Tag: Movies

My rating of Good Will Hunting: B+ (Memorable)
Cast: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Father Lankester Merrin, Ben Assfleck, Minnie Driver
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Studio: Miramax Films

Off-late, my intellectual credentials have been called into question on the basis of movies I review on my blog. “Why review only movies which are bad enough to be easily ripped apart?”. The first and foremost answer, of course, is “Fuck you all, this my blog and I’m going to review whatever I want”. The second answer is “That’s what readers enjoy reading anyway”. I do watch so-dubbed ‘intellectual movies’, it’s just that I review them in lesser frequency on my blog.

The real answer lies in the fact that when a movie is good, well, what on earth are you expected to say about it? That it’s good? Praising the direction, cinematography, acting, visuals, sound editing et al turn-by-turn? People who do this for a living, i.e. movie critics, too are at a loss of words when reviewing most good movies. You can’t give the plot away of a good movie, so there isn’t much to do except sneakily trying to increase the word count.

I saw Good Will Hunting recently. Yeah, I know, really old movie and all, critically acclaimed etc etc – but I hadn’t seen it till now. And I must say that I missed a lot earlier. The thing about Good Will Hunting is that it’s not a movie that is original in any way. When screenplay is written by actors and not professional screenwriters, you don’t expect much. (The screenplay is by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.) But what you do get in exchange is some powerful, moving acting.

The story of this movie is so completely unoriginal that even Disney Channel Recess has used it once – a janitor with super-awesome-brilliant mathematical skills who’s talent gets discovered serendipitously. Matt Damon plays the role of the janitor – a misfit genius trying to find his place in the world. Stellan Skarsgard, for a change, isn’t spouting out Latin words on behalf of the Vatican; he plays the role of a mathematics professor at MIT who ‘discovers’ Will (Matt Damon’s character). The rest of the movie is about how both Damon’s character and Skarsgard’s character try to come to terms with Will’s genius abilities.

Thrown in is a love story with Minnie Driver. (I had a Minnie Driver overdose that day. Just a day before I’d seen this Christian Slater / Morgan Freeman / Minnie Driver starrer titled Hard Rain. It’s a godawful terrible movie. A blot in the name of ‘thrillers’. Minnie Driver reminds me of Jennifer Aniston. I hate Jennifer Aniston. Ergo, I hate Minnie Driver.) Matt Damon acts admirably as a guy dealing with issues who doesn’t want to get emotionally close to anyone. Minnie Driver just grunts and squeals like a pig.

Also in the fray is Robin Williams as a psychiatrist. Skarsgard takes Damon to Robin Williams to help Will sort out his psychological issues. These exchanges between Damon and Williams are the high point of the movie. Both deliver strong performances, and it’s refreshing to see Robin Williams do a non-comedy role so admirably well.

Watch the Good Will Hunting trailer

In the end, Good Will Hunting is this completely unoriginal yet intensely likable movie – purely for the acting. Matt Damon shines through showing the breadth of characters that he can take on. I suggest you also watch The Talented Mr Ripley and The Departed for more stellar performances by Matt Damon. (I give that movie an A+ ‘Oscar-worthy) on my ratings.)

My rating of Shoot ‘Em Up (aka The Movie Which Needed Just About Any Excuse To Be Made): B (Good)
Cast: Clive Owen, Monica Belluci, Paul Giamatti
Directed by: Michael Davis
Studio: New Line Cinema

Thank the heavens above for directors like Michael Davis. (Directors who’s first name is Mike are so awesome, aren’t they?) They make dick flicks to maintain the disturbance caused in the Yin-Yang balance by the directors who make chick flicks. Dick flick directors’ plot ideas are so succinct that it brings tears to the eyes of any script writer. Like, “Two college buddies on a road trip are being pursued by a terrifying monster truck“ or “A college freshman has sex with a girl during a power outage and never sees her face. When he goes in search of the mystery girl, he realizes there are about one hundred suspects to consider“. So when HBO said that Shoot ‘Em Up would be premiering for the first time today, I had to watch this. Including all the ad breaks it would take just 1.5 hours of my time. That’s how easily you can sum up this movie.

I really don’t feel like talking about the plot here – because I could sum it all up in a few lines and then you’ll have nothing to watch. Clive Owen is a mercenary who’s a cross between Bugs Bunny, Karamchand jasoos, and Hitman. Man. That guy eats more carrots during the entire duration of the movie than the number of bullets fired, and that is not underestimating the number of bullets fired. So there’s this baby whose mother is killed and he decides to protect it. Bad Guys LLC starts chasing Clive Owen (“Mr Smith”) around to kill the baby. (You’ll find out why if you watch the movie…come on, let at least this bit remain secret!) Since babysitters don’t accept carrots as a form of currency, Mr Smith brings a hooker (Monica Bellucci) into the picture to take care of the baby. Hilarity gunfight ensues.

Forget torturing someone with cigarette stubs. Bad guys shoot a few bottles to ‘heat up the gun nozzle’ and then use it to burn someone’s skin. Owen wants to track down the baby’s mother, so he decides to go to a club which plays heavy metal. Why? Because when switching between TV channels, the baby starts crying if news channel is on and stops if you switch to a music channel playing death metal <insert joke about the irony of the baby’s mom being dead>. The reason for this is given as follows: Baby’s mom spends a lot of time at death metal club > Baby heard a lot of death metal while in the womb > Baby (thus) stops crying on hearing death metal (as opposed to a lullaby) > Hence Proved (I’ve so desperately wanted to write these two words after class 10th.)

Don’t you ever let Rajnikanth see this movie. If he does, then he’ll commit suicide by snoring up milk through his nose to drown himself. Leaving aside the kick-ass (literally) gunfights, this movie has such memorable moments. Like when Clive Owen needs to kill THE Bad Guy (Paul Giamatti grinning like a vampire), so he puts bullets between his fingers and holds his hand close to a fireplace. (If you don’t know what that does, dumbass, the answer is that the bullets shoot forward just like they would from a gun.) The finishing touch is given by a little flame on Owen’s index finger which he blows out. You see how deep this movie is? That was a reference to a smoking gun!

Then there’s this scene where Owen gives a short anti-gun lecture on an airplane, kills a guy, then jumps off with a parachute. Ever-resourceful baddies (in large numbers) join in the skydive. There. Is. A. Gunfight. Mid-air. If you buy an original DVD of the movie and watch it with subtitles on, it says at this point “Ha! Up yours, Equilibrium“. Wanna know what level of gore is there? During this skydiving scene, a bad guy falls on the rotating blades of a helicopter (mid-air) and gets dismembered (zoom at this point to bloody hand).

Michael Davis snocks a cook at other movies in the dick flick genre too. Let me demonstrate. When Owen-Bellucci are discussing what to feed Oliver (the baby’s name – chosen because Mr Smith “…didn’t hate the book Oliver Twist”) while Bellucci and the baby are holed up inside a friggin’ tank (don’t ask, don’t ask…), Owen suggests ‘pureed carrots’ instead of ‘Beech-Nut Baby Food’. And the classic line (by Owen)…

I hate those lame action movies where they call only one ‘good guy’ and get double-crossed. So instead of just the NBC, I also called ABC, The Post…and the FBI.

If only getting in touch with top media outlets and the FBI was so easy, so many more crimes would get reported sooner. No, no, NO – I don’t even want to know the outrageous back-story on how Owen made it past IVRS systems / receptionists.

There are a few funny moments. Owen decides to lecture a mom who’s spanking her kid at a railway station by spanking her butt, giving a short lecture along the lines of “How do YOU feel now?”. And when Owen & Bellucci are having sex while the baby is howling for attention (edited out by HBO), a few bad guys charge in and Owen shoots them down; says, “Now that’s discharging your load.” Or the Rube Goldberg machine set-up that Owen uses to single-handedly take down a team of shooters when cornered in a gun factory.

The second best scene is saved for last. In a robbery holdup, Owen snatches a robber’s gun using a carrot (no kidding!) before proceeding to kill the robber and his pals. There’s a mind-bogglingly complex chain which involves shooting a dead guy in the arm, which in turn makes the dead guy fire a bullet, which in turn blows up a milkshake glass, which in turn…you’ve gotta see it to believe it.

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Watch the theatrical trailer for Shoot ‘Em Up

But you know what? All this stuff defines this movie. This is what it makes an enjoyable watch. It’s outrageous at such a FTW level that when you’re watching the movie, you can help but to cheer it wildly till the finishing line. I don’t like eating popcorn during a (potentially) thought-provoking movie because I find it distracting. I finished a BIG bowl when watching Shoot ‘Em Up.