A twister!

Maharaja (2024, Tamil)
Director: Nithilan Swaminathan

If you are fed up watching the same old-time-tested formulaic Indian movies, this one is for you. The story starts as a comedy, but as it goes on, the storyline gets twisted. 

Just when you think you know how the story will go, it takes a tangent and yet another. And it goes on and on until it ends with a final twister. 

Maharaja, a mild-mannered barber, leads a simple life with his wife and a little daughter. Right in front of his eyes, he sees a lorry, with its driver obviously off its rails, crashing into his house, killing his wife instantaneously. His ‘daughter’ is miraculously saved by a metal dustbin. 

Maharajah continues life as a widower and a doting father. One day, his house is broken into, and the metal dustbin that saved his ‘daughter’ goes missing. Maharaja makes a police report. 

What happened afterwards is a series of flashbacks, parallel storytelling, police brutality, and police power abuse that all lead to good old storytelling and a satisfying end to a twisted comedic thriller, if there is such a genre. 

Spoiler alert: Maybe there is no such thing as a selfish gene. A person does not feel a buzz upon seeing someone with the shared DNA wronged. The skin does not quiver when a sibling is beaten up. If not, we would not have sibling rivalry. Neither would we have incest, postpartum violence or mass suicide of families. Empathy and caring are learned experiences. We all feel for our age-old friends and buddies in a closed community without sharing common DNA. Sharing Lucy’s ancient DNA does not count as a common ancestry, as perhaps all of mankind carries it. 

On a sobering note, we can see how creative some netizens can be. The main character in Maharaja, Vijay Sethupathi, in his 50th film appearance, is spotted with a bandaged left ear. As if like a fortunate stroke of serendipity (for the internet trolls, at least), on a platter, the news of Trump being shot in the ear became viral. Leave it to the ingenuity of the human mind, and the world has a picture of Vijay Sethupathi and Trump on the same poster as if promoting the film! 

In case viewers are wondering about the role of the snake in this movie. Fret no more. Snakes are notoriously known for not recognising their offspring and eating their own eggs. Helpful to understand the ending. In a world that sees mothers rushing helplessly into burning buildings, we also have mothers who feed their cubs to the wolves!

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Tied me down?

In this day and age, would feminists find Rakshabandhan relevant anymore? Increasingly, we see ladies becoming the alpha and highly testosterone-charged beings. If domestic abuse victims were assumed to be fairer sex, think again.

Imagine telling a modern 21st-century lady that she needs a male guardian to protect her from the vulgarises of society. Someone with a cape to rise to the occasion to shield her to save her life and chastity. It may have been relevant when society comprised males with unabated raging hormones on steroids. With civilisation, these toxic behaviours had been identified and put a lid on.

Women empowerment efforts, education and job opportunities have sprung open for them to clinch their list positions in society. The male community members have been conditioned to respect women, tolerating smug and passive-aggressive manipulations. Many men have suffered in silence in the name of peace of mind and wanting to maintain sanity.

Don’t get me wrong. The world is still not a safe space. There are plenty of discriminations and injustices happening under our very noses.

Rakshabandhan allows feuding siblings to mend their fences. Sure, the ceremony with all bright colours and public display of sibling affection is Instagram-worthy. Siblings, being siblings, are sure to get entwined in occasion skirmishes. The ceremony, done out of compulsion or otherwise, gives time to reflect the strong co-dependent bond knotted by the Universe and cemented covalently by DNA. These bonds are man-made and decided by the Universe and happen randomly at a cosmic level. It is also an opportune time to hook up and boost old relationships.

On a lighter note, it may also give an avenue, a secret weapon for young girls to tell off their stalkers, “Buzz off!” Hold them down, tie the Rakshabandhan brotherly wristband, Rakhi, and douse down any burning desire for possible romantic liaisons!

The flavour of the times.
Bhumi Matta (Mother Earth) trying rakhi to Chanda Mama (Uncle Moon)

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Past 'use-by-date' shelf life?

The Bad Guy (2022)
Director: Pierre Perifel

Covalent bonds are hailed as one of Nature's strongest bonds. Nevertheless, with the correct amount of energy and the help of appropriate enzymes, it can be broken down into its basic structures. Unlike bonds cemented by DNA or the ones sanctioned by the Elements of Nature, friendship is a convenient arrangement amongst misfits who share the same mental illness. What others refer to as self-demeaning and a sheer waste of time, they find joy and purpose in life.

Since nothing is cast in stone, friends make rules as they go on. They call it a 'bro code'. The code, a whimsical array of regulations that are made up as the friendship goes on, protects each other's interests and maintains zen in other concrete long-lasting relationships.

In the good old days, before our digital devices filled up the void of long-haul journeys or protracted stop-overs, we actually struck up a conversation with a fellow passenger who looked charming enough. We may open up knowing pretty well that the friendship would last no longer than the journey.

Do all friendships stand the test of time? Do they all have a 'use-by-date' shelf life? Is friendship as flitting as a showroom of a departmental store that has a makeover with each season sale? Since this bond is not tangible but written in the sands of time, even a zephyr can erase it. A little dent in ego, a misspoken utterance, an unintended gesture here and there, an unsaid, undone action all may crumble this loose association.

What was supposed to be like taking a bullet, sharing the joy, the cries, the sweat and seasons in the sun can just go bust in a moment.  Keeping secrets, warts, and all are, just self-pleasing dialogues that act as fillers for time-pass. Will it end like in a feel-good movie, or just one mentioned in eulogies about the good old times remains to be seen?

Five misfits, often mentioned as the scum of societies, the Big Bad Mr Wolf, the serpentine Snake, the mean Shark, the poisonous Tarantula and the meat-chewing Piranha live up to the expectation of society. They are The Bad Guys, the lean, sleek, suave bank robbers.

Their last haul trying to steal the coveted 'Golden Dolphin' award goes all wrong. They are busted and have the chance to prove that they can be reformed. Meanwhile, the goody-good two shoes Prof Marmalade, the guinea pig turned scientist-philanthrope, has some things up his sleeves. The Governor, Ms Foxington, tries to convince the gang that it pays to be good despite the bad reputation they have picked up over the years.

A feel-good, chirpy and colourful animated film.

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More than meets the eye!

The 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima, Italian; 1965)
Director: Elio Petri

Riding high on her fame as Honey Ryder, 1962 Dr No's Bond Girl, as the Ultimate Bikini Goddess, Ursula Andress continued making movies banking on her sex symbol status. She also appeared in the 1967 Bond spoof 'Casino Royale' as Vesper Lynd, whose grave we saw in 'No Time to Die'. In between, this Swiss vixen also found time to act in this B-grade Italian movie. 

'The 10th Victim' is a futuristic movie set in the 21st century, where the world enjoys peace as society has managed to put a stop to wars. Man's predilection for violence is curbed by having society-sanctioned killing. Each person has the opportunity to kill ten people in a computer-drawn programme named 'The Big Hunt'. In five of the hunts, the selected play hunter and the other five, he plays the hunted. The hunter is given all information about his target but not the hunted. The hunted is clueless about who the assassin is. One who survives all ten hunts get loads of money. In between, the advertisers piggy-bag on the televised hunt.

The Bikini has come a long way since its introduction in the
1946 Paris catwalk. It was named in honour of Bikini Atoll,
the site where the US hydrogen bomb was tested.

The two main characters in the movie are Caroline and Marcello. Both of them are nine-time winners. Marcello is in a massive financial quandary trying to pay alimony to his ex-wife and sustain his expensive mistress. Winning the competition would mean a lot to him. He is chosen as the victim. Caroline is an American who lands in Italy to hunt her prey.

Despite being a brainless movie with plenty of eye candy and blatant flaunting of the female anatomy, the film seems to make reasonably accurate social commentary of the 21st century. It showcases a time where reality TV is a craze and advertisement drives people to sell out. Advertisers are more worried about their sales than the value of human lives. Marriages are a farce. Marcello had been married eleven times before.

The iconic bikini scene from Dr No skyrocketed the sales of bikinis.

In 1965, she was asked why she posed nude in Playboy. 

Her answer was, "because I am beautiful!" 

At one time, Ursula Andress was referred to as Ursula Undress.

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No end to espionage!

No Time to Die (2021)
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

In my youth, I used to think, "with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, soon these espionage movies will all be passé." How wrong I was. And here I am in the 21st century, and the Russians are still posing a threat to the Western capitalist world, so we are told.

The Slavs, dressed in Red Soviet uniform then, have changed into their sharp suits, digital devices, and oligarchic money to play the same espionage and political manipulation game to portray a rosy picture of communism to the world. World domination, it seems, is high on their agenda. 

But frankly, let it be vulture capitalism and Red ideology; they are merely just two sides of the same coin. Think US election, think Bashar al-Assad to usurp power, think despotic leaders trying to suppress dissidents, you will find American and Russian handiwork in action. It is all about world domination, absolute power and total control by the powers that be. So, come the 21st century, or 25th century, the story of one group trying to dominate the others stay relevant. It is the story of mankind. 

So, it is no surprise that the Man with a Licence to Kill is still relevant today. In keeping with the changing times, however, the writers had altered some characters to appease members of the woke generation. As Daniel Craig was said to be doing his last appearance as James Bond in this film, the filmmakers are dangling the prospect of the next 007 to be a black female. Earlier, they had also introduced Miss Moneypenny as black. Q is possibly gay too. 

As I see it, the movie will be remembered as one generic offering that flew us by. Frankly, I was looking for a grand opening as I did in Casino Royale, but sadly many, if not all, of the action scenes had a sense of deja vu in each of them. Let it be a car chase, bike ride or massive island hideout destruction, the familiar feeling of 'haven't I seen that' kept coming back. 

After seeing Rami Malik perform brilliantly as Freddie Mercury is 'Bohemian Rhadsody', his talent is really wasted here. He just appears as an expressionless baddie with a puckered face. He does not make us hate him (or pity him).

The screenwriters must have tried to infuse emotion into Bond as it is Daniel Craig's swansong. But the idea of carrying a child in a car chase with the crooks shooting at the car is disturbing, to say the least. And the idea of a Bond illegitimate child?! We have all seen Bond escaping from more death-defying feats; why not this? Verdict: 2.5/5.

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Laws are made for others

Breathe ( Amazon Prime, Hindi; 2019)
Miniseries (8 episodes)

Humankind is quick to determine what is right and what is not for its kind. All rules and regulations are cast in stone for others to religiously adhere to and live by. Most of these 'prophecies' had been self-thought when Man was at an altered state of consciousness. To lay credence to these rules, the name of God was invoked. To go against this grain would incur the wrath of the Divine Forces, they would say. 

This sort of arrangement would work just alright most of the time when the general populace is ignorant and obliging. Trouble starts when people start thinking, or the ones in power believe that the laws do not apply to them.  

Many external factors make people assume that the rules should not apply to them. The selfish gene, in wanting to care for its progeny and to maintain continuity of species, tries in whatever way to protect its offspring. If the law states that it is criminal to murder someone, the parental instinct will ensure the safety of its kind. Kill to save if it has to.

In the same vein, man-made laws are flaunted so quickly when it comes to defending one's beliefs. Killing, harming, and looting becomes legitimate under the guise of protecting the sanctity his faith. In the history of Mankind, more lives were lost under the umbrella of religion and politics than all other natural calamities and diseases combined. Man does not harbour any remorse when the wrongdoing is in the name of defending one's faith. 

Writers are becoming more creative. They keep on churning out new ideas. I wonder what they would come out with next.

Danny (R Madhavan), a widower, has a young son who is chronically ill with cystic fibrosis. His condition is quite severe and needs an urgent lung donor for survival. Due to compatibility issues, the son's lung donors are hard to come by. Believe it or not, Danny gets the information, after breaking into the doctor's office, that his son is fourth on the list of recipients. With the list of potentially suitable donors for son, he deviously plans ingenious ways to hasten the death of donors as his son slips further into hopelessness. Even though initially everything goes well as expected, a grieving policeman gets hot on his trail.

The police officer is still reeling over the death of his young daughter, who accidentally shot herself with his service revolver. His wife left him because of this. His sorrows draw him to the bottle.

The story is a narration of one man willing to commit crimes to save his son. Even though in real life he is a law-abiding and caring human who is also an animal lover, his books of normality include doing everything in his capacity to give life to his offspring, at all cost. This is in contrast to another who find busting crime as a way to justify that his daughter's death was not worthless. The mishap from the gun that his daughter's life is countered by the use to save others' lives.

A gripping 8-episode miniseries with a few 'too-coincidental to be true' scenarios but attention-grabbing, nevertheless. 

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Unchain my soul?

Some say that the mere fact that we are born on Earth is torture. It is a punishment of sorts. All the aches, the physical pains, the emotional pains, the disappointments, the cheats, the fall and loss of function may be just an ellipse of what a man faces in his lifetime. Saying all these, even the wisest of men, would like to hold on to his last breath not matter what in exchange for all the wealth in the world.

Many religions that promote themselves as a way of life suggest that the relationships that we develop along the way in our life are the cause of most of our problems. We should either not to take to heart all the miseries that develop in our daily interactions with our friends, colleagues, and loved ones or cut ourselves from these relationships. In the other words, renunciation is the word. 

Renunciation can be done, it seems, in two ways. In the first instance, one can choose a life of self-sacrifice and self-avoidance from the time of adolescence or at coming -of-age. In other words, inner primordial animalistic desires of the flesh and worldly yearnings can be suppressed before new bonds build. He may retreat to lead a recluse life trying to find the real meaning of life and plan for a promotion in his next life form. In short, he is absolved of his worldly duties. But, what happens to his elders and siblings who may look at him as neglecting his human duties for the relationships that he already developed when he was brought into this world as a living creature? Has he not duties to perform to repay his existence? Is he not being selfish of concentrating on himself? Is it not the nature of man to help one another? What better reason could there be if not for filial piety?

The second form of renunciation may be done after his duties are seemingly complete. He could produce offsprings, guided them through the nuances of life for them to stand on their own feet. But is it really over? Is it ever over? In the modern times, it appears to me that one has to be constantly working to maintain sanity. Once, he recoils from being productive or at least self-sufficient, he is deemed a burden to society. People cannot wait for him to go to the other side. 

Pass shelf-life!

Spectre (2015)

With all the hype that preceded the launch of latest of the James Bond's franchise release, it was only natural that we were all riled up to be one of the early viewers of this offering.

It started with the usual 'edge of the seat' suspense befitting of a Cold War hero who is out to save the world from despotic domination with a licence to kill! The build-up before a spontaneous collapse of building and rogue rudderless helicopter created the atmosphere for more suspense. The filming technique of a street parade in Mexico to honour the dead was quite interesting as the camera appear seamlessly be lifted off the ground and down as if the camera was mounted on a drone!

The buck stops there! After the credits rolled in, it was the same old swashbuckling display of pyrotechnics. My head grew heavy and eyes grew dim. Trying my level best to keep my eyelids open was a Herculean task. In between the eye-shut, twilight and occasional eye-opening, all I saw was frequent screenshots of the hero running hand-in-hand with a beau in distress against a backdrop of fiery hot explosive gun powder. It was interlaced with an unbelievable duel between our pint-sized saviour of the capitalistic world and the mean lean killing giants where Bond comes out unscathed, unshaken and unstirred. He even vaporises the megalomaniac's henchmen like mozzies with his single machine gun against more sophisticated arsenal at their disposal. And the ladies who drop their drapes at the drop of his bow-tie!

I think that the Bond franchise had over-lived its shelf-life. With so many new movies with so many innovative and imaginative plots, the idea of a lone man saving the whole of the civilised world seems laughable. 24th outing should be the end of an era.

Falling asleep?

Skyfall (2012)
Maybe my expectations were too high. You cannot blame me for that. After all, it is the 'larger than life' film of Bond, James Bond, and in his 50 years of existence after Dr No. Maybe because of his two prior convincing performance as a spy in Her Majesty's service fighting baddies in a swashbuckling never-say-die attitude, I expected more cliff hanging moments from Daniel Craig.
50 years into its inception, Fleming's hero had snowballed the creation many copy cat spy thrillers and heroes and its successors have tried and managed to outdo him. (e.g. Indiana Jones, John MacClane of Die Hard fame)
Skyfall starts on a promising note with no nonsense straight to action scene with its trademark 'cat and mouse' chase in the busy bazaar,streets of Istanbul, the less affluent roof tops of old houses all the way atop a moving train till our hero is ordered to be shot at by a direct command from M (Judi Dench). Our hero is hit, falls deep into the ravine and river and the beginning credits role in...
It was a scene a bumbling spies, failing to recapture a stolen hard disc and fallen agents!
After that its pace got too slow for my weary body, after a long days' work whilst squeezing in a 8km run in between.
MI6 gets bombed, M's job gets into a limbo, Bond manages to meet the man behind the theft of the stolen disc through a few high adrenaline scenes.
Then things quieten down as M and Bond has a final showdown a the manor named 'Skyfall' in Scotland where Bond grew up. M dies in the duel. Bond reinstates his post under a new boss and we discover a new Ms Moneypenny.
Mmmm...through the twilight of semi snooziness state, I managed to get the gist of the movie. Somehow, I had the feeling that I was not engrossed into the movie, just watching from afar. There were a few memorable witty dialogues, however. There were a few jibes at the youthfulness of the new techno-geek Q and age related jokes. And the recurring glass bulldog menagerie in Union Jack colours that survived the bomb blast in MI6!