One flew over the Cuckoo's nest - Movie Review

Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy is probably the earliest memory I have of him as an actor. Him with his black woolen cap playing basketball with the Chief (played wonderfully by Will Sampson) is probably the only thing I remembered about this movie which I had probably seen first when I was around 12 yrs old or so. I didn’t quite remember either the rest of the movie or worry about how I was watching one of the best movies of all time back then, but then the second coming of “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” in my life pretty much cleared all the hype and hoopla surrounding the movie and I understood why it is rated so high up there in almost every list of all-time great movies.


McMurphy is a criminal serving a sentence for rape and is transferred to a mental institution (where the rest of the story plays out). The whole transfer is just a ploy by him to avoid hard labor and serve out the rest of his time relaxing and fooling around. Although his anti-authoritarian mindset doesn’t help his cause at the hospital. The ward is run by a calm but unyielding Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher, who didn’t need too many words to convey the contours of her character in this movie). Nurse Ratched uses a variety of methods including group therapy sessions, unpleasant medicines and a strict daily regimen to keep the patients under check and calm.


When McMurphy is introduced to the mix, he notices that most of the inmates are reasonably unfriendly and are highly institutionalized in their lives which have no place for an outsider or a new friend. He kills time playing cards with some of the inmates, and trying to bait Nurse Ratched to amuse himself. The Nurse amuses him for a while but increasingly stifles her control levels over him to assert her authority over the ward.


Slowly McMurphy becomes friends with the mute Chief who in turn reveals to McMurphy that he is not in fact mute at all, but is playing the role just to keep the Nurse and the other inmates off his case. The Chief does so also because he is as distasteful of the hospital establishment as McMurphy is, but wants to deflect unnecessary attention off himself completely opposite to what McMurphy was currently doing.


McMurphy, meanwhile couldn’t control himself from making the most of his relaxed lifestyle at the ward and indulges in activities which necessarily don’t go well with the image and discipline that Nurse Ratched had created for the rest of the inmates. This lands him into a lot of trouble with the Nurse, which is when he realizes that she has the authority and the power to retain him in the ward for as long as she pleases, even beyond his specified prison sentence.


What happens in the rest of the movie makes for more than interesting ending. Now while the story in itself might not sound too appealing or entertaining, it is power packed performances from the leading characters, McMurphy, Nurse Ratched and the Chief which make this movie a mandatory must-watch for every serious cinema lover. The fact that it has a pencil-thin story line but still manages to keep you riveted to what’s happening is testimony to its greatness. This would not be classified as a blockbuster, but a ‘classic’ for sure.


Jack Nicholson in probably his second best role (barely behind the role in The Shining) puts in everything that is expected from an Academy Award winning performance. The scene in which he calls for a vote in the group therapy sessions and the other one in which he makes a show of trying to lift a fixed plumbing fixture make for probably the most memorable scenes in cinema.


A must-watch movie for any serious cinema lover and Jack Nicholson fans.


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Shattered Glass - Movie Review

Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) works as a reporter with The New Republic and is well known and admired among his colleagues for his highly imaginative and witty articles ranging from the Lewinski scandal to young Republicans at a convention and the like. His offbeat selection of topics to write about and his ability to bring out something completely sensational and unknown to readers’ attention was something that set Glass apart from all his peers.


His mentor and editor, Michael Kelly (played wonderfully by Hank Azaria), who always takes the side of his writers when it comes to journalistic liberties defends Glass to the hilt when his credentials and authenticity are questioned in an article involving young Republicans and the facts surrounding the story. Michael does basic investigation, but relies on Glass’s word that his facts are right. However, Kelly is forced out by the owner of the magazine in an incident involving objection to the usage of too many commas by the staff in their articles.


This puts Charles Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) in charge as the editor, and he does not quite have the same rapport with the writers that Kelly had. In fact his predecessor had pretty much escalated himself to a ‘god-like’ status with his writers through being extremely pro-journalist to the extent of being labeled anti-owner and anti-editorial censorship to a large extent. Lane especially doesn’t share the enthusiastic view about Glass and his articles unlike most of the magazine and its readers did.


When Glass discusses his latest article about a teenaged hacker who was hired by a Silicon Valley company, its authenticity is publicly questioned by another online journalist. Lane then probes Glass regarding his sources, his facts and in the midst of this investigation figures out the article was almost entirely fabricated by Glass using hotch-potch sources of information.


Lane then decides to go back through all the articles Glass had written during his tenure with The New Republic and finds out that all or part of 27 articles of a total of 41 articles were fabricated by Glass using part truth part fiction, and publishing them in the magazine as pure facts.


While the story itself may probably not make for wonderful reading or a riveting movie, how it has been told and some good performances by Christensen, Azaria and Saarsgard make this movie a nice movie to watch. Plus the fact that it is based on a true story and deals with one of the most well-read magazines in the US political circles makes us wonder the depths to which people will go down to make a name for themselves. If not anything else, this movie depicts the rise and then the inevitable fall of a reasonably talented youngster because of his hurry to make it to the top of the pile in a hurry.


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Angels & Demons - Movie Review

Now anybody who is anybody would have surely heard of Dan Brown and read the book “The Da Vinci Code” which catapulted him to instant fame around the world. I personally liked the book myself, and also quite enjoyed the movie also although it is true that the movie didn’t quite do enough justice to the book. In any case, this review is of “Angels & Demons” (A&D), the movie adaptation of the prequel to The Da Vinci Code. The events in A&D take place before Robert Langdon, the principal character becomes well known due to the events that occur in the second book.



The movie begins at CERN, the European Orgn for Nuclear Research where a vial of antimatter (the supposed building block of the universe as we know it now) is stolen. Simultaneously, the College of Cardinals’ papal enclave has been called following the untimely death of the Pope, to select the new Pope. The entire world and its media patiently wait at St Peters’ Square waiting for white smoke to emerge from the chimney of the room hosting the conclave, signaling the selection of the new Pope. However, the Illuminati, an underground secret society, kidnap the 4 most likely candidates for the Papacy, and this sets in motion the rest of the movie’s plot.



Langdon is summoned due to his expertise in symbology and is paired with Vittoria Vetra from CERN to save the four preferiti, recover the vial (which by the way is dying down on power due to its perishable batteries). Langdon through his expertise deduces that the four cardinals will be killed at the four altars of the “Path of Illumination”. The only issue being that nobody actually knows the location of these altars other than the Illuminati themselves.



Thus begins the cat and mouse game between Langdon and the Illuminati where Langdon is racing against time to figure out the locations, and save the cardinals, while the Illuminati unbeknownst of his involvement carry on with their plans, threatening to decimate the entire world using the antimatter vial.



Although the screenplay doesn’t do complete justice to the book (just as The Da Vinci Code movie didn’t either), the fact that this movie remains a fast-paced thriller on the lines of say a Indiana Jones movie, is testimony to the fact that the director, Ron Howard (who directed the other movie as well) is a master craftsman in converting a book into a movie. If you are someone who has not actually read the book, then you will absolutely enjoy the movie to the hilt, and even if you have read the book, you will still enjoy its retelling on the silver screen with the beautiful historic locations where it is filmed.



As is the norm with Dan Brown and these two books of his, this movie also ran into its own fair share of controversies with some die-hard Roman Catholic organizations asking for its banning and the like, but the movie remains one of the better ones of 2009 till date. Yet another feather in Dan Brown’s and Tom Hanks’ cap for sure. All in all, a must-watch movie as far as I am concerned.



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X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Movie Review

Being the die-hard X-Men fan that I am and a fanatical admirer of Hugh Jackman, it was pretty much mandatory that I catch the latest flick of this combination - X-Men Origins: Wolverine almost as soon as it hit Indian screens. I personally have liked each one of the three movies of the X-Men series and admit to being a huge fan of the Wolverine character. Maybe the entire personality of Logan who unleashes his primal instincts of anger and killing at the drop of a hat, maybe the entire grim and nasty demeanor of the character, the dark past, all of these probably appealed to something inside the demented mind of mine to become a huge fan of this character in the ensemble cast. That being said, the fact that this was an entire movie devoted only to Wolverine made this a super-duper movie to me even before I watched it. So please do expect an extremely biased review of the movie to follow, although I will try and keep it somewhat neutral, if possible.

The movie begins with how young James Howlett sees his father being killed by Thomas Logan in 1845, and how this trauma activates the mutilation, bone claws which protrude from the boy’s hands. After killing Logan (who in his dying breath informs James that he is his real father), young James flees the spot with Victor Creed (who turns out to be Sabretooth), his brother. Somewhere, somehow both the brother realize their mutilation and their supposed immortality and spend the next century or so, doing what they do best, killing other people (because of their violent urges and skills), albeit as soldiers of armies in the American Civil War, the World Wars and other such wars.

The brothers are discovered by Major Stryker who recruits them in his Team X, a group of mutants which include Agent Zero – ace marksman, Wade Wilson – lethal swordsman and athlete, John Wraith – teleporter, Fred Dukes – the indestructible, and Chris Bradley – the telekinetic one. After a couple of missions, Logan realizes that Team X is a group of people who have scant respect for human life and are probably just an excuse for an execution squad or a bunch of mercenaries. He then decides to leave the team and go off on his own.

Some years later Logan is located by Stryker who warns him that someone is killing the rest of Team X. Victor reappears in Logan’s life and murders his girlfriend. This angers Logan who then agrees for Stryker to implant his skeleton and bones with adamantium, a virtually indestructible metal and rechristens himself as Wolverine. In his search for revenge against Victor, Logan stumbles upon the fact that Stryker is actually conducting experiments on other mutants in The Island.

With the help of Gambit, someone who has the ability to charge any object he touches with kinetic energy so that they explode, Logan makes it to the island thus setting the scene for an action packed finale to this movie. All said and done, the action sequences, the character sketches, the introduction of so many new mutants into the mix and the entire back story to Wolverine, all of these make for an awesome prequel to the entire X-Men series of movies.

What works for me in this movie is the fact that it never deviates too far from Wolverine the main character. Although there is a lot of scope for this movie to side-track into the various other new characters that are introduced, the script stays true to its name and restricts itself to the character sketch of Wolverine. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth make perfect foil for each other throughout the movie and as is the norm, any hero is only as good as the villain is, and therefore Liev’s casting works beautifully for this movie. The chemistry of the characters as well as the actors in the scenes they do together adds a lot of punch to this movie.

All in all this is a must-watch action movie for all X-Men fans and action-movie buffs. Yet another winner from the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster stable.

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Iron Man - Movie Review

Now this was one superhero character about whom I had barely heard about, let alone read the actual comic itself before the movie was announced. The fact that it starred Robert Downey Jr., who in my opinion is one of the most offbeat actors around nowadays (well, with the exception of Johnny Depp perhaps) made this movie all the more interesting. After all how can any fan of superhero movies not fall for the premise of a flying man in an iron suit. To me, the whole concept reminded me of the Giant Robot television series of which I was a big fan of during the Black and White Doordarshan days.


In any case, by the time I caught Iron Man, it had already done its rounds of being the biggest blockbuster of the 2008 summer till then, and believe it or not, I actually caught it only after I actually watched ‘The Incredible Hulk’. In any case, my expectations were sky high from this movie even before I got around to actually watching it. And believe me, this did not disappoint.



Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist and master engineer, who doubles up as somebody who has scant respect for time or money and to add to all this is an incurable womanizer, is in Afghanistan for a sales pitch of his latest Jericho missile which he intends to sell to the US Army. He gets caught by a gang of militants who call themselves the ‘Ten Rings’ and this kidnapping changes his life forever, both literally and figuratively.



In the process of preventing the shrapnel from choking his artery, he develops and uses an electromagnetic device which keeps his arteries clean, and while in captivity he realizes that his weapons are being used by both sides, the good and the bad. He then decides to get to the root of the matter, but then faces the small issue of evading his captors and getting back home. He then builds an armored suit capable of being reasonably useful in short-term offensive strategies as well and gets back home.



What unfolds in the rest of the movie is something to be seen and not talked about here. Suffice to say that this movie is peppered (pun intended) with enough thrills, chills, action sequences, and overall all the fun elements that make for a Hollywood superhero blockbuster. What however sets this movie apart from others in the genre is the fact that this delves into how and why Tony Stark actually goes ahead and becomes the Iron Man. This movie is more like ‘The Incredible Hulk’ which once again chronicles the gradual transformation of Bruce Banner into the Hulk.



And to me, the sheer brilliance of the director Jon Favreau and his team lies in the fact that although the process of Tony Stark reforming takes time, the corresponding screen-time does not get too boring. It probably has to do with the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is a master at depicting conflicted emotions and depicting a person who is trying hard to kill the demons inside his head.



The romantic angle with Ms Pepper Potts, Stark’s secretary works well for the movie, once again primarily due to the brilliant casting of Gwyneth Paltrow in this role. She brings that whiff of fresh air to this otherwise glamor starved movie. All in all, a must-watch movie for all die-hard action movie fans. The action sequences will leave you waiting for the second installment of this franchise.


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