Some alter egos rest lightly beside their host personas. One fell in love with Dilip Kumar (born Yusuf Khan) at first sight. He was, and will always be, the original Khan. All others pale into relative insignificance, whether they have essayed similar roles (read: Devdas) or not. With Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand having already […]
Irreplaceable Irrfan 7 January, 1967 – 29 April, 2020 I’m frequently asked what ‘Crossover Films’ mean. Is it just the language content? (But more of that later.) When the distressing news of Irrfan Khan’s passing poured in on 29th April, my mind wandered to the other actor – Om Puri – who had done India […]
As the continents (Antarctica excluded) of our planet grapple with the lethal and unseen enemy, one’s thoughts dwell on Hollywood’s fascination for the unknown… While the perils of viral annihilation has been the subject matter of many films, one would have thought that a pessimist genre would not work commercially for the film industry. But […]
As sci-fi films go, this one manages to give the genre a bad name. Vin Diesel is expressionless, the plot is threadbare and the acting is nothing to write home about. Ray Garvison (Diesel) has just won a battle freeing hostages. His plans of spending quality time with his wife Gina (Talulah Riley) goes awry […]
The text from Victor Hugo’s 1862 classic seminal novel of the same name, at the end of the film, sums it up succinctly – ‘There are no bad plants or bad men… only bad cultivators.’ The film, which opens with France celebrating its 2018 football World Cup win against the backdrop of Eiffel Tower and […]
Not all fantasy and animation films fall within the realm of mere fun and adventure. Some have elements of tenderness and sympathy woven into the script. Add a dash of oblique brotherly love, and ‘Onward’, directed and co-written by Dan Scanlon, is one such film. Ian Lightfoot (voiced by Tom Holland) is an introverted teenager […]
When it comes to honouring character actors (usually called sidekicks and junior artistes or derogatorily even ‘extras’ in this part of the world), one must hand it to Hollywood – there are numerous books and articles devoted to them. ‘Kaamyaab’ opens with a montage of hand-painted posters of (fictitious) films of the ’70s and ’80s, […]
‘A marriage is a deal’, utters a character midway through the film. That this deal does not turn out to be ideal is the focal point of Anubhav Sinha’s two-hour-plus film, co-scripted by him and Mrunmayee Lagoo, with script finishing touches by Anjum Rajabali. Amrita Sabherwal is a loving, dutiful housewife (having given up her […]
The ‘three is a crowd’ dictum is amply demonstrated in ‘Fantasy Island’… with as many as three writers collaborating on the story, including the director, the film turns out to be a mishmash, convoluted end-product. And the title, which seems to suggest an animated, children’s film, couldn’t have been more misleading. Five ‘lucky contest winners’ […]
In the opening scene, reminiscent of the ’70s, a guy with a well-chiseled, gym-toned body thrashes his prison inmates, while the rest of the junior artistes stand around, feebly flailing their hands above their heads. The identity of the person is revealed soon enough, but the reason for the mayhem much […]
War films have a (c)harm of their own. New Zealander Taika Waititi’s screenplay, based on Christine Leunens’s 2004 novel ‘Caging Skies’, has an earthy kind of appeal to it. Amidst the destruction of war and comedic elements are layers of tenderness and the human touch, fringed by a 10-year-old’s understanding of what constitutes a Nazi […]