Let me clarify: “Contraband”, the new money smuggling drama, now playing across Pakistan, is about illegally sneaking huge stacks of counterfeit money from Panama to America, via a big cargo ship (captained by J.K. Simmons). It has two things going for it: Mark Wahlberg, as Chris Farraday the caperer who’s compared to Harry Houdini, and a desperate trailer campaign that relied on stuffing a sizable helping of story-beats into its advertisement. It, of course, won’t help in ticket sales, because the trailer gave “Contraband” the looks of a derivative thriller. Let me tell you one fact I’ve been stressing for quite a while: do not believe the trailers.

“Contraband” is a taught action drama based on the Icelandic film “Reykjavik-Rotterdam”, directed by its lead actor Baltasar Kormakur; and unlike “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, which kept the original locations when adapting, “Contraband” shifts its geography from Reykjavik and Rotterdam into New Orleans (the state of Louisiana has a good deal of production incentives) and Panama (again, New Orleans, this time in disguise playing Panama).

You know how it goes in movies: a botched smuggling job by Farraday’s inexperienced brother-in-law (Caleb Landry Jones) sucks Farraday back into the biz; and no matter what he insists on, an unbending grin and the sparkle in his eyes, betrays his initial frustration of running this job. The grin, of course, fades away when ““Contraband”” starts whipping left, right and center in the film’s edgy second and third acts, introducing low-key, time-banded conflicts that may at time evoke a solid feel of existentialism to its characters – especially Farraday, Sebastian (Ben Foster) and Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi).

Contraband’s first fifteen minutes were flat–limp, as they introduced former mooncurser, now legit home security expert, Farraday and co. at a wedding reception. A stifled yawn later the screenplay by Arnaldur Indridason and Oskar Jonasson, fast-tracked straight into the caper bit, stringing up elements into a realistic short-form thriller with Wahlberg’s Farraday as its chief engine and Foster and Ribisi as fossil fuel.

Farraday’s choice of illegally imported goods is counterfeit money – as a family man, married (to Kate Beckinsale, playing Kate Farraday) – he has a personal policy against drugs. Foster, Farraday’s brother-like-friend, becomes an impromptu guardian of Kate and children in case Briggs tries to rough-house – which, being the jittery greased gangster he is, he does. There’s a level of destructiveness to both Sebastian and Briggs, which amplifies, sometimes with irrational and plain silly decision-making during the film’s mid-point, when Farraday leaves the ship to fetch the “funny money”.

Despite the slight dip, director Baltasar Kormakur’s indulgence in gritty atmosphere (mostly industrial in landscape and production design), zipping telephoto zooms, stark cuts and clearly manifesting film-grain brings a mature, almost welcoming authenticity to “Contraband”, that’s only heightened by the cast’s universally effective, pacified performance.

“Contraband” may not be as loftily pop-corny as “Pirates of the Caribbean” (again, I don’t understand the comparison), but it is robust in its simplicity. Like so many thrillers focusing on caperers, it features people who are actually happy on their job; never mind the fact that they’re hoodwinking the government.

Released by Universal and Footprint Entertainment. The film is rated “A”. There’s paced up drama, physical violence and a stack load of “funny money”.

The Dawn.com version is at: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/17/movie-review-contraband.html

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (original Swedish title “Men Who Hate Women”) adapts the first book of Stieg Larsson’s hit book series, the Millennium trilogy, all of which have been made into Swedish movies.

The plot opens with Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) both starting out separately, facing their individual struggles.

Mikael, a reporter at a magazine named Millennium, has lost a libel suit for false reporting against a big financial mogul Wennerström (Ulf Friberg). Tainted professionally and financially, he accepts the job of writing memoires of Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the retired head of Vanger Empire in order to get discriminating information on Wennerström. However in reality Mikael is hired to unearth the mystery of his niece’s disappearance from their small island residence, decades ago. It is believed, by Henrik’s eccentric family – which includes a subdued Stellan Saarsgrad, playing the CEO of Vanger Empire – that she was killed in cold blood.

While that is established, we get glimpses of Lisbeth’s life. First we’re introduced to her as a tech savvy investigator, who is hired to check Mikael’s background before he was approached by Henrik’s lawyer, Frode (Steven Berkoff). Then, she is revealed as a disturbed girl who is still the ward of the state because of her mental instability.

Lisabeth is a complex character who doesn’t say much. Striving for the state’s money to survive, she’s sexually abused by her new guardian/lawyer – an act we’re led to believe, she has a history of.

Lisbeth and Mikael’s paths arch after a good half of the movie has passed and characters are fully established, thanks to a strong screenplay by Steven Zillian (Gladiator, Moneyball) – a writer, who of late doesn’t seem able to do anything wrong. The same can be said for the edgy score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Directed with craftiness that comes from making top notch thrillers like Se7en and Zodiac, David Fincher has the uncanny talent of laying out the terror and debauchery of violence in his movies – which he unflinchingly amplifies in the “Dragon Tattoo”. Make no mistake, the film is strictly rated R.

Rooney Mara is a powerhouse as Lisbeth. Her anorexic state, paleness, harshly cut ink black Mohawk and countless piercing bemoans anguish. Daniel Craig, playing a subdued detective, effectively carries the role – almost making me forget he is the reintroduced James Bond of our times. In one scene, he almost cries, as Lisbeth stiches a gash on his forehead.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is an intelligently crafted thriller that knows how to pace itself in its overly long running time of 158 minutes, without falling into cliché, mediocrity or absurdity.

The film is rated R for strong sexual content, gruesome torture and flashes of unrelenting violence.

Published version is at: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/15/animadversion-goth-girl.html

One look at her and you’ll know that Mavis is a spiteful, pitiless creature, who is perpetually stuck between nostalgia and an unbending adherence to her own self-importance. A prom-queen (which we later learn she was), whose princess complex never left. She is cruel, unsentimental and a borderline alcoholic, perfected in earnest imperfection by the triumphant writing of Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman (the duo, whose previous credit was “Juno”).

We begin at her frowzy apartment in Minneapolis, one which she shares with a little dog and a television set. She’s on a deadline to finish the last of the series of novels, brought down by bad sales. And so, we see her sopping up scrupulous amount of Coke (as if water never existed), jotting down half-hearted paragraphs, and picking up hip slangs from teens working at department stores – which I am sure happens, in some manner or form, to all fiction writers trying to spark up concentration.

Mavis’ distraction isn’t simply a case of writer’s block. Her disarrayed existence is wounded because ex-beau (Patrick Wilson), living in the suburban town of Mercury, just had a baby; and now she wants him back – or at the very least liberate him from the shackles of homebound life, a facet he himself doesn’t realize, because it simply does not exist.

Theron powers up a natural multi-layered, Oscar worthy presence during the film’s magnetic 90 minute running time (in fact, I don’t even remember any scene not featuring her), and she’s given brilliant support by Patton Oswalt’s Matt – a geeky reminder of high-school violence, who works as the bookkeeper at a local bar. He also home-distills alcohol and makes custom action figures.

When they first meet, Mavis vaguely remembers him from high-school, like everyone else at Mercury, he’s at home here. Cody’s screenplay pairs them up – with reservations: Mavis tells him her plan. But this isn’t a rom-com, and Matt isn’t as much a romantic pit-stop as a small bump in the road, a facet Mavis shockingly makes clear at the film’s climax.

Shot in 30 days with a miniscule budget of $12 million, the low-key drama may feel like a rough first draft, which fixates on Mavis’ personal delusions, and ultimately her humiliation. A detached look and some pondering reveal otherwise. If “Young Adult” sounds like a run-on-the-mill multiplex fare, then banish the thought! It is Sundance all the way.

Released by Paramount. “Young Adult” is rated R for stark, biting humor and nudity.

The published version is: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/15/adult-though-not-so-much.html

This post is the updated copy of the review published on Dawn.com, 10th January 2012. The published version, is linked at the end of the post.

Mini-Coopers, Jet Turbines (on Refurbished Trains) and Unadjusted Gold

By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid

With its poster flickering in bronze and the tag-line, “Players, go for gold”, there’s actually very little left for the imagination. And that’s before we add Mini-Coopers in the mix.

“Players”, playing in screens across Pakistan, is an ineluctable mess staring Abhishek Bachchan, a safe full of gold and three mini-coopers zipping across subway tunnels. If this shapes the mental image of “The Italian Job” (2003), then you’re not far off. “Players” is an official remake, meaning it has full authorization to make like an outdated photocopy machine and vitiate familiar elements into an insipid, pedestrian heist movie.

Almost every tactic “Players” introduces in its 150 minute running time has seen better imaginings. Abhishek Bachchan (playing Charlie), adds personal zest and a smooth-criminal like charisma to the Abbas-Mustan directed thriller. However, one actor’s allure can only tow a film so far.

The barebones plot goes like this: Aftab Shivdasani (effective in his small cameo), after dying in the first few minutes, sends Charlie info that will have him assemble a team capable of looting a speeding train filled with unaccounted gold from the Second World War.

Charlie’s roll-call includes: Bobby Deol (meritoriously playing a reserved illusionist with a paralyzed daughter), Neil Nitin Mukesh (the token geek hacker), Bipasha Basu (a sultry double-dealing cat-burglar), Omi Vaidya (a failed actor turned prosthetic expert), his love-hate buddy Sikander Kher (playing a deaf-Pakistani named Bilal – the weapons expert) and Sonam Kapoor – the computer wiz daughter of Vinod Khanna, Charlie’s mentor.

By the film’s mid-point the group is betrayed of their gold and gunned down. From then onwards, Charlie and his remaining team try to outwit their betrayer from the stolen gold (no points for guessing the turncoat’s identity, by the way). Also on the gold’s trail is the Russian mafia, whose threat is absent for roughly 90 percent of the movie.

The principal cast tries its best to work the screenplay by Rohit Jugraj and Sudip Sharma, which has all the qualities of a spice-less Bollywood masala.

Even the heists – the principal USP’s of the movie – are laughably ludicrous. In one scene, Charlie and co. rig a rusty train with big cheesy striped turbines – that look like it came from the set of Thunderbirds – to turbo-boost its speed and catch up with the gold train. When the boosters ignited, thrusting the engine forward, I wondered when the train, barely keeping itself on tracks, would derail into the snow – as this is Bollywood, it never does.

As “Players”, sluggishly tugs forward, one realizes that it is laden with shallow, inexpertly hewn dialogues. Scenes often introduce glimpses of superficially drafted backstories that are hard-pressed between unappealing, flavorless songs (music credited to Pritam with lyrics by Ashish Pandit). It would have been a better gambit if the filmmakers had concentrated on a fresher, more contemporary storyline.

Now that Bollywood is officially creeping up Hollywood’s alley with extravagant budgets (“Players” is budgeted at $8.5 Million) and slick production values (the film’s producers should thanks the technically apt cinematography by Ravi Yadav), it’s about time old-school formula filmmakers re-learned their craft. From the first grade.

As the auteurs of this movie Abbas-Mustan are successful in crafting a flashy, ill-chosen mess, that’s right down there with the Vivek Oberoi’ starrer “Prince” and that’s saying something.

Published, 10^th January 2012 at: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/10/movie-review-players.html

This post is the unedited copy of review published in our column “Animadversion”, Images on Sunday (Dawn Newspaper), on 8th January 2012. The published link, and the hardcopy edition, is at the end of this post.

Scorsese, Dickensian in a 3D World

By Farheen Jawaid

Hugo, a first venture for Martin Scorsese in the land of 3D is also his first family fare. But it turns out to be more than just those two things – especially when it turns out to be about what he loves the most: the film industry. Even with all of its shortcoming and sluggishness, you can’t help but get embraced by it.

Hugo starts in a beautiful 3D shot sweeping shot over early 1900 Paris and closes in on a grand train station. With haste and fervor the camera goes through the station midst curling smoke and people, resting focus on a large clock, where we see a child’s face looking into an adult’s world. That boy is our protagonist Hugo. He’s a Dickensian soul in an abstract world.

Hugo is an orphaned boy stuck in the train station as the caretaker of clocks. His uncle, who disappears early in film, was the original clock-keeper who took him in after the death of his father (Jude Law). So Hugo takes care of the clocks, feeds on tidbits from tables, while secreting himself from Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen) – the local cop who routinely nabs orphans and ships them off to orphanages.

Hugo also has an ulterior motive: to collect items to fix the Automaton his father was working on. His search for parts leads him to a toyshop and its owner Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley shining in a very sublime performance), and his goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz).

The original picture book/graphic novel “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” by Brian Selznick, which Hugo is adapted from, weaves a tale custom-made for Scorsese. It combines his love for cinema and his pet project of saving old films. After a disconnecting first half, the second half of the movie engrosses itself with Georges Melies, and that’s when it comes into its own self.

Scripted by John Logan, Melies story is kept closely with the book. A lot of Melies’ facts are preserved: as a silent movies genius, Melies was the pioneer of stop motion and fade-techniques in film; he did a run a toyshop after he was bankrupt; his film reels were burned and made into shoe heels, and he too tried his hand in Automaton.

Scorsese’s love with film history doesn’t end there. He even shows old film history in all its 3D glory, especially the Lumière brothers “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” (1896), and George Melies “A Trip to the Moon” (1902); As if still under magic, Scorsese takes us in tow with Melies as he’s filming the imaginative with simple old-school techniques.

Hugo works in turn-around. The first half, focusing on a stowaway boy scrambling to uncover the secrets of the Automation, is weary of wonderment (even though, Scorsese milks 3D for all its perspective-shifting worth); However, the second half more than makes up for it. One actually feel’s Scorsese’s giddy school-boy like joy spreading like wildfire in the film.

The published version is at:

The unedited, correction appended, review of this post was published 8th January 2012, in Images on Sunday (Dawn Newspaper), under our film review column “Animadversion”.  An online link is at the end of the post.

A Game, Preposterously Bombastic

By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is as subtle as a vision of an angry flaming phoenix riding the wave of Armageddon. It is chaos, blitzed and revved up by adrenaline. Depending on whether you’re into relishing salubrious amount of big-screen apocalypse, regardless of its state or respect to its origins, then this grossly reimagined Holmes for the 21^st century audience is for you. Maybe.

One thing though, “Game of Shadows”, again directed by the overly kinetic Guy Ritchie, definitely believes in enunciating its subject – Anarchism. James Moriarty (Jared Harris), Sherlock Holmes one-true villain, introduced as a shadowy figure in the last Holmes, is a benefactor for global war. It takes Holmes about an hour – and a series of action sequences that are a mind-numbing attack on the senses – to clue that Moriarty has been secretly industrializing and rationing weapons. He plans to make a killing, in the literal sense of the world.

So much happens, so soon, that it may be a good idea to have an aspirin or two nearby when watching.

I, quite frankly, love big, meaty, chaotic blockbusters if they are shrewdly made, and “Game of Shadows” is nothing if not shrewd. Guy Ritchie really knows how to handle Judgment Day. Bullets, bombs and haymakers barrage the screen without as much as a breather for more than 50% of the film. The remaining 50% continues fostering Holmes and Watson’s bro-mance.

Robert Downey Jr., playing Holmes, is even more crazy-eccentric than last time, and his anarchic haphazard nature has rubbed off on Jude Law’s Watson. Their relationship has progressed into an embrangled 30-year marriage. The ones where spouses can’t stand the sight of each other yet will stand firm in adversities.

Like a hard-headed refused woman (Downey Jr. milks this part dry), Holmes finds time to ruin Watson’s bachelor party and honeymoon – of course, there’s always an ulterior motive woven into the screenplay; Still sometimes (read: mostly), Holmes actions come out as premeditated spite. Every obstacle that Holmes drags an involuntary Watson into has a connected action set-piece.

And are they woozy!

For instance: in one of the films many sped-up/slow-motion sequences that give us insight on his deduction skills, Holmes tells Watson to wait for the perfect moment when a singular bullet would jam the firing mechanism of a Gatling gun, laying waste to the train compartment they’re riding. Watson can then take out the assaulter with a single shot from three compartments away. Holmes calculation is so precision-timed that he actually counts down seconds before the guns’ mechanism actually jams. Meanwhile their cubicle is steadily torn down with massive, deafening gunfire.

The preposterousness is sensational, because Holmes computation of time and elements works without fail. He has little regard for unknown forces jumping his plan, and this act quite simply fractures the fragile sensibility of logic. Once upon a time, I saw a cartoon where one of the characters actually reads a copy of the script and foul-plays the villain by the end of the episode. Holmes may have a copy of the script stuffed in his clothes someplace.

Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Noomi Rapace, Jared Harris, Stephen Fry (as Holmes also-eccentric older brother), Kelly Reilly and Rachel McAdams. Produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin; Written by: Kieran Mulroney, Michele Mulroney, based on the characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Released by Warner Bros. “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is rated PG-13. There’s enough mayhem here to curb one’s enthusiasm for Holmes, until the third part releases two years down the line.

The published version online is:

http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/08/animadversion-a-bombastic-game.html

The review looks like this on paper:

The following review was published at Dawn.com on 2nd January 2012. This post is an unedited version.

Fill Me Up Mate! – ET’s Terrorize During a Quick Stop-Over.

By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid

“The Darkest Hour” is the new conservatively-designed alien invasion flick featuring a lot of places to hide: basements, glass-panels, under cars, frequency-padded apartments. You see, the world is besieged by invading aliens who look like decapitated, floating heads with tentacles that prove Stephen Hawking’s theory right – they’re scavengers doing a quick stopover for an energy refill.

Unlike regular Hollywood features, we’re stranded in Moscow – a reason, I suppose to do with producer Timur Bekmambetov (director “Wanted”) and the budgetary cost-effectiveness for foreign films produced in Russia.

We focus on a set of lonesome foursome internationals (Emile Hirsh, Max Minghella, Rachel Taylor and Olivia Thrilby) that meet in a bar and then experience the awesome: strange flickering specs of energy glide down in wholesale quantities over Moscow, sucking up the city’s supply of electricity.

The flickering specs then land, disappear into thin air, and start to de-particle the city’s population. The four and a conniving entrepreneur Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) hide inside a supply room for four days and finally muster courage to surface into a people-less, smashed-up Russia – courtesy of adequately placed CGI work.

Director Chris Gorak (previously an Art-Director, who debuted with “Right at Your Door”), decides to stay away from the reason of the unseen alien’s attack, which, if we’re to guess (as the film’s leads do by the climax), is cultivation of Earth’s natural resources – a theme milked in almost all recent alien-attack movies (Battle: Los Angeles, Skyline). Resources the cast is inept at exploiting to their advantage.

There’s also little room for backstories, the most center-stage of which is Emile Hirsh and Max Minghella’s – their website idea was swindled by Skyler because they did not sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. The girls have even less of a background to mull over, not that they’ll need it.

“The Darkest Hour” has enough fodder to fuel a direct-to-dvd franchise for years, a pre-indication of the film’s true potential. It also looks and moves more as a videogame, than a feature film. But that, as arresting as it sounds, is a plus point.

Most of the 83 minute running-time runs like a series of missions of a next-gen Playstation title, with difficulty level set to easy. Dash, slink, jump, hide, find supplies, gain additional forces (eccentric engineer-cum-inventor Dato Bakhtadze, parentless teen scavenger Veronika Vernadskaya, and Gosha Kutsenko, who leads a rag-tag group of commandoes on an armored horse) and finally outfox and kill the invisible enemy with a wave-emitting “shock-gun”. A game version, perchance featuring the same plot-points as the film, is out right now.

Despite what the title insinuates, I am sure its producer did not mean it as a campaign against K.E.S.C.

Released by Summit, 20^th Century Fox and Mandviwalla Entertainment, “The Darkest Hour” is rated PG-13. The film is currently playing in Pakistani cinemas.

Mohammad Kamran Jawaid is the resident film critic at Images on Sunday, who writes an exclusive Second Opinion based film review column “Animadversion”.

Dawn.com version is at: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/02/movie-review-the-darkest-hour.html

This post is the unedited version of the review published in our column “Animadversion”, iMAGES on Sunday (Dawn Newspaper), on Sunday January 1st 2012. The link to paper-published edit is at the end of this post.

Your Mission, For the Fourth-time…Should You Choose to Accept?

By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid

Believe you me: the Burj Al-Khaleefa scene will knock your socks off! I am not exaggerating, I am telling.

It goes down like this: Ethan Hunt – Tom Cruise, believable, sincere and aptly wearing beaten down look – has to disable the security system at the Burj, and to do this he has to scale the world’s tallest building. From the outside. With a set of malfunctioning adhesive gloves. And so, the vertigo inducing high-concept sequence, perhaps the key element of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’s marketing campaign, becomes a dizzying pulse-throbbing adventure by itself.

But is one scene really enough to put the movie into the list of one of the most entertaining – and as far as I am concerned, one of the best – films of 2011. Well, no, and that is precisely why Ghost Protocol is custom-built around the idea that more is better. And boy, how that idea works.

Within minutes of opening, Ethan Hunt is reclaimed from a prison in Berlin – the reason we’ll get to know later – and is flung headfirst into a series of superficially conceived globe-trotting missions. His back-up is a hampered party of two: Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) – the returning tech-geek from Mission: Impossible III, now graduated into field work. A little later, the troupe adds William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), the bedeviled intelligence analyst who snatches pistols almost as fast as Ethan, and maybe twice as appealing.

Renner, who was a deviation in the trailer campaign as an agent who may or may not take over the franchise from Cruise is just that – a deviation. Mission: Impossible has always been about Cruise – as Ethan often on the run, as a Producer always employing the crème de la crème in direction – and five years down the line, Ghost Protocol helmed by Pixar alumni Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille and WB’s Iron Giant) is the perfect conduit for his re-introduction.

Think of Ghost Protocol as 101 in spectacle-making: strip the team off resources, brand them rogues, wind up the key and let the acceleration do the talking. In blockbusters there’s always too much to do in an insanely constricted time slot. Here, the kinetic exhilaration turns global – another M:I staple – between Russia, where the IMF (Impossible Mission Force, the employers of Ethan and Co.) is disowned by the U.S. government after the Kremlin is bombed, Dubai and Mumbai (a wasted stop by the way), before a Nuclear terrorist strike machinated by Russian extremist Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) takes flight to blows away a U.S. city.

While the plot is one-dimensional the framework is extraordinarily acute. Departing from the norm, the gadgets – a regular flock of Deus Ex Machina in any spy-thriller – fail routinely (read: to amplify drama), entrapping the team in adverse Catch-22 scenarios. By the Mumbai endgame (post the small detour over an over-cocky Anil Kapoor who plays a lusty playboy magnate) at the automated car park, Ghost Protocol drains up its bolster.

Still, the run up to it is fantabulous, thanks to the mild-mannered ingenious of Bird and writers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec (TV’s “Alias”) who shove one big intelligently conceived set-piece in front of the other – the Burj scaling, the GPRS-tracking through the sandstorm, the Kremlin heist, the data-excavation by Renner – and there’s still ample leeway for the characters to create a semblance of humanity.

Unlike Mission: Impossible III, which shifted its weight exclusively on Ethan’s love-life, Ghost Protocol splits its emotional immensity three-ways between Ethan, Jane and Brandt (Ethan’s wife is dead, Jane loses her IMF-agent beau at the beginning, and Brandt opens up an unexpected twist). Their shared woes are a winning facet, and it detracts from the singularity of Cruise’s star power – which has dwindled considerably by an unnecessary evil of the press. By itself, Ghost Protocol is more than capable of re-jolting Cruise’s career. I am just waiting to see what the box-office receipts are.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is rated PG-13. Bombs, bullets, deaths, time-constrains, plus a lot of emotional excess baggage.

Second Opinion

By Farheen Jawaid

The biggest star in the world, Tom Cruise, has been getting a little down time in popularity recently because of some personal and career misadventures. Now, nearing 50 years in age, Cruise returns with his top – and only – event franchise Mission: Impossible, which like its star, had its ups and downs. With Ghost Protocol – the fourth in the series – he quite literally blows the cobwebs out of the M:I series!

In a race to appeal to the tweeting generation Cruise runs harder, becomes ripped with muscle and loses his trademark smile (until the end of the movie, that is). For him it’s more important to make this work and earn big than Ethan Hunt saving the world. Alas, it’s not that easy for either of them anymore. But nonetheless, despite the obstacles, Cruise makes it work – for both him and Hunt.

Brad Bird the wonder-maker of animated spectacles Iron Giant, and Pixar heavy-earners The Incredibles and Ratatouille, has a knack for action, and with Ghost Protocol – his first live action movie – he does it with no less craftiness or velocity.

Bird keeps the action close to his characters and it never feels impersonal or uninteresting. At times it gets too breathtaking to sit still, especially with Cruise climbing the Burj Al–Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, with a set of gloves that are an instant spider-man maker (without the radioactive spider). As Cruise jumps across the building at the end of the scene, the hype surrounding the event lives up to its 100%.

Bird again shows intelligence with his action, which isn’t always loud. He knows when to let it go silent and let the elements speak for themselves, as in the Burj climbing scene and following the chase through Dubai amidst a sandstorm.

Written by the duo team of Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (graduates of J.J Abrams’ Alias, the director of M:I III, who is producing Ghost Protocol with Cruise), the screenplay maintains a semblance of light heartedness amid the world ending scenario. There are breathers from the smart mouthing banter of Simon Pegg (who is also the film’s go-to tech guy, replacing series regular Ving Rhames) and a few thankful tie-ins with M:I III – something that has never been done in the franchise. Ghost Protocol also has fine support from Jeremy Renner, whose star-like charm pulls off Brandt, and Paula Patton, reluctantly gets to seduce Anil Kapoor in a funny cameo.

It’s not going to get accolades for its genius in story, but it gets things rolling for Cruise and the MI franchise — big time. Ghost Protocol is a visual stunner and a sure fire entertainer.

Published link is:

http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/01/animadversion-your-mission-should-you-choose-to-accept-it.html

On Paper, our review looks like this:

The following review was published online at Dawn.com, 28th December 2011. The published version is linked at the end of the post. This is an updated copy.

A Villain, Sometimes Hero-like, But Always Nefarious

By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid

“Don Ko Pakadna Mushkil Hi Nahin, Na-Mumkin Hai”. Despite its obvious hyperbole, trust me, substantiating the claim takes a really, really long time.

“Don 2”, staring Shah Rukh Khan, directed and written by Farhan Akhtar (in association with Ameet Mehta and Amrish Shah), believes itself a slick, twisting thriller from the villain’s vantage point. In earnest, its template is a counterfeit mixture of successful recipes: Mix the bombast of “James Bond” within a covering of “Mission: Impossible”, add a dash of the “Bourne Identity”, bake until climax. Sprinkle a helping of double-deception to taste.

The double-deception, a continuing fixation from the first “Don”, by itself is pretty neat. And sometimes, the mix-plate recipe actually works, regardless of its proclivity to aggrandize the obvious; but not in the sense of regular Bollywood bastardizations.

Farhan Akhtar has the right idea: create a franchise on an untreatable villain (his villainy, is after all, a bad habit turned disease). Take him away from India. Have him fabricate an improbable, though not impossible premise. And then, let it rip.

“Don 2” starts with an action sequence, five years after “Don”. Don is a big commodity in Asia, and like every successful merchant, he wants to expand his enterprise overseas – Europe to be precise. As this requires creating a little headway in the already overcrowded European underworld market – and frankly, what underworld magnate would want rivals to infiltrate his domain – the cartels huddle together with an agenda to “do (Don) in”.

The set-up is relatively easy, and SRK – donning stylized, uncombed hair, 10-day facial hair and a big “D” tattooed on his right arm – takes out his welcoming committee with relative ease and lackluster pizazz. He then turns himself in at the gate of Interpol HQ, to a flabbergasted Inspector Malik and Roma (Om Puri and Priyanka Chopra – one idle, the other abstemious; both a little blank).

Malik is on the verge of retirement, and Roma, Don’s “Junglee Billi” from the first movie, may be the next in line for promotion. We don’t really know if that promotion happens or not, because both Roma and Malik are put on the backburner. They are treated as a futile hyperlink for narrative consistency. Roma, although becomes the long arm of the law, is always a step behind “Don”. There’s always a heavy burdened expression that she does not really believe that “Don” has turned a new leaf. But that’s ok. We don’t believe him either.

Don meets up Vardhan (Boman Irani, as effective as he is told to be) at a Malaysian prison, they escape, hire a crack-shot hacker (Kunal Kapoor) and plot to steal the printing plates from a Euro printing bank.

SRK is Don, in the literal sense of the word. There’s a subdued cockiness to his attitude, that’s bordering on lunacy. To see SRK barely missing the fine-line between overacting and subdued madness is worth the price of admission alone. And on top of that he fights with the ferocity – and technique – of a trained spy, rather than a Bollywood hero. There’s a method to his madness, that’s only belittled by Farhan Akhtar’s overtly-relaxed prose.

There’s also Lara Dutta…in there somewhere, with little to do except look sumptuous with a knowing look that says “I know what’s happening”. In reality she is perhaps as lost as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s musical numbers.

Produced by Red Chilies Entertainment and Excel Entertainment. Released by Reliance. Imported by Tehelka.

“Don 2” stars: Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Boman Irani, Kunal Kapoor, Aly Khan, Nawab Shah, Sahil Shroff, Florian Lukas, Lara Dutta and Om Puri, with Hrithik Roshan (in special appearance).

Based on the characters created by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Written by, Farhan Akhtar, Ameet Mehta and Amrish Shah; Cinematography by, Jason West; Editing by, Anand Subaya, Ritesh Soni; Music by, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Lyrics by, Javed Akhtar; Produced by, Shah Rukh Khan, Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani.

“Don 2” may be the next big international, Bollywood franchise. But to head-butt, say “Mission: Impossible”, it still has a lot of ground to cover.

Mohammad Kamran Jawaid (MKJ) is the resident film critic at Images on Sunday, with an exclusive Second Opinion based film review column “Animadversion”

The review was published on Dawn.com at: http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/28/movie-review-don-2.html

Published date: 28 December 2011

The conversation below was incorporated, in part, within the review of “Son of Pakistan”, now up at Dawn.com

“Good Pakistani Movies” on the Back-Burner

By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid

It was sheer dumb luck I stumbled on to Karachi’s press-screening of “Son of Pakistan” at Nishat Cinema, on the 16^th of December. There was no spectacle. No flashy lights. No traffic jams. No prior press invitations or media kits. And although only the balcony was hired for the press by the film’s producers that day (a fact I learned much later), the actual number of audience turnout was distressing.

“Son of Pakistan” is an overexcited flag-waving action spectacle staring a number of actors including Babar Ali, Meera, each with their own under-explored story-threads. Its marketing campaign must have been in whispers.

My first glimpse of Jarrar Rizvi, the director, was a few minutes before the movie started. He was talking to a television crew with the fervor of a man wronged. His dilemma is a shared grief of all Pakistani-filmmakers. There’s way too much Indian content on Pakistani screens. The next time I saw Rizvi was behind bars, on the big-screen. He had written-in himself as an embodiment of Pakistan’s soul (an overtly philosophical one at that), who spends time chalking up morals on prison walls.

I called Rizvi the next day, and that was when I heard his grief start all over again. “It’s the Indian films”, he said. “I am not saying they shouldn’t be imported; it’s just that their frequency should be brought down to just one movie a month”. “Bollywood movies are hurting our industry”, he emphasized later – several times. “There are just no screens for our movies”.

Rizvi’s argument is well founded on some extent. I have asked the same question to distributors several times in the past. And the reply was always: “the film has to have a big budget (typically 30-40 million)”, there should be “well-known stars” in the movie – and above all the movie “should be a commercial enterprise”.

“Son of Pakistan” is a snug fit to the industry’s stringent requirements. The film is over 35 million in budget (Mr. Rizvi provided an approximate budget rather than an accurate one); it has loud action sequences, louder dialogue delivery, meretricious song-and-dance numbers and more leading stars than fireworks on the fourth of July (I am, of course, exaggerating). The film is also – shockingly – family friendly; give or take a song choreography or three.

“Son of Pakistan is in release all over”, he said, “in over 17 screens across Pakistan”. Even digital cinemas I asked. “Absolutely”, he replied. A quick look at Cinepax, Universe Cineplex and Atrium’s website revealed no such commitment; although there was one, one-line update at Atrium’s website confirming that “Son of Pakistan (is) – Releasing Friday, 16^th December 2011”.

“If there was one thing you should write”, Mr. Rizvi stressed on the phone, “write that crappy Indian movies are always a priority, while good, family friendly, Pakistani movies suffer”.

The review is linked at:  http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/23/movie-review-son-of-pakistan.html