The Jungle Book (2016)

Director: Jon Favreau
Screenplay: Justin Marks (based on the book by Rudyard Kipling)
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Neel Sethi
Music: John Debney
Time: 105 minutes
Bottom-line: Crafty, funny, and thrilling

If you are one of those people (like me) who dismissed The Jungle Book as a “children’s film”, revert that decision and book a ticket immediately! This film, released in India a week ahead of its US release, so that it coincided with the Indian New Year (and hence, the viewership would increase), is now the fourth highest grossing film of 2016.

Sethi as Mowgli, and Bagheera

Meet Mowgli (Neel Sethi), a man-cub raised by the Indian wolf pack, led by Akela (Giancarlo Esposito). Ever since he was brought there as an infant, by the Black Panther Bagheera (Kingsley), he has been raised by Raksha (Nyong’o). When a drought strikes, the Bengal Tiger, Shere Khan (Elba) picks off Mowgli’s scent, and, having been scarred by man before, demands Mowgli to be handed over by the end of the drought. As the wolves debate over whether they mustprotect Mowgli or let him go, Mowgli voluntarily leaves the pack to protect the others from harm. Along with Bagheera, he sets off to the man village. Mowgli’s adventures in his journey and his encounters with the python Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), the sloth bear Baloo (Murray) and the ape King Louie (Christopher Walken) are depicted throughout the rest of the film.

Mowgli, with Baloo

The story is adapted from both – Kipling’s original work, and Disney’s 1967 film. The Jungle Book balances the art of building a plot and the art of using computer graphics to give us a dazzling ride. The story is replete with humour, drama, and the message of friendship and courage. The CGI makes a big difference actually... the way the animals and sets were created was beautiful. Some scenes in particular really deserved praise, like the water truce (where every animal in the jungle is shown), the encounter with Kaa, and the final showdown with Shere Khan. As the director Jon Favreau said, all these effects gave a “dream-like” quality to the movie. There is a lot of humour too, thanks to the characters of Baloo (and friends) and the other wolves. The scene where Mowgli knocks down a bee hive for Baloo to get honey is perhaps the funniest scene in the film.

Shere Khan

Neel Sethi is quite impressive in his debut role as the man-cub Mowgli. The child artist shows joy, sadness, anger, courage, fear and pretty much every emotion in the book! Not to forget, his acting is perhaps the only thing where CGI wasn’t used, and it was a treat to watch this little guy shine! Everyone else did their bits well too! In particular I liked Johansson as Kaa – the scene where she tells Mowgli his tale, is really creepy, thanks to the graphics, and Johansson’s hypnotic voice! King Louie’s song I Wan'na Be Like You (performed by Walken) was hilarious and fun too!

Kaa

With mesmerising CGI and terrific performances and voicing by all the artists, The Jungle Book is a terrific film, for children and adults. You will be taken to a new world entirely, but it’s a journey worth your time and money!

Mowgli with Raksha, and the other members
of the pack

My Rating: 4/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 95%  

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Director: Ron Howard
Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman (based on the book by Sylvia Nasar)
Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly 
Music: James Horner
Time: 135 minutes
Bottom-line: One of the best biopics ever made

Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart.
After numerous people suggesting that I put A Beautiful Mind on my “movies to watch” list, I finally got a chance to watch and review this masterpiece by Ron Howard. Following the success of Gladiator, Russell Crowe plays the lead role in the film, and is supported by Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris and Paul Bettany. The film won four Academy Awards – Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay.

Crowe as Nash

He saw the world in a way no one could have imagined. 
1947 – John Nash (Crowe) arrives at Princeton University. He is involved with numbers, barely paying attention to anything else around him. The only person who seems to be getting along with him is his roommate, Charles Herman (Bettany). Nash is determined to publish an original idea, and develops a new concept of governing dynamics (known as the Nash equilibrium), following which he is offered an appointment at MIT. After being invited to the Pentagon to crack enemy codes, he meets a mysterious supervisor, William Parcher (Harris), who assigns Nash to look for patterns in newspapers and magazines to foil a Soviet plot. Nash also falls in love with, and later marries, a student, Alicia (Connelly). The rest of the film is about how Nash deals with his paranoid schizophrenia, and how it affects his family, his career, and his mind.

This was the time when Crowe was at the peak of his career, being nominated for Academy Awards in 1999 (The Insider), 2000 (winning it for Gladiator), and in 2001, for A Beautiful Mind. Crowe ended up bagging almost all major awards except the Oscar, which was won by Denzel Washington for Training Day. To me however, his performance as John Nash is by far the best of his career – thanks to his beautiful portrayal of emotions, and the perfection with which he played a schizophrenic. Whether it is his obsession with numbers, or his crazy acts due to his hallucinations, Crowe does it all superbly. Jennifer Connelly has a few bright spots in her career, and this role is one of her best. Despite a short screen time, she uses it well to play the loving wife of Nash, who has to take care of her family, and also support her husband, and deal with his paranoia. Towards the end when Nash acknowledges her affection by saying, “You're the only reason I am…you are all my reasons”, it just might bring a tear to your eye.

Connelly as Alicia

The film is not meant to be a literal representation of Nash’s life, according to the makers, but it gives a fairly accurate insight into the life of the genius. The film starts with Nash’s early days, and then it mainly focuses on his delusions and how others around him are affected by it, and finally ends in 1994, when Nash won the Nobel Prize for Economics. The reason it is one of the best biopics is because the film does not idolise Nash, rather it balances the good days of his life and the bad, giving the perfect insight in two hours. The sets, costumes and score were first class too.

Thanks to Ron Howard’s sensitive direction and Crowe’s committed performance – supported aptly by Connelly, Harris and Bettany – A Beautiful Mind captures the life of John Nash in a magnificent manner. If this film has been in your list for some time now, don’t wait any longer! You don't need to know game theory to know that the payoff you get on watching the film is well worth it!

My Rating: 5/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 75%

The Italian Job (2003)

Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenplay: Donna Powers and Wayne Powers (remake of the 1969 film of the same name; based on the book by Troy Kennedy Martin)
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Donald Sutherland
Music: John Powell
Time: 110 minutes
Bottom-line: Nothing special; just another caper film

Gary Gray’s 2003 action heist film comes with a good lot of action sequences and some interesting heist methods, but I guess after watching so many other such films, The Italian Job is "just another addition" to that list. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Edward Norton, Donald Sutherland, Mos Def and Seth Green.

Wahlberg as Charlie and Theron as
Stella

Venice: John Bridger (Sutherland), a professional safecracker, organises a heist to steal 35 million dollars worth gold bullion from Italian gangsters. His team includes Charlie Croker (Wahlberg), “Handsome” Rob (Statham), Napster (Green), Left Ear (Def) and Steve (Norton). The team heads towards the Alps, where the members plan on what they will use the gold for. But soon, Steve turns the tables around when he “makes a few plans of his own”, as he and his men intercept the truck, take the gold and kill John Bridger. A year later, the Charlie’s team joins hands with Bridger’s daughter Stella (Theron), a vault technician, who is determined to take revenge on Steve for murdering her father. Whether or not the team is successful is what the film is about.

Mos Def as Left Ear (left)
and Statham as Rob

The film brings together an interesting cast, but the acting wasn’t significant, except for the performance of Edward Norton. Barring few exceptions like Ocean’s Eleven, most heist films just require the actors to do “something technical” that looks cool to the viewers, mostly because they cannot understand anything the actors are doing! Here too pretty much the same thing happens – the part we do understand is when the crew members just drive around in Mini Coopers! Only Norton is impressive by playing the manipulative antagonist, and he continues to be an excellent, versatile actor. His best line is when he casually says, “I liked what you said. I'll take one of each of yours” (when they plan on how to spend the money), and then goes on to actually do it.

Sutherland as John Bridger

Till the scene where Steve double-crosses the gang, The Italian Job is a caper film; beyond that it is pretty much a revenge film. We see how Crocker gather resources and hatch plans to spy on Steve and eventually snatch the gold back from him. It looks odd because usually revenge tales consist of one or two heroes battling against a bunch of villains but here it is the exact opposite. So the expected level of suspense or thrill is not there; beyond a point it becomes obvious that Steve is going to lose, so I was expecting at least some excitement or twist despite the obvious victory.

Seth Green as Napster

The action sequences are as usual, highly ridiculous, but refreshingly entertaining. The boat chase through the canals of Venice and the car-chopper chase on the streets of LA are superbly filmed, by cinematographer Wally Pfister (who later became much more popular after collaborating with Christopher Nolan). I liked the few bits of humour the actors throw in too; they didn’t seem out of place but rather merged well with the situation. That said, if you want a good heist film I’d still recommend Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, but if you must watch The Italian Job, Norton’s splendid acting is something to look out for, even if nothing else seems to match your expectations.

Norton as Steve

My Rating: 2.5/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 73%  

NH 10 (2015)

Director: Navdeep Singh
Story: Sudip Sharma
Cast: Anushka Sharma, Neil Bhoopalam
Music: Anirban Chakraborty, Sanjeev-Darshan, Ayush Shrestha, Savera Mehta, Samira Koppikar
Time: 107 minutes
Bottom-line: Best seen on an empty stomach 

The tagline of the film reads “No turning back” whereas the correct one should have been “No turning away from the screen, except when the violence is too much to bear” and that is basically throughout the film. Anushka Sharma and Neil Bhoopalam star in this road movie / action thriller, which is arguably one of the most violent Indian films of the decade.

Meera (Sharma) and her husband Arjun (Bhoopalam) plan a road trip on NH 10 (Delhi to Fazilka). They leave the next day and en route, when they stop at a Dhaba, a young girl pleads Meera to protect her, saying that few men are going to kill her. Though Meera ignores her, she and Arjun witness a gang of men beat up the girl and a boy, and forcibly drag them in an SUV. As the couple follow the gang, they witness a brutal honour killing. When the men discover that they are not alone, they start to give pursuit. It only becomes a matter of time before Meera and Arjun realise that their journey turns out to be life-changing, and probably even suicidal...

NH 10, along with pk, is a film where Anushka Sharma really deserves praise for her acting. This film is more or less a one-woman show, but for the violence. Throughout the second half, the story explores how one woman picks up courage against all odds, how she fights back against a gang of men bent on killing her and her husband. The film gives her a chance to showcase everything she’s got –anger, shock and desperation. Alongside her is Neil Bhoopalam who tries his best to show barely any emotion throughout the film, but it is probably because of this that Sharma’s acting seems all the more laudable.

Anushka Sharma as Meera
and Neil Bhoopalam as Arjun

The story makes few things clear: one, when your wife tells you not to poke your nose into mischief, you will do well to listen to her; two, if you have a gun, then it automatically triggers something in your mind that gives you immense bravery to go after a gang who clearly have murderous intentions; three, honour killing is the last thing you should complain about; any other crime is fine. So with these main ideas setting the foundation, the violence builds the rest. Though I didn’t get a good quality print of the film to watch, now I feel that it was a good decision not to; it saved my eyes from a ton of gore and bloodshed.

Despite the crooked storyline, I liked the way it was presented on screen. With such a screenplay, this is probably the best way to make it into a movie. The suspense is maintained well, and for a 107-minute-long film, NH 10 gives more than the expected amount of thrill, assuming you are okay with the gore. Nevertheless, to watch Anushka Sharma give it her all to portray the lone warrior was a delight. The film is not a pleasant watch, but it is one you will never forget.

My Rating: 3/5