his second outing as actor, playing a conman who travels through India, swindling young women out of money using a variety of schemes. In Delhi he uses his position as boyfriend of the effervescent Dimple Chaddha (Parineeti Chopra) to con her father into buying property he doesn’t own, in Lucknow he quietly convinces the in-laws of young widow Saira Rashid (Aditi Sharma) to part with a payment for a large order of hand-crafted fabric he has little to do with, and finally in Bombay he cons the hard-nosed corporate employee Raina Parulekar (Dipannita Sharma) to pay millions for a fake painting. The publicity behind that last scandal gets the three women together and they decide to track down their common foe and con him into returning their lost money and more. To do this deed, they take on the help of Ishika Desai (Anushka Sharma), an exceptionally talented sales woman at a local department store, to be his fake new mark. To con the conman, what can be a more challenging game?

A year ago, I described Baand Baaja Baaraat as resembling a golgappa, an explosion of street-side flavours all forming a startling and appetising whole. To continue the street food analogies, I would have to say Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is more of a Bombay Sandwich. A Bombay sandwich is a similarly deceptive beast. Seemingly made of perfectly ordinary ingredients — tomatoes, onions, cucumber, potato, all sliced and layered between mass produced white slice bread and enhanced with butter, a herb chutney and some workman-like ketchup — you’d think this food, made on street corners by people with a small glass box on a stand, would not be much to write home about, but if you are a fan of food without the pretension, the Bombay sandwich, is delicious, filling, a marvel of food preparation and so much more than what it seems. This film is like that, layered, complex, including entirely predictable ingredients, but the resulting package is surprising, refreshing and endearing in its directness and lack of ostentation.

True to their word a year ago, the film-makers have returned with a film that is very much in the same vein; It is a simple and straightforward tale about enterprising people. This in itself is strange for the world of films, often filled with amateur dramatics by people who are constantly letting circumstances get the better of them. Here a spirit of experimentation and entrepreneurship is lauded and admired rather than ridiculed. Ranveer Singh has grown into an even more refined actor in this film, in a role that requires more restraint than the village-boy character of the previous film did, and Anushka Sharma is similarly more understated and worldly than her firebrand Delhi-girl of the last film. These two are very likely some of the strongest acting talents we have at the moment, and their youth gives us the possibility of many years of interesting performances ahead. The cast delivers handsomely, including a rich collection of supporting characters to tell the story. The three ladies of the title have well fleshed out characters and major roles to play in the film to rival the top-billed protagonists, with Parineeti Chopra doing an exceptional job at incidental humour in her debut performance.

All the hallmarks of Band Baaja Baaraat are here, the exceptional attention to detail brought in by the director Maneesh Sharma, Habib Faisal‘s excellent dialogue, this time lent a touch of sophistication over the rampant colloquialisms of the previous film, a nice shift that suits the tone and setting of this one. The film is exceptionally shot by cinematographer Aseem Mishra, who makes Goa look more attractive and like more of a real place than all the films I can remember that showcased it before. The same goes for the various cities mentioned, which are given their own distinct visual treatment. Set in a more gentrified section of the social milieu, the dramatics have been cut back further in Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl, with much being conveyed in silences, subtle body language and good editing, a brave move in a world of Hindi films approaching ever greater levels of circus-kitsch in the name of irony and intellectual homage. Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is unapologetically clean, minimal, calculated, and entirely free of cheap tricks, clawing melodrama, and unnecessary twists.

The real wonder of Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is that like the Band Baaja Baaraat, it embraces the methods and madness of its subject matter. If the previous film was in many ways one long wedding celebration, this film is a very elaborate con. The trailers will have you expecting a very slick and extremely ‘cool’ film with the cool protagonists acting cool all the time, as numerous high-concept cons are in progress. The reality is much simpler, less dramatic, and much more heartfelt. Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl remains about the people, and the cons are straightforward, fairly practical and do not try to break new ground in convoluted scheming. More importantly, you might walk in expecting a huge showdown between the two protagonists, the allegedly warring con artists, but what you are given is a story that’s as much about the three less-than-scrupulous women who are conned, as it is about the two people on most of the posters. The alleged supporting cast are more often the focus of this film, and the hero and heroine are the means to an end; Albeit a very talented and extremely entertaining means to an end.

As a big fan of heist films, I know one of the oft repeated rules of the genre is that you can’t really con an honest person. That is the unsaid crux of this story; No one conned is truly honest, with the conman merely exploiting what they want in all the cases. And as the audience, this film demands of you a certainly honesty too. If you are a true lover of movies for all the things that make them one of the greatest mediums of storytelling and entertainment, you will love the con of this film, of giving you something very different from what you might have expected. If you’re in it for the frivolous glamour and to gossip about the steamy blatantness of it all later, you are likely not going to get it. Like the Bombay sandwich, all you may see is bread and vegetables, when what you’re given is so much richer than the sum of its parts. Needless to say, I am an ardent admirer of both the Bombay sandwich, and this little masterpiece of a film, and I hope Maneesh Sharma and gang continue to makes these surprise packages of entertainment whenever the mood suits them.

Samir

P.S. It seems unfair that only I should have Jigar da tukda, one of Salim-Sulaiman‘s excellent musical contributions to this gem, stuck in my head on loop, so here you go.

Like most people, I didn’t even know they were making a new X-Men movie until I heard some buzz online and saw the first character shots. It all looked harmless enough. Then I saw the first trailer in the cinemas, and that got my attention. But what sold me on seeing this film was that Mathew Vaughn was directing it. I’m glad I did, because out of nowhere, the man has given us one of the best comic-book movies ever.

Departing completely from the first trilogy of X-Men films, X-Men: First Class takes us back in time to the beginnings of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, to the story of how they met and became the central figures of the X-Men mythos, as we see later in the comic books and movies. Set in the 60s, before and during the Cuban missile crisis, it takes us through how Charles Xavier first begins his quest to find and help his fellow mutants, trying to be a positive force in the greater humanity, and how it leads to the birth of the X-Men, and Professor X as we know him, and Magneto.

This strange faux historical fiction of this fantasy universe allows the film to have a great cast of younger actors essaying all the roles, and makes for a film that is a lot younger in mood and more cavalier in spirit. A wise decision that takes this film well above the forced gravity of most super-hero stories in recent times. X-Men: First Class gets what comic books most often get right over other mediums, and that is to concentrate on the story, the entertainment and the engagement of the imagination, while letting issues and subtext be a secondary layer of the magic trick. The earlier movies were a little prone to let subtext take over the proceedings and it is wonderful to see these stories return to their roots.

It’s difficult to critique or praise very specific elements of X-Men: First Class, because while it leaves you remembering the minutest of details, it works so well as a whole package that singling out smaller technical aspects would turn into extremely repetitive gushing or petty nit-picking. The sounds, the visuals and the camera work are all extremely convincing. Director of photography, John Mathieson‘s not too dramatic camera work is an essential element to the straight-forward mood of this film. That might sound like a consolation rather than praise, but it is a huge challenge to not go overboard with visual drama, especially as technology makes it easier to play with light and camera work. Mathieson has much dramatic photography in his portfolio of films, so the good, solid, clean photography here was obviously a conscious decision. The same can be said for the CG and special effects department, which has done just enough to convey what needs to be, but never too much. This restraint pays dividends in keeping this film focussed on the important stuff.

The important stuff I am referring to is the cast, without whose frankly stellar performances, this film would still be a vaguely dubious artefact. Jennifer Lawrence plays a younger Mystique with an adolescent innocence which is a great foil to the provocative nature of the character in future times. Zoë Kravitz as Angel Salvadore, Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee, Lucas Till as Havok, and Edi Gathegi as Darwin are all sufficiently filled with promise and teenage bravado in their roles, and Nicholas Hoult plays an endearing young Hank McCoy/Beast. However, when they’re on it, the screen undoubtedly belongs to Michael Fassbender as Eric and James McAvoy as Charles, because that’s who they are here, Eric and Charles, with none of the baggage that comes with being Magneto and Professor X.

McAvoy plays Charles Xavier with an intelligent frivolity that makes him endearingly human. His trying too hard to be a charming, normal human being while using his extraordinary powers to help, makes for very entertaining viewing. Fassbender is a revelation of a different kind. His lines are few and crisp, and he brings a true vulnerability and intensity to the haunted Erik Lehnsherr that has you cheering for him throughout the film, even into his inevitable role as Magneto. Fassbender does such moving things with his face in this film, that his on-screen ability to manipulate metal pales in comparison. My compliments to the crew for making an action film that relies so much on close-ups, giving the actors the latitude to work their true powers.

The one stray dubious artefact of this cast is January Jones as Emma Frost. Her on-screen presence is cold in all the wrong ways and she never seems to quite get into any character other than her own. The choice to use her reminds me very much of Halle Berry as Storm in the previous movies (more on that later), but in this case it is a minor irritant in an otherwise marvellous film. A big part of the marvel of it comes in the form of the Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. He’s quite brilliant as a middle-aged Nazi scientist who taps into Erik’s powers when he is a kid, and he’s resplendent as a more youthful super-powered version of himself later on in the story. He makes a worthy villain to the piece, and Emma Frost thankfully blends into the background while hanging off his arm.

While the Director, Matthew Vaughn has been involved in film-making for a long time in various capacities, his list of credits as director is now only four films long, including X-Men:First Class. His first, Layer Cake, was a gritty and stylish crime thriller, and it could have been single-handedly responsible for getting Daniel Craig the role of James Bond. Stardust was a beautiful fantasy fable that I thoroughly enjoyed, and now comes First Class, which as I mentioned before, is quite possibly the best comic book movie ever, for the fact that it’s not only entertaining and gripping but manages to get the superhero team dynamic to work on the big screen. No small task. Vaughn has a wonderfully varied repertoire and I am now very curious to see Kick-Ass, his only directorial venture I haven’t seen yet.

The first X-Men movie was a great piece of action fantasy, and Bryan Singer (who was still involved in the story and production of this film) got a lot right in setting the tone for what superhero movies could be. You had Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Famke Janssen as Jean Grey, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, who will ever forget Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and Halle Berry as Storm. Wait, what?! Yes, exactly, those films suffered from their own big budgettedness (that is too a word), and due to their expensive star-cast and similar extravagances, they famously had to cut back on a lot of ideas. For example the idea of showing the winged Angel character was cut because the special effects shot with the CG wings was too expensive for the short homage that it was. Another thing they obviously cut out was any true attempt at having team battles. Every fight took place between two isolated characters and happened in sequence, giving the films the feeling of a very high budget beat-em-up video game at times. A team superhero movie without the team fighting and acting together at most times lost part of the point of tackling the X-Men on the big screen. And then they started doing some really strange things with the sequels. So pointless was the third film in my mind that I’ve never even bothered to watch the one-off Wolverine film.

The reason I’ve spent so much time talking about the (now) old X-Men films is that as astonishingly good as X-Men: First Class is in isolation, it is even more remarkable in how it improves on the earlier trilogy by cutting back. I remember the older films (mostly the first one) and their drama, and the some of the action set pieces, and broad things like that, but very few of the characters and their stories come to mind, because those movies were just not paying as much attention to the human element. The spectacle and subtext did take over, in spite of them starring many of my favourite actors. X-Men: First Class, in comparison, is first and foremost a human story, and it is a celebration of human stories brought to the foreground using these more-than-human characters. The film works because of all the things they hint at but don’t elaborate on; I would gladly watch an entire film of Eric Lehnsherr tracking down former Nazis for revenge, or Charles Xavier’s adventures in Academia, or Charles and Eric scouting for mutant talent (which is included in a great little montage in this film), or even the two of them training themselves and their team to control their powers. All those things would make for great material in isolation and yet these people manage to put all of it into one film that both fulfils your every comic book dream and also leaves you wanting more.

X-Men: First Class is one of those films you start watching and you can’t stop watching, with your eyes shifting away from the screen only when the credits role. That is a rare commodity, even in the spectacle-a-minute film-making of the times. While I wouldn’t force the topic, I would love to see a sequel, or several sequels, or prequels, or any one of those side stories I have already mentioned, because what this cast and crew has started here is good and I hope it is the sign of more and better things to come. Stories about superheroes that depend so much on the human element in such an effortless manner deserve to survive longer. Even if they don’t in practice, they will in spirit, because I think Matthew Vaughn has a deft hand at crafting fables, no matter what world or time they’re set in.

Samir

Of all the stories of supernatural heroes in the Marvel Comics universe, that of Thor, the God of thunder, is unique in that it was not an outright invention. Norse mythology was interpreted and integrated into the modern world in clever and campy ways to create an entertaining and larger than life character. That was the other thing about Thor; While Marvel made its name on the backs of teenage-angst and utterly human and flawed heroes, the God of thunder, while flawed, was larger than life even in the world of the comic books. That balance between human and God was always a tricky balance to handle, which the comic books started off dealing with using the old secret-identity trope, but they later discarded that in favour of making Thor a complex character in his own right.

Director Kenneth Branagh’s Thor sticks with that decision to explore Thor more thoroughly, but also tips its hat to the original ideas of the God of Thunder having to learn a few things by being human. The movie achieves that balance, not just in the character, but in its entirety, leaving you with an experience that is both enjoyably human and intensely mythic.

The realm of Asgard, in all its gilded magnificence is where a lot of the story unfolds, adding weight and gravity to this tale. In a different time this part would have been either glossed over for a lack of ability to execute it visually, or it would have been made a mockery of by the half-hearted attempts at rendering such a fantastic place real on celluloid. Today, computer graphics come to the rescue and Asgard is a true wonder to behold. It is created with splendour and nuance, majesty and intelligence, and some of the interpretations of the old sights from the comic are bound to bring a smile to your face for their beauty and cleverness.

It is, however, the human element that will make this film a lasting favourite. Chris Hemsworth is variously gallant, a buffoon, vulnerable and thoughtful as Thor, a feat that is admirable considering how easy it would have been to make this character a caricature in a costume. There could have been no more grand a choice for Odin than Anthony Hopkins, who plays the role with great restraint and understated power. Thor’s Asgardian friends in arms add a welcome texture to the story and they are ably assayed by Ray Stevenson, Tadanobu Asano, Josh Dallas, and Jamie Alexander. In a fleeting role as Thor’s mother Frigga, Rene Russo makes you wish her role was more involved, but she is good while she’s around.

On Earth, Stellan Skarsgård and Kat Dennings bring in healthy doses of mirth playing colleagues of Jane Foster, a central character in the comics, and Thor’s human love-interest. Here Jane is played by Natalie Portman and is now a physicist rather than a nurse, to fit her into the updated mythos of the story. Portman is effervescent and accomplished as Jane and plays an enthusiastic and smitten young scientist with a casual flair, a welcome foil to her more intense roles of recent times.

For me the best surprise was Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in the most balanced and un-theatrical way that you can imagine in so theatrical a story. This film fleshes out Thor’s brother as a much more complete character than you expect of antagonists in comic-book movies, and his intensity and earnestness make him the one to watch on screen when he is in his element.

All these choices of character and motivation can be assigned in no small part to Kenneth Branagh, who not just gets these sometimes intense and sometimes frivolous performances out of his cast, but also chooses the best techniques in capturing the performance and enhancing the effect on the audience. With the help of Director of Photography Haris Zambarloukos, Thor makes liberal use of close-up shots of faces, a strange choice for a film of so much spectacle, but the camera’s intimacy grounds this story very much in humanity, and the experience is vastly better for it. Branagh has a strong directorial style that, as in the case of masters of storytelling in any medium, dissolves into the background until you specifically pay attention to it. This balance between subtle and flamboyant is a thread that runs through every aspect of this film and is what makes it work.

As they managed to do with Iron Man, Marvel have created a version of Thor, possibly their most super-human and theatrical character, that is mythical and yet intimately human. Most importantly, Thor is extremely entertaining and consistently humorous throughout its running time. The point of comic books, beyond their many subtleties, was always to be entertaining and grand, and Thor manages both with style while switching effortlessly between the realms of a vast cosmos and a small town in New Mexico. That is no small feat for a story about a man with a red cape and a magic hammer, but this one strikes the perfect note. I for one will await Thor’s return in The Avengers with more than a cautious optimism.

Samir

As Source Code begins, a train is pulling into Chicago. Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up leaning against the train window with the landscape rushing by. Disoriented, he tries to recognise the woman sitting across from him and talking to him as if they are friends. The last he remembers, he was flying a helicopter in Afghanistan. All around, people are going about their routine commute and the woman talking to him (Michelle Monaghan) insists on calling him Sean. He excuses himself and heads for the toilet. He checks his wallet, which does indeed belong to Sean Fentress, a history teacher who looks nothing like him. Yet when he gathers the courage to peep into the mirror over the sink, the face of Sean Fentress stares back at him.

Stevens is soon violently removed from his railway surroundings and finds himself strapped into a seat in a dark claustrophobic capsule with mechanisms, dials, and a lone display screen glowing with the image of a woman in a military uniform (Vera Farmiga). She knows his name, his real name, and she is his only connection to the world he remembers. She must help him make sense of it all, remind him of his mission and get him to go back into that simulation of 8 minutes on a train, the source code, and find what they are desperately looking for.

I’ve always been a fan of science fiction writing, and in my mind the short story format is raised to greater heights of excellence by the genre of science fiction. The limits of length are further stretched by needing to communicate the plot, characters, surroundings, and also the peculiar scientific or fantastic premises without which the rest would be meaningless. This brings to most science fiction short stories a healthy frantic pace which makes for exciting reading. Short stories have always made better movies because they have the singularity of plot and purpose that works within the time constraints of commercial cinema, an aspect which makes novels particularly challenging to adapt faithfully to the motion picture medium. Source Code is that perfect, meaty, science fiction short story movie with a frantic pace and a clear-cut story to tell, but not before it has twisted your mind a little and made you wonder about the nature of things, as it hurtles head-long into a conclusion.

Jake Gyllenhaal gives a solid performance in a film that chooses to concentrate on human faces and minute expressions in spite of its action-packed premise. He shows a great maturity and nuance in what could have been a stereotypical hero, and brings an earnest and human quality to the film. Michelle Monaghan is appropriately pleasant and concerned as a woman travelling into the city with her long-time fellow traveller Sean, who doesn’t seem to be himself. And Vera Farmiga is wonderfully dutiful, official and apologetic as Goodwin, Colter Steven’s handler on his vital mission into the source code. There are strong performances by all involved, including Jeffrey Wright playing the head of the operation, Dr. Rutledge, and various commuters on the train as they react normally to the growing aberration that is Colter Stevens on their routine train ride, but it is the three main characters and their expressive faces that carry most of this story.

Director Duncan Jones helms this enterprise with handfuls of understated class and confidence, which makes me want to watch his previous outing as director, Moon; I have heard it is similarly simple and effective. He lets the demands of the story and the characters make the decisions of what is required and what isn’t, leaving us with refreshingly minimal film whose taut editing (Paul Hirsch) and sparse special effects give it the feel of an undiscovered gem from a forgotten time. This method of tackling a story is admirable, brave, and makes this a better and more timeless piece of film making.

Above all other considerations, Source Code is a thoroughly entertaining film. Into its main spine of thrills and science fiction, it mixes small, but significant, doses of humour, human nature and haunting ideas gently touched upon, instead of forced down the audience’s throat. In its minimalism and succinct cinematic language, it reminds me very much of the crisp thrillers of the 70s, a genre I would welcome back with open arms for both its content and execution. Source Code is film making at its best and science fiction in its most fundamental state. All involved in the film deserve that their work be given your time and attention; It’s sure to be one of the most entertaining 8-minute train journeys of your life.

Samir

His last film, Watchmen, had me cringing at some of its gory indulgences, so when the posters and trailers of Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch were released, I feared it would descend into the same. However, Watchmen was in sections very faithful to the original, near-impossible to adapt comic, which showed great talent. I gave Sucker Punch a try precisely for what was on display in the previews: women in strange combat costumes, guns & swords, and fantasy mayhem. I hoped for an entertaining action-fest, but to my surprise it was all that and a complex fantasy film with human core.

A well-executed wordless montage is a pure cinematic experience, and the gritty CG-assisted sequence at the start of Sucker Punch is gripping from the get go. Baby Doll is an orphaned girl blamed for the death of her sister and sent to a mental asylum by her evil step-father. To get his hands on her inheritance, he also bribes the head orderly to forge papers and have her lobotomised in a few days when the specialist arrives. Sucker Punch is set in those few days of hell awaiting the end, a hell transformed by the imaginative mind of a girl facing the imminent destruction of her self.

The mental institution is a grim place that pushes the noir-inspired aesthetic of the film. To escape this harsh reality, Baby Doll constructs a complex alternative where she is brought into a bordello by a priest, to await the pleasures of the High Roller, who arrives in a few days. She is to be trained to dance the exotic dances that are the staple of the establishment, and she begins to work with the other girls around her to escape their collective prison. When Baby Doll dances, her audience is left mesmerised, while she imagines a deeper video-game inspired reality where she is a warrior fighting supernatural odds; That’s where the guns, explosions and combat gear come in.

This bizarre premise makes for a deeply thoughtful film that is steeped in metaphor, while also being a blazing entertainer. Much of this film is created with the help of computer graphics, but Sucker Punch embraces its artificiality rather than aiming for a facsimile of reality. Since CG rarely convinces completely, this decision makes Sucker Punch a heightened and beautiful visual experience. Whether in dramatic set locations or its fantastic elements, from beginning to end, Sucker Punch is a consummately cinematic experience. This is a refreshing change from the increasingly small-screen friendly filmic language of recent times.

While it’s easy to give all credit to the technical excellence of Sucker Punch, it works in no small part due to the convincing and restrained work by its cast and crew. The girls playing Baby Doll (Emily Browning), Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung), do so with a surprising amount of nuance. Carla Gugino is her usual assured self as Dr. Vera Gorski, the caretaker of the girls, and Oscar Isaac does a beautifully menacing turn as a very human but very scary villain, playing the corrupt orderly and the sleazy brothel owner. Even Jon Hamm has an earnest, if short, cameo appearance which adds texture to the proceedings.

The soundtrack of Sucker Punch also caught my attention. The selection of modern, rhythm-heavy music juxtaposed with the vaguely vintage aesthetic of the movie, and the fantasy action sequences, makes for a rousing combination. One song that that stood out for me was the Alice themed song White Rabbit, covered by Emiliana Torrini. A cover of White Rabbit by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals was also used in the recent Alice in Wonderland film. The two films do share many common virtues and a similar take on myth and parable which I found refreshing. While the song was appropriately themed aural atmosphere in Alice in Wonderland, in Sucker Punch it is also a clever implication.

Zack Snyder has done well here. He delivers a very mature piece of film making that goes beyond his technical flair in Watchmen, and showcases a visual language and a storytelling subtlety of his own. This is in part due to the PG rating of this film, I imagine. Like all good designers, Zack Snyder is made better for the need to pull back and work within the constraints. Since the release of the film, it has been announced that a more liberal director’s cut that re-integrates much of the footage cut from this version will be out on DVD/Blue Ray in the future. It will be interesting to see if the additions make or mar this story, although I’m hoping it has a strong enough core to be improved by the extra details.

I enjoyed Sucker Punch because it is smart, gripping, sticks to its internal logic, and is shamelessly entertaining. Ultimately, it is about the individual driven by their need for freedom from an establishment, that most honest of human traits. To gain that freedom, they act, and fight, and keep their heads while doing whatever is necessary, rather than degenerating into pathos or morality. A choice that sits well with me in life and entertainment. I also know that Sucker Punch is going to hold a fond place in my heart, because like most of my favourite films from the 60s, it is in equal parts entertaining, profound and sensual. That sensual part is rare to see today. Being set in a bordello with a PG rating, the film has a healthy dose of repressed sexuality, but the sensuality I speak of goes beyond that. Like Zardoz, Barbarella, Danger Diabolik, Blow Up, and other films I love, Sucker Punch celebrates the sensuality of the human condition. It embraces it, makes it a matter of fact, and hence all the characters are sensual beings, an admission few are willing to make today in any mature way. In addition to being a solid piece of film making, Sucker Punch works because it makes films sexy again.

Samir

I saw the original TRON a few times when I was in school. The fact that it was on mildly-scratchy rented video tape, made it no less revelatory about the possibilities of augmenting film with animation, and also about the vast potential of the then burgeoning technology of computers. While I haven’t watched that film in over a decade, I was very enthusiastic to see what they would do with a sequel, a quarter of a century later. TRON: Legacy exceeded my expectations on every level. I was expecting a glittery blockbuster, but what I was given was a excellent film of nuanced beauty.

Back in the late 80s when I first saw TRON, I was just discovering computers myself. I had signed up for an evening class in computer programming at school. On our first day, we sat in front of our sparkling new Amstrad PCs and learnt how to write a simple computer program in GW-BASIC. I didn’t stick with that course for too long, but the seed of interest in computers was sown. TRON in 1982 was not just a masterpiece of human effort (many of its effects were hand painted and composited using multiple layers of physical film), it was also an open declaration of the scope and implications envisioned by a new generation of kids who had grown up with the possibility of computers becoming more than research tools. Possibilities that kids like me, some years later, were still discovering. Like all the best science fiction, it extrapolated from current trends and introduced new visions. TRON: Legacy continues in that spirit.

The new film is set in current times when Sam (Garrett Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn, Jeff Bridges‘s character from the original film, has grown up as a genius rebel. His father disappeared when he was a young boy, never to be heard from again. Flynn’s company is now a global software powerhouse, which the young Sam is ever trying to restore to its original philosophies through his acts of sabotage. Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), the programmer of Tron in the original film, comes to Sam with a possible lead about his father, which leads Sam back into the digital world of The Grid, fighting to get out. The plot is simple and clear, and almost mirrors that of the original film. Considering how relatively trivial CG special effects are today, compared to back in 1982, TRON: Legacy chooses not to let its pretty-face be its only trick (and it does have a stunning face), but rather takes strength from the thoughtful writing and the profound world it creates.

TRON: Legacy works in no small part due to the towering presence of Jeff Bridges, both as the ageing creator of The Grid, and as his digital id, Clu, a CG-assisted recreation of a younger Bridges. He plays both roles with a casual grace that adds weight, believability and humanity to the occasionally sterile environs of this film. Garrett Hedlund is sufficiently eager and conflicted as the young hero, but again has been chosen not for his dramatic histrionics but for his understatement, which works well. The film has a small cast of supporting characters, all well assayed. This includes the ever-present Michael Sheen, who plays a short but important role in another chameleon-like transformation into the vaudeville-inspired Castor. The true surprise of this ensemble, however, is Olivia Wilde playing Quorra, mysterious sidekick to Jeff Bridges’s Kevin Flynn character. She brings a nuance and genuine feeling of innocence to the character which goes well beyond the impression I had of her talents from previous television outings.

A lot of thought was put into balance in this film. The various elements have been dialled up and dialled down so that they add up to a harmonious whole rather than a cacophony. The visuals are stunning, without doubt. They take the pixel-inspired video game world of the original TRON and take it to new heights of sheer beauty. This film is beautiful to look at, and I’d be hard-pressed to agree with you if you didn’t see the light-cycle sequence and some others as more art than set-piece. The soundtrack is by Daft Punk, who present a score nowhere near their brashest and noisiest, as would be expected. Noise has been sacrificed for a more lush aural atmosphere.

Director Joseph Kosinski is a trained architect and an accomplished ad film maker, and it shows in the mentioned touches of balance and nuance throughout this film. Beyond the strong script, he brings emotion and belief into this story, which takes it beyond being a standard high-tech adventure. For a technology-heavy film, TRON: Legacy has a very classic and epic feel to it. The basic ideas and plots are as ancient as storytelling itself, and it chooses to highlight concerns about life and existence over bits and bytes, while referencing not just its predecessor but subtleties and mood from many disparate sources. I enjoyed the fact that there was a lot of Blade Runner in here, from the way the World looks to some of the concerns communicated through the story, and I detected many shades of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in its characters.

There’s quite a big difference between the world of computers in 1982 and 2010, but in some ways all the promise foreseen in 1982 did not come to be. Computing devices are now ubiquitous and part of daily existence for a large section of the population, but what they are used for hasn’t been the revolution the geeks of the time had imagined. So, I was glad to see that TRON: Legacy, while being a direct sequel in plot, was almost a retelling and reaffirmation in spirit. TRON: Legacy is about what could have been, as compared to what we have become, and a reminder of future hope.

I loved this film because, after a long time, I saw true science fiction in the cinema. Inception was another such recent film, but this one goes further into the scientific imaginings involved. Like all the best science fiction, it uses technologies and science to not only frame questions about the consequences of those, but also questions social structures, and ultimately what it means to be human. Such basic yet lofty goals, are rarely seen in writing today, leave alone cinema. This film took me back to a childhood of watching Blade Runner and reading Isaac Asimov. That is never a bad thing, because like those, TRON: Legacy always chooses subtlety over bluster, poetry over dazzle. It speaks to people like me, who grew up at a time when computers meant something special and complex and profound. And it gives us the hope, through its fantasy, that perhaps one day they can be all those things again.

Samir

A new Hindi movie from Yash Raj Films usually comes with a lot of expectations, even if of mediocrity. But I had no exposure to director Maneesh Sharma‘s Band Baaja Baaraat before I stepped into the cinema. I was hoping it would be one of the production house’s better efforts at the sort of slick popular entertainment films that they are know for. I’m happy to say that Band Baaja Baaraat is much more, and one of the first truly astonishing Hindi films I have seen in a very long time.

On the streets of Delhi there is popular street food served called the Golgappa (Pani Puri in Bombay). It is a small, crisp and hollow ball of fried dough(puri), filled with potato, onion, chickpeas, and a water(pani) consisting of tamarind, chaat masala, and chilli. This entire piece of food engineering is meant to fit into your mouth, at which point the crisp puri breaks and the contents explode into your mouth with a bizarre mixture of sweet and spicy flavours, textures and temperatures. It is a uniquely Indian experience and to me is the essence of India in a neatly packaged culinary metaphor.

Mostly set in the streets and wedding parties of Delhi, Band Baaja Baaraat reminds me of the golgappa because like that wonderful dish, Maneesh Sharma manages to make this movie a quintessentially Indian experience. The story is of two young graduates from the colleges of Delhi, Bittoo Sharma and Shruti Kakkar who become unlikely partners in a wedding planning business. The story follows them and their business through its ups, downs, and the intense revelry that is an essential part of any Indian wedding movie. Only this typical Bollywood story doesn’t give you one, but a cavalcade of weddings and dancing guests in an explosion of cinematic flavour.

First time actor Ranveer Singh plays Bittoo, an easy going boy who wants to avoid going back to work on his father’s sugar-cane fields, and Anushka Sharma plays Shruti, an ambitious girl who wants to start her own wedding planning business before she settles down with husband and children in tow as per her parent’s wishes. The resourceful Bittoo hangs on to Shruti, the one with a plan, and the two of them begin to take over the wedding market of Delhi’s middle class, one loud wedding at a time. They are helped on their road to increasing success by their suppliers and advisors in the business, Manmeet Singh as Rajinder Singh the caterer, Neeraj Sood as Maqsood the florist, and Revant Shergill as Santy the musician.

On one level, Band Baaja Baaraat is your typical, albeit supremely entertaining, romantic-comedy film from the Bollywood school of film-making, but it is also a well crafted piece of cinema. It not only does justice to the characters as very distinct and individual people but also captures their relationships and interactions with nuance and sensitivity. In doing all of this the film creates a heightened, but still completely realistic, diorama of life, business, love, family and celebration in India, not as it is in the movies, but as it is for more flesh-and-bones people.

The witty and cutting dialogue, by Habib Faisal, infused with the rich flavour of Delhi slang and North-Indian cadence is a perfect framework on which many layers of attention to detail are laid down, and which bursts into greater colour during the many songs. The songs are not only appropriate but come with beautiful music from the dexterous hands of Salim-Sulaiman. All this is presented in alternately glamorous and down-to-earth, but always beautiful, cinematography by Aseem Mishra.

Beyond the filmic niceties, I appreciated Band Baaja Baaraat for its more intangible qualities. The characters are extremely real. While still fictional dramatisations, there is little distance between them and their motivations, and what you would expect of similar people in the real world. The credit for this must go to writer, director, and the actors themselves for bringing that honesty to it. I also liked that the production does away with almost every melodramatic device and simply tells a story focussed on the protagonists. There are no sudden surprise entries by villainous elements, no evil relatives, no convoluted plot twists, and no games. They tell it straight.

There were various broad choices made about the story and characters here that were signs of hope for me for the future. Gone are the days of cut-out protagonists in vague corporate jobs or indefinite family businesses, gone are the dramatic and staged boy-girl meetings and ensuing text-book romances, gone are the pretences of propriety and expected standards in the relationship of the protagonists. It’s all thrown out to tell a tale of surprising reality. This movie broadens the audience’s expectations from fiction, and ultimately life; People don’t all want to land a cushy job, starting a business is actually a lot of leg work, there is real work involved, and there is real friendship without constant romantic foreshadowing between the protagonists as they build their dream. If films are a reflection of our times and a inspiration for those who will grow up idolising them, I wish India was making many more films like this one.

Band Baaja Baaraat is a beautiful film, to look at, to listen to, and to be lost in with the characters, while the director deftly tells a simple tale with confidence. It is a very Indian film, it is that golgappa I spoke of earlier, a creature that could only have been born on the streets of India, and it is the better for it. This film has a lot of first-timers among both cast and crew and I believe they have a thing or two to show the more experienced hands in the Hindi film industry. Maneesh Sharma and all involved in this enterprise have had the bravery, and the plain decency, to give us what is one of the most authentically Indian film-viewing experiences that I have seen for many years. This is unashamedly an Indian film. This is as astonishing film. This is a film I would gladly show anyone, from the film-crazy masses in the vast sub-continent, to people out there in the wider world who have never heard of Bollywood, and I would tell them with pleasure that we made this.

Samir

Director Rajshree Ojhaa’s Aisha, a modern Bollywood take on Jane Austen’s Emma, puts the froth in frothy. That can be a very good thing, or a very bad one; Some would bemoan the insubstantiality of froth, while others sell it at hundreds of dollars a plate as molecular gastronomy. On the positive side, Aisha is neither of those things completely; On the negative side, it is a little too much of both.

Aisha Kapoor (Sonam Kapoor) is the bored meddling match-maker of the little piece of Delhi high-society that the film introduces us to. Along with her best friend Pinky Bose (Ira Dubey), she takes it upon herself to reform and refine a new entrant into her circle, Shefali Thakur (Amrita Puri). What follows are her machinations to get Shefali and Randhir Gambhir (Cyrus Sahukar) to become a couple, having convinced herself that they are a perfect match. All this is much to the chagrin of her long time neighbour, friend, and conscience, Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol). Add into the mix Aarti Menon (Lisa Haydon), Arjun’s sultry colleague and friend from the US, Dhruv Singh (Arunodhay Singh), Aisha’s childhood acquaintance and now muscle-bound freak hunk, and Saurabh Lamba (Anand Tiwari), Shefali’s small-town silent-admirer, and you can be sure hijinks will follow.

You don’t need to be a Jane Austen fan to know where this story is going from the first reel. What matters is whether Aisha manages to be interesting while it gets there, which it does, to a large extent. Aisha is a bright and glitzy film, that still maintains a strong sense of place. While it may not be the virtual tour of Delhi that is standard practice in developing the setting of a film, it does feel like a virtual tour of the section of people it’s portraying, and in some cases even lampooning. There are definitely sections of this film that feel like a wild life documentary of the life and times of the Delhi rich. Whether or not it is an accurate depiction doesn’t really matter because, as a piece of fiction, it is consistent in its mood.

Aisha‘s use of cinematic shorthand is sometimes clever and works. Unfortunately at other times the film ignores shorthand and dumps an entire song (or three) into the proceedings that do nothing to further the plot besides telling you that the characters are having fun, or are sad, or whatever. There are also times when the shorthand is overdone, and you’re left not quite getting the motivations of the characters or their development through the story, because you were never shown these things.

Like a few of the songs, the product placements in the movie hit you over the head with a blunt club every time. While product placements in big-budget films anywhere in the world do often get ridiculous, they can be tackled with finesse. But when Aisha’s camera changes a lens just to take a tight shot of a bottle of nail-polish being applied by the heroine, you get the feeling you stumbled into a commercial break. Of all the insubtleties that this movie flaunts, to good effect in many cases, that one I could have done without.

The main weakness in Aisha, though, is the insubstantiality of the protagonist’s character-building, and the feeling that the conclusion is inevitable rather than earned by the people involved. Having said that, there is enough to like here. Abhay Deol is his usually suave and intense self, Amrita Puri’s Shefali is very well played, and Amit Trivedi‘s music is immensely hummable.

At the end of the day, I am not enough of a cynic to dismiss Aisha for its many inconsistencies. It kept me entertained, and in most parts it is an admirably slick production, in addition to being genuinely enjoyable. Aisha is not a classic, but it’s a very watchable piece of fiction with a few memorable moments that will keep you smiling and humming bars from its soundtrack for some time to come.

Samir

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a brash, old-fashioned fantasy adventure, with a subtle heart. Having chosen to take the original adventures of Alice forward into new territory, Burton has preserved the essence of a classic while also creating fresh facets for a wider audience to enjoy.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by telling you that this isn’t quite the Alice in Wonderland you have grown accustomed to. It is not a faithful remake of the original story, nor is it a complete reinvention; It’s more of a natural progression. The story tells of a 19-year-old Alice who had her dreams of Wonderland as a child, and is now on the cusp of adulthood and marriage. This is her return to Wonderland, now tackled by a young woman rather than a fascinated child being lead around by the madness of it all. This makes for a far more relateable character for the majority of the audience.

The original Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, elements of both of which are used in this film, still remain works aimed at children. While there are generous undertones of darkness provided by Lewis Carroll‘s able imagination, the majority of the events and characters are iconic cyphers to add colour to the stage. Tim Burton exploits some of that darkness, and while he can’t let loose his usual flamboyance(this is still a PG rated movie from Disney), he adds a surprising depth to the characters, taking them beyond stray pantomime figures. Just as Alice is a thinking woman and not just a naive little girl here, the Red Queen is not just an over-the-top villain, but a character with a coherent personality. The Mad Hatter is a real human being with a past, and not just a nut-job.

Also, the Blue Caterpillar is not just a smoking caterpillar, but also Alan Rickman! The computer imagery that depicts most of Wonderland and its characters is helped in no small measure by the able cast. Like the Blue Caterpillar, of special note is Stephen Fry voicing the Cheshire Cat, Barbara Windsor speaking as the Dormouse and many others.

Those who appear without CG-garb deserve no less praise for fleshing out their mythic roles. Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway are brilliantly camp as The Red Queen and The White Queen. While the Red Queen’s spoilt-tyrant personality is played with shrill finesse, the White Queen’s extra-sweet goodness is hilarious to watch, over-done admirably by Anne Hathaway channelling everything from children’s show presenters to TV chefs. Johnny Depp, a Tim Burton staple, is almost unrecognisable as the carefully nuanced Mad Hatter, and perfectly capping this great cast is Alice herself. While I haven’t seen Mia Wasikowska‘s previous work, she seems immediately familiar and is very effortless on screen. She plays the grown-up Alice with a quiet self-assuredness that holds this entire story together and takes it beyond a simple child’s tale.

Wonderland is appropriately wonderful. It has been given a welcome dark streak that makes it a real place and less of a stage set. While grand in scale and colour, the graphics for the entire world are surprisingly understated, with a lot of subtle detail put into the major locations where the story unfolds. Wonderland plays as much of an important role in this tale as the characters, and the visual execution of the realm is very seamless with the great performances by the actors, and the rousing background score.

The story itself is a streamlined version of the original gallivantings of little Alice though Wonderland. Where the original was a series of unfortunate adventures, this version makes it a rediscovery of a forgotten youth, tempered with a mythical quest. This particular treatment of the story results in a good old-fashioned fantasy adventure, the kind they don’t often make any more. As I’ve said about fairy tales before, this movie gives me hope that we can return to the workman-like simplicity of old fantasy movies, while still celebrating the freedom provided by new techniques in film-making.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland takes what was a fantastic children’s story and makes it mythical, while also pairing it down to its essentials. Here we see a return to the good old quest, where fantasy heroes are people too, a departure from more recent fantasy films where every player has been an angsty theatrical icon. While there is a place for that school of fantasy, I yearn for the return of this kind, where the stories were simple, where the characters were not trying to be worthy subjects for doctoral theses in Psychology, and where magic was magical.

Samir

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is a fun, action-packed frolic through the gritty chaos of Victorian London, with a frantic pace and a fabulous sense of humour. Whether by design or by coincidence, by breaking away from the conventions of previous outings, Ritche has created the definitive on-screen version of the world’s most famous fictional detective.

That might be a lot of superlatives to put into a single paragraph, but a can’t stress how well this film is put together, and how much of a pleasure it is to watch. The credit for this goes in no small part to the actors on screen. On the surface, Robert Downey Jr. might seem like strange choice to play Sherlock Holmes, but he brings to it the right amount of eccentricity and, most importantly, vitality that no one has gotten right before. Holmes was never a boring prude in the books and here we finally see that addressed. Jude Law as Dr. John Watson is heroic and beautifully nuanced, another save from the bumbling idiot view of Watson made popular by previous screen versions, far removed from the character in the original stories. As in the books, Watson is here a dashing figure as he should be.

The supporting characters is also well fleshed out. Rachel McAdams brings a welcome brashness to her version of Irene Addler, and Kelly Reilly puts on a simmering formality for her role as Watson’s fiance. It’s a clever little injection of our stereotypical view of the Victorian Era, amidst the colourful street-view seen through the eyes of Holmes and Watson. Mark Strong plays Lord Blackwood, the villain of the piece, with adequate menace and mystery. And Eddie Marsan brings a fitting humanity to Inspector Lestrade. Lestrade, like Watson, is a character who has always been portrayed as either more stupid or more menacing in screen versions, and it’s nice to see him played more human here.

That really is the strength of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes; It’s more human and down-to-earth than the under-graduate Shakespearean fantasy that previous people have chosen to put on film. This film has gorgeous CG special effects, with old London re-created in great detail, but it recedes pleasingly into the background of the cacophony of human drama. And the rich visual atmosphere is raised to a crescendo by the wonderful background score. In popular entertainment, the Victorian era is often punctuated with stuffy operatic melodies and stilted classical compositions. But that was the Victorian England of a certain class of people, and Sherlock Holmes is more concerned with the streets than royal music halls. The music here is rousing and rustic, ribald and heart-felt. A cascade of squeaky fiddles, broken pianos, and various unrefined instruments that sound just a bit out of tune, provide a beautiful bouquet of what Victorian London must have felt like, not in the rarefied air at the tops of towers, but in the mud and muck of the bylanes. Hans Zimmer deserves a round of rowdy applause for this achievement.

Including costumes and art direction, Sherlock Holmes shines in too many minute and great ways to mention individually, but what makes the film beautiful is that it gets the big picture right. All involved have, for the first time, really immersed themselves in the original books and stories, spotted little nuances, and then exploited them to make this a very real and accurate portrayal of the spirit of Sherlock Holmes. Here Dr. Watson is not a bumbling idiot, Holmes is not a dry professor, and their relationship is not a cold and perfunctory exchange of pleasantries off a theatrical stage. These are real people with real feelings, with a real life in a real place.

The original Sherlock Holmes stories were printed in the Strand Magazine, and Conan Doyle wrote them as if they were an edited account of the detective’s adventures by Dr. Watson, as printed in that magazine for public consumption. This was the conceit that made the detective such a sensation during his time, and why many believed he was a real person. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes takes the hints in the original material and tries to recreate the reality behind them. It fills in the gaps remarkably well while keeping true to the times as they more likely were, rather than by our stilted estimate of bourgeois Victorian society.

Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant achievement of both comprehensive story-telling and of shameless entertainment with a heart, much like Conan Doyle’s original works. All I can say is, bring on the sequel!

Samir