Everybody's fine!

The friendly neighbourhood illegal DVD pedlar who converses with difficulty in disjointed conversational Malay is an honest film critique and reviewer. Although all his recommendations may not be your cup of tea, (you can give a go to his suggestions of movies related to wrestling, aimless pyrotechnic display type of action drama and gruesome blood splashing type of teen Friday 13th horror), his knowledge on relatively unknown title from independent production houses are worth a gamble. The service also comes with a replacement if there were any defect in print, not up to the viewer's liking.
Two of his recommendations that captured my heart were 'Gran Torino' and 'Everybody's Fine'. Unlike their counterparts in India where thespians of yesteryears refuse to age but don primary roles with liberal help from make-up artists and well fitting toupee, these two legends who graced the above two movies wore roles befitting their age.

In 'Gran Torino', Clint Eastwood sheds in tough mono-syllabled cowboy and order defying Dirty Harry role to act as disgruntled and white supremacy condoning Korean War veteran widower whose neighbourhood is slowly but infiltrated by Asian and Blacks. He has issues with his children, the pastor and his new Mao (a tribe from Burma) neighbours. Many things happened and he reluctantly but eventually gets close to the people next door. His prized collection was a 1972 American Gran Torino which he personally assembled when he was still employed is the title of the movie.

After watching Robert De Niro in plethora of swashbuckling daredevil roles from a surviving Russian roulette soldier in 'Deer Hunter' to hard talking gangster movies from 'Godfather' and 'Untouchables' to a boxer in 'Raging Bull' to tough cop in 'Ronin' to a convict in the remake of "Cape Fear', we see a down to earth mellowed down De Niro in "Everybody's Fine'. Here, he assumes the role of a retired blue-collar worker who is a widower and feels that his children are ignoring him, now that his wife is not around. After they cancel their visit to the family home, he decides to visit them instead. He starts a trans-American cross-country trip as he is medically unfit to fly. One by one he discovers that his children are not really high achievers as he thought they were. This, he realises after much melodrama, and the take-home message is that as long as everyone is happy, everyone is fine!