The Day of The Jackal

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https://www.lifestyleasia.com/

Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Chukwudi Iwuji, Úrsula Corberó, Khalid Abdalla
Where to watch: Jio Cinema/Peacock Network
To watch or not to watch: Disappointing at multiple levels. What a crime against the book

The Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) is one of the best snipers in the world and he is using this talent as a hit for hire. He has a beautiful wife Nuria (Úrsula Corberó) and a 1 year old son. He is hired to kill a German politician, which he does with a slightly round-about but terribly brilliant way, which took MI6 some time to figure out. Also, the kill was at a record distance, which set him apart from 99% of other snipers in the world (and hence easier to identify). A firearm expert at MI6 named Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch) is intrigued by this shot and takes it upon herself to find out who the sniper is. This results in an expected, typical and cliched cat-and-mouse chase, only the mouse was smarter but made a dunce, the cat incompetent but blessed with a ton of luck.

The series is true to the book in only the essence, that is, an assassin with military background aiming to assassinate a prominent figure. While in the book that figure was Charles de Gaulle, in the series, it is to assassinate a tech billionaire Ulle Dag Charles to stop him from releasing a software which will disrupt the finances of the world, by somehow publishing the finances of billionaires to everyone??? And there is no more thought put into explaining it or why it would merit $100Mn as assassin’s fees. And The Jackal forgot all about his safety protocols because his greed took over??? He also has no deterrents installed in his home office which stores his passports, cash in different currencies, his tools of disguise, etc, so that even his toddler son could walk in and dismantle his castle of sand. And if this is not enough, the agent in-charge of the investigation is doing so on a prayer. She has caused more harm to innocents without any consequences to herself, is clearly incompetent and has very one-dimensional “I am important” stance at her home with daughter and husband. The only good thing the show does is the elaborate design of the assassination plot, they were truly a treat to see and made the show slightly fascinating.

Eddie Redmayne’s acting chops made something of the character and script which otherwise would not have passed the audience test. Looks like the writers are still on strike because this script could only have been written by 5 different AI tools stitched together by an underpaid human who couldn’t be bothered to check for continuity. There are phases where the Jackal is overcome with remorse to the point of inaction, only to go ahead and unnecessarily kill bystanders to show his brutality. What is the message for the audience, because we already know his profession and all that it entails? And all that is wrong with Bianca cannot even be summarised in one post – it needs to be taken apart scene by scene. What a waste of a good, concept, good book and a good actor. This is a crime against humanity. And it gets renewed for season 2 when Maigret is cancelled? Make it make sense!

Longlegs

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https://www.imdb.com/

Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Starring: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
To watch or not to watch: What the hell! Stitch together incoherent pieces together and you get this rag doll. Yea… no.

The movie is set in the 1990s where Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is with the FBI, is awkward, socially inept, a loner and is discovered to have uncanny “psychic” powers. For this ability, she is pulled into the investigation of a crime 3 decades running, where the patriarch of a totally normal family suddenly goes violent on his family and butchers them all. Her supervisor William Carter (Blair Underwood) wants to solve this case and things that Harker’s psychic abilities might aid in the endeavour. And she does help, as she is able to crack the code on the letters left by an unknown entity known as Longlegs at the murder sites, claiming credit for the murders. The investigation takes Harker to one of the survivors of the annihilation, an in-execution annihilation where a life size doll of the girl child is discovered with a mysterious metal ball in its brain, and back to her own childhood. We do see Longlegs before long and its… interesting? Anyway, the movie is not.

What an utter ridiculous farce of a movie. A wanna-be Silence Of The Lambs, without the substance. Or rather scattered substance which changes tone without so much as a “Hey” and goes about as if nothing has happened. Kinda like that co-worker who has made a mistake which affects the project but is entirely unbothered. (Mild spoilers follow)
The villain/evil character has a Satanic bend and is able to twist the patriarch against the family with the girl child in some sort of trance. But why? Is the agenda to kill all normal families? Why? Is the idea to kill God fearing Christians? Again, why? And these questions stare into the abyss which is the travesty of a horror movie. So much so, that it might have been slightly better if it had stuck to the tropes and made it a cliche. It starts ok, you can see there is something off about Harker and Carter is like a father figure to her, looking beyond the awkwardness and seeing the person, but then enters Alicia Witt as Harker’s mother and then it is throw-everything-to-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks.

The direction of the movie is good. Genuinely. It is specially visible in the first act with the dark yellow and brown tones, slow pace, few dialogues. The choice of a wide angle camera for shooting most of the movie was a good artistic choice, without which they wouldn’t have even enough marketing material. And it so far removed from the promises made during marketing that a case can be made for false advertising. “The sample doesn’t match the final product delivered”. The wide angle remains throughout the movie but it cannot take the place of a story or script or screenplay or agenda. Cage has turned out a good performance (though not many people agree with this), it is not creepy. It gives the vibes of a sad, lonely, retired circus performer who is fighting to make ends meet and is losing sanity due to loneliness. This theme is a social issue, not necessarily a horror movie subject matter. Go back in time and undo this movie. It should not have happened

Immaculate

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https://www.imdb.com/

Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco, Dora Romano
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
To watch or not to watch: No, for the love of God, no

The opening foreshadowing shot shows a nun sneaking out from a convent in the middle of the night, and running away from that place, only to be caught by a group of nuns at the gates and her legs broken.
Cut to: Sister Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney) is a novice who has moved to a convent in Italy from a small town in The USA at the behest of Father Tedeschi (Álvaro Morte). Her belief in Christianity began at a young age when she was rescued from a frozen lake and died for 7 minutes. This rescue was understandably covered in news and got a bit of virality. And her faith and fate sealed for Christianity. At the convent, she goes about her life normally, making friends and trying to do good, but she also has glimpses of something sinister going on, and it involves the higher-ups (because, of course).

Have you seen Rosemary’s Baby? Yes? Then you have watched this film. Goodbye and good night.
If you haven’t, then watch that rather than this. This movie is the rehashing of same old faith vs fanaticism, where good Christian women are used and abused, and for some reason virginity and purity are equated and highly revered. While this genre of movies is supposed to use the concept of objectification of women as a source of horror, they at the same time unironically do the same thing. In this case for example, Sydney Sweeney regularly received comments about her good looks, is shown bathing with the fellow nuns, etc. “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain”.
If that was not enough, they have eerie shadows, abruptly cut scenes, and mockery of science (which is the biggest sin of all). Can we please collectively as a society decide we don’t want to weaponise nor demonise religion anymore? Thank you.

The only reason this movie is not a hot pile of stinking garbage is the lead, Sydney Sweeney. She has single-handedly carried the story, to the point where it became apparent she was trying antics to fill the spaces. There are too many scenes filled with screams, needless to say, unwarranted. She was carrying on the movie so she was over-doing things. Sad but forgivable. There is nothing particularly horrifying in this movie, and nothing we haven’t seen before. It takes a different path from Rosemary’s Baby but it is not impactful enough that it redeems itself, because by that time we have waded through a lot of scene-there-heard-that. Its 1.5 hour runtime feels at least twice as long, and it is no wonder it has a current rating of 2.9 on Google and that tells you everything you need to know. Don’t listen to anyone who says it is good, because it is not. Don’t bother.

Exhuma

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Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Starring: Kim Go-eun, Lee Do-hyun, Choi Min-sik, Jung Yun-ha, Yoo Hae-jin
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video
To watch or not to watch: It has the right atmosphere and is deep rooted in spirituality and superstition. Interesting, but not enough

Lee Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) is a celebrated shaman in Korea. Her tattooed protégé Yun Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) have created a name for themselves and amassed wealth for themselves. A real-estate developer Korean-American family is facing a mysterious illness where the men inheriting the bloodline are falling sick and passing away before their time. They could not find a cure in the western medicine for this, so they turn towards more traditional methods. They contact the shaman for her help, who studies the newborn son of the patriarch and concludes the reason to be “Grave’s Call”, or curse by an ancestor from their grave. The shaman duo enlist the help of geomancer Kim Sang-deok (Choi Min-sik) and his mortician friend Yeong-geun (Hae-jin Yoo). The issue seems to be the ominous location of the grave – on the top of a hill near the border between North and South Korea. They decide to relocate the grave to a holier location which is a prime real estate and earn a lot of money in the process. During the exhumation, they come to face evil which is beyond their power to control.

The movie is very atmospheric, at least in the first half, where the hue is yellow, brown and generally dark. The movements are slow, there is little dialogue or emotion and even lesser laughter. There is a selfish interest in helping the American Park family, question about the legitimacy of shamanism, and the class difference shown through the geomancer’s view. Then it all changes in the second half where we come face-to-face with the evil itself. The reason for the evil to be what it is, is either not present or not explained well (depending on the ability to hear between the dialogues). In addition, there is also a underlying cause (literally) for the curse on the family, which was way out the left field, and in a lets-drag-the-movie-to-make-it-an-acceptable-length-way. It totally leaped over the goal of freeing the Park family to avenging Korea. Not good (did the audience dirty). It could have been shorter if it had only stuck to the story and delivered what it promised.

It is by no means a bad movie. It is like a A-grade student suddenly delivering B grade assignment in their best subject. Not bad, but wasted potential. And disappointing. There is more emphasis on Korean history and what it considers evil. An a non-Korean, it might not have that impact on the reception of the story. It gets the cinematography right. Like, bang on. And the atmosphere with the chanting, drumming and screaming as required. It takes audience on a journey into the netherland along with the actors. And the actors, Wow. It was refreshing to see Kim Go-eun in this mature role and look after Goblin. Lee Do-hyun was unrecognizable in this role and get-up. Everyone performed perfectly. It is what made the movie get 3 stars here, because we should rightly leave looming evil entities to Hollywood.

Why The Autopsy of Jane Doe Is Good and How It Could Have Been Saved

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https://www.imdb.com/

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Starring: Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Olwen Catherine Kelly
Where to watch: Lionsgate Play
To watch or not to watch: It is a new concept and well done. Though it has its failings, it is worth checking out

Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin Tilden (Emile Hirsch) are a father-son duo who own an operate a morgue and crematorium in a small town. The place has been with the family for generations but Austin doesn’t feel comfortable working with the dead all day long and is looking for a way out. One day, the town’s sheriff comes to their workplace rather late with a dead body of an unidentified female in her early 20s. She was found in a home where there were multiple homicides and bodies buried in the backyard. Hers was the only body they could not account for, she had no clothes on and no identification. As the father-son start working on the body, they find many inconsistencies – her blood flows from her body even though she is dead, her fingernails have peat under them which has not been found in that part of the country for centuries, her joints are broken but there are no external injuries, her lungs are scarred, but again no external injuries. In fact, they couldn’t account for any of her conditions without going beyond the obvious. They do continue the work despite the difficulties for humanity’s sake, only to find that maybe humanity is not always a virtue.

The concept of the movie is very fresh. It is also a masterclass in making a naked female in full view non-sexual! It is sometimes shocking to realise that there is a naked female on the table (an actual table) and there is no focus on sexuality. Kudos to the team for this.
The horror of the movie comes in slow waves, till it crescendos and ends – it starts with the disconnected finds on the Jane Does eternal body and really takes off when the autopsy reaches her internal body, where they find scar tissue on her lungs, completely blacked out lungs, flower of dathura (a hallucinogen) wrapped in a scribbled cloth, her tooth etc. It is jarring and the audience is left wondering about her life. The movie is also largely a two-parter shot mostly in a claustrophobic environment of the autopsy room. It adds to the creepiness and makes for an uncomfortable watch. In a good way.
There are still problems with it, and that’s unfortunate. The movie is filled with jump scares. For an idea which is this elevated, the jump scares are a cheap ploy (they are a cheap ploy nonetheless). There are some unexplained points, like what really could have happened to her, what is the end goal, what are her powers, and all. That would have made the movie stay on the subject matter. There is also this unnecessary short story of Austin’s love life, which takes about 10 minutes and add absolutely 0 to the movie.

There is something wrong with the people who make horror movies (excluding Peele, Ari Aster, A24 productions, and all). Or the genre might be difficult to execute, people who are in the business would be better equipped to comment on this. Given the tripe we have been served, the latter might be true. It is easy to fall into the trap of crescendo music which culminates abruptly, dark corners with a hint of something lurking behind it. The one movie which plays with shadows well would be Hereditary aided a million times by the perfect acting by Toni Collette. The fact that someone has taken a great concept of an alleged witch semi-dead wielding her powers, and made a lukewarm movie off it, is sad and disappointing. Maybe somewhere down the line someone decides to revive this movie with a remake and does it right. Also, can we please pick good concept movies executed badly and make them better? And not do the vice versa? Thanks.

Inside Man – a study on wasting good actors with bad writing

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https://m.imdb.com/

Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Starring: David Tennant, Stanley Tucci
Where to watch: Netflix
Seasons and episodes: 1 season, 4 episodes, 1 hour per episode
To watch or not to watch: Please skip this despite the stellar cast

The series opens with Jefferson Grieff (Stanley Tucci) in a prison cell helping someone solve a murder. He is a former American law professor convicted of murdering his wife, to which he confessed and is haunted by his act. In the parallel, there is Harry Watling (David Tennant) who is a vicar in a small town in England. He has a troubled parishioner Edgar who lives with his verbally abusive mother. Edgar hands a memory stick to Harry to safe keep, away from his mother. Harry picks up his son’s maths tutor Janice Fife (Dolly Wells), reaches home and deposits his keys and memory stick in a bowl at the entrance. Harry’s son Ben (Louis Oliver) gives the stick to Janice to transfer some material. Janice pokes her nose into what is stored on the drive to find child p*rn, and thinks Harry is a pedophile. This leads to a lot of misunderstandings, and a comedy of errors.

If they had made the series into a real comedy instead of whatever it was, it would have gone down better with the audience. From the opening scene with Tucci’s Hannibal-esque Grieff acting as a consultant because somehow he is a criminal mastermind to the taking of memory stick home, when it was equally safe in the church is farcical. Ben tries to save his father by declaring ownership of the offending memory stick, but the father is digging a deeper hole for himself. Maths tuition and all is fine, but maybe a cognitive understanding class was more needed in this household. There was no confusion which couldn’t be solved by a simple conversation with Janice, which would have taken barely 5 sentences and need not involve Edgar’s identity. Instead, Janice is locked in the basement, she is a believer in making a bad situation worse, by the way (maybe she also needs lessons in cognitive understanding), Tucci is doing something, which has nothing to do with anyone or anything but still features in the series, and there is a reporter investigating Janice’s disappearance? SOS, brain not computing.

Netflix, my dear Netflix, what is wrong hun? All ok? Childhood trauma working overtime? Why take the stellar cast, drive up your production cost and not have someone go through the script once? How did you even get Tucci and Tennant to sign up? Are you blackmailing them? Ok, apologies, got carried away for a bit there, but then the series is unbelievably bad. And the actors did a fantastic job. So much so that a case can be made that Janice was the real villain (and if you go by some of the reviews online, many writers have the same opinion), such is the residual emotion for her character. Listen, the premise is great, and with good writing, it might even make for a beautiful thriller. But working with what was given to us, unfortunately it makes for a horrible horrible play, which cannot be saved by acting alone. Please do better.

The Undoing and what’s wrong with Nicole Kidman

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https://www.imdb.com/

Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Starring: Hugh Grant, Nicole Kidman, Noah Jupe, Matilda de Angelis, Donald Sutherland
Where to watch: HBO Max and JioCinema (India)
Seasons and episodes: 1 season, 6 episodes, 50 – 60 minutes per episode
To watch or not to watch: Watch it if you must. This can be a decent thing to pass time, nothing spectacular

Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) is a psychotherapist, married to pediatric oncologist named Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant) and they have a son Henry (Noah Jupe). They have, for all intents and purposes, a perfect life, with successful careers, well-behaved son, wealth, home in the Upper East Side which reduces the school run to a stroll across the Central Park. The couple has also maintained the spark in their marriage, with most of the credit given to Nicole Kidman’s apparent sex appeal. Their schedules are quite busy but they do manage to squeeze in time for their social events, including the school functions for their son (Grace’s wealthy father is a huge donor). To complete the picture of the perfect American family, Grace is a part of the fundraiser committee of mothers for school events. There she is introduced to Elena, who is a not-yet successful artist and whose son goes to the same school as Henry on scholarship. On the day of the fundraiser, things start to unravel for Grace from the time she finds a disturbed Elena crying in the bathroom. The next day Elena is found dead in her art studio, which causes an uproar with the parents of the school. Grace is unable to reach Jonathan on his cellphone for a few days and as the police discovers clues to the murderer, things start coming closer to home for Grace.

The protagonist of the series is essentially Kidman, but Hugh Grant is charm made flesh. We have seen this version of him in A Very English Scandal and The Gentlemen, but imagine if the whole personality of such a character is only charm. Impossible not to simper. He brings his inherent sarcastic and self deprecating nature to the fore, which is in a high contrast to the way upper echelons of New York is shown to behave. Then we have Matilda de Angelis and Edgar Ramirez who have more than deserved to work in a high value production. And there needs to be special recognition for Noah Jupe who is very promising.

The plot of the series feels quite similar to Big Little Lies, even when it is not. They both have affluent parents playing a major role in their kids school events, and they have high powered jobs which provides them with privilege the rest of us will need 9 lives to attain. Both series have a much less affluent female protagonist who is mysterious and trying to fit in with other mothers. Not to mention, both series are book adaptations. But while Big Little Lies did a fantastic job of balancing the drama with the thrill, The Undoing is totally lost in trying to find its vision. The makers were torn between showing privilege but not really, resulting in a murk where opportunities to show some key elements of the story were lost, while focus on glamour took center stage. Glamour is not a story and has a shelf life of approximately 12 seconds.

This brings us to the reason which inspired this post – Nicole Kidman and where acting is victimized by sexual appeal. Take Big Little Lies for example – it is centered around Kidman. She had some character traits, primary being clueless about what people closest to her are doing, ultimately being a “victim” to them. In Undoing, she is supposed to be a psychiatrist with close to 2 decades of experience and couldn’t figure out there was something wrong with her husband??? Then she is not a good psychiatrist, not earning as much, dependent on her father to provide for her, and her whole character strength falls away. The compliments paid by her well-wishers is that she is strong, beautiful, cleans up well, has expensive clothes and is successful in her chosen career. But in the series, she is totally lost, depends on her father to clean her mess, is unable to take decisions which affect her son, and as cited above, not really a good psychiatrist. This leaves us with her being pretty and attractive. This is one of the biggest reasons her husband is with her.

This is not a Kidman bashing, but this is apparent in the two roles she has done recently, which are getting attention of audience and news media alike. This peaks through in her other works like Nine Perfect Strangers and older works too. The problem is that through Kidman women are still being reduced to objects of physical appeal. Women are still not seen enough to fight their battles, but always have to be a victim and rely on the men in their lives. Their female friends are also done a disservice where their lives are around how their more popular friend is doing. Haven’t we had enough discussions on this toxicity, how unreal and harmful this portrayal can be? Is the best thing a woman can bring to the table her feminity? Is there nothing more to a female character? Are other females supposed to be in service of the victim queen? C’mon, we have moved from this discourse a decade back. Bring more to character building than just one easy thing.

Kill Boksoon

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https://decider.com/

Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Starring: Jeon Do-yeon, Esom, Sol Kyung-gu, Koo Kyo-hwan, Kim si-a
Where to watch: Netflix
To watch or not to watch: A highly recommended watch for all the action lovers and thrill seekers

Gill Boksoon (Jeon Do-yeon) has been rechristened Kill Boksoon by her peers, as she has the most and the best kills within the contract killer agency, MK Entertainment. She is a single mother who participates in PTA, has lunches with other mothers, drives a G-wagon, can also drive a beat-up van to a secluded spot to fight to death against a Yakuza. She has a clairvoyance-like ability to sense the victim’s next possible move, clout within the contract killer community, respect of fellow PTA mothers, a ton of money as evidenced by the high ceiling flat, the ultra premium school she is sending her daughter to, and a boss who is slightly in love with her. What she doesn’t have is a close relationship with her daughter, which she desperately wants, even though she is a “cool mom” and has kept her personal and professional life totally separate. Now, as in any good story, comes a conflict which challenges this precarious balance. Her agency has asked her to kill a minor, something that is not aligned with her principles. This gets the ire of her boss, fueled and fanned by his jealous sister (Esom), a betrayal by her booty call, and a run for her life. All this culminates in one of the most visually appealing and well choreographed fight scenes.

The movie does well what it sets out to do – give a thrilling and chilling action movie with right emotions dotted along the way in the relationships between Boksoon, her boss, her daughter and the boss’ twisted sister. It is centered around the titular character Boksoon. All the other things are mere decors. It doesn’t pull punches when describing Boksoon’s life, but even better is that it doesn’t overdo it either (of which a lot of Korean action movies I have seen are guilty). Boksoon is flawed, she doesn’t always treat people well, her position in her work community has led to conceit, not to mention what she does for a living. But in conjunction with this is also her irresolute principles even within the contract killing, her motherhood, which is reflected in the guidance she gives to the trainee under her and the way she handles the problems her daughter faces in her school. And, as already mentioned, the choreography and direction of the action sequences make up for all the other flaws which the movie has.

Why do we watch movies? To get entertained, to be taken on an emotional roller-coaster, to see experiences we may or may not have experiences ourselves depicted through other people. This one is surely entertaining, and that should be enough to make for the reason to watch it. It also does one thing which is commendable – it portrays, single-motherhood and unconventional relationships which come along with it as part of course. It is much needed to normalise this also-reality, specially coming from Korean cinema which is has been rather binary in this (Oldboy, Handmaiden vs K-dramas). It is a small step in the right direction.

All this rant just to say that it is a good movie to watch after a tiring day, just to get that adrenaline pumping, the heart beating and to feel good. Watch it with popcorn for sure.

Barbarian – Breaking the 4th wall differently

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https://www.imdb.com/

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgard, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis
Where to watch: Prime
To watch or not to watch: A must watch for all the thriller lovers, and non-thriller lovers. Will need a tolerance for violence

Tess (Georgina Campbell) has booked an AirBnB in Brightmoor, Detroit, only to find it double booked with Keith (Bill Skarsgard) already staying there. Since it was late, raining heavily and most hotels booked because of a convention, Tess decides to stay in the same house, albeit reluctantly. Keith is all thumbs trying to make Tess comfortable, going as far as to open a wine bottle only in front of her, in case she is suspicious of adulteration. They have a nice chat and the evening ends on a good note. The next day while inspecting the basement, Tess discovers a labyrinth of tunnels, a (creepy) room with a bed, video recording equipment and a bloody handprint, and encounters a vicious, ferocious creature, which looks like it slipped in the evolution after Homo erectus. In another world, AJ (Justin Long) is a struggling actor who has recently been accused of raping a fellow actor, which he vehemently denies. To pay for his legal fees, he decides to sell off his property, which is the same AirBnB.

This is a difficult review to write, difficult to know where to begin. It falls under the “Monster” category of horror movies. But, it is not the monster in the traditional sense, not even in the sense pictured in the movie. There is an adage “show, not tell” which makes a movie good. This one surpasses even that, in that that the true monster is actually to be perceived by the audience, from all the instances shown in the movie. Let me explain…

The movie has the regular tropes – a single, vulnerable girl in a house on a deserted street with a strange man who has previously portrayed predatory characters successfully. The house also has a basement, which leads to untold (perceived) horrors, with doors which have suspicious and irregular opening and locking mechanisms. The girl gets locked in the basement where the monster lives. And that’s the end of the tropes. What is truly beyond brilliance is the way the tropes have been used to blind the audience, to create a pre-conceived notion, only to be shown something so extraordinary that anyone would be horrifically surprised. This is how the movie and the director break the fourth wall. Spoilers ahead…

We have Bill Skarsgård, who is the stranger in the double-booked rental with Tess. He is terribly awkward and tried too hard to make Tess comfortable, almost as if he has no good intentions on his mind. He also has a lanky, towering visage, sunken eyes, added to he popular role of Pennywise which he portrayed with aplomb, we are predisposed to associate him with ill-will. We are inclined to believe the source of horror to be Bill Skarsgård.
Cut to: a carefree Justin Long cruising along a shore in a red convertible with top down, singing along to a beat-filled song. He gets a call to inform him that his female coworker has filed rape charges against him. He denies vehemently, and tries gather his already dwindling resources to pay for a lawyer. And, we as audience are rooting for him. After all, he is the one who played a lovesick boyfriend in Going The Distance, a sympathetic listener in He’s Just Not That Into You, he has to be the good guy.
Zach Cregger uses these already implanted notions and break the fourth wall. He is telling the user “You think Keith is evil. You think wrong”.

This goes beyond the actors, in truth. It is also questioning what we experience as regular people in our daily lives. A man with clear skin, charming smile and the gift of glib can be as big a threat, if not more, as someone who is apparently out to get us. And the female-attributed traits of acquiescence, quiet and caution are needed for survival in the world with monsters made by men. The real monsters are the men who use their powers to inflict pain on women and they end up creating bigger monsters than who they are themselves.

The Menu

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https://www.hotstar.com/

Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Aimee Carrero, Judith Light
Where to watch: Disney+ Hotstar
Run time: 1hour 47 minutes
To watch or not to watch: An original script, which might not be perfect but is fun to watch

A boat (yacht) is filled with 11 people who are embarking on a journey to a private island called Hawthorn, which has one of the most exclusive restaurants owned by Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). The multi-course meals are $1,250 each, are invite only and are a strictly +1 (or more) event. The meal is an event, yes – the customers tour the entire island which shows the raw ingredients grown/bred, the military discipline enforced and followed by Slowik and his staff, the descriptions of the courses are like a soliloquy by the respective chefs. Only in this case, the soliloquy is followed by terror. Let me elaborate…

The people who have managed to bag a table at the over-exclusive restaurant are 3 finance bros, a washed-out actor with his manager (John Leguizamo and Aimee Carrero), an ultra-rich couple (Judith Light and Reed Birney), a renowned food critic (Janet McTeer) with her obsequious editor (Paul Adelstein) and a self-proclaimed foodie, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his companion Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy). Each meal is presented by the chef with a resounding clap which jerks everyone’s attention to the aforementioned soliloquy on the dish – the reason it was designed, what are the ingredients and what is the emotion the dish is designed to bring to the eater. Each of these courses get progressively darker, including drowning of the man who invested in the restaurant, a public suicide of the sous chef who dared to compete with Slowik, a run for survival by the men while a woman stabs Slowik for sexually harassing her in the past. The list of the macabre activities go on, while there is little to no change in the schedule of the service, complete with the clap and descriptions. The one person who is the proverbial fish out of water is Margot, who is not the initial companion planned by Tyler. This does throw a spanner in the works but not necessarily a bad thing for Margot. Read on…

The movie is supposed to be a satire on the wealthy. The intended message is that, well, wealth corrupts (no shit). The people present during the dinner are pretentious, full of themselves, and in general, have had life easier than most. And that is their biggest crime, according to the movie, that they have had it easier, as depicted by the character of Aimee, who went to Brown and her education was funded by her parents. It is all difficult for a person who hasn’t had these privileges but not sure if the rich are to blame. The whole movie falls short in attaining the premise. What is the crime here? Being rich? Wanting to be rich? Wanting to be the best? Just wanting? There are multiple plot holes which cannot be explained by any amount of explanations, as explanation do not brick and mortar make. Even the climax which has been lauded for its unexpected and triumphant nature is unexpected because it doesn’t logically follow.

The movie is made almost flawlessly. That is, the performances, set design, dialogues, sound, character nuances, lighting, editing, etc is what is great. The only thing lacking is a script which has been worked on till it was sparkling. The audience member will find the movie understandably quite unsettling, as the experience for the clientele in the movie is supposed to be comforting and it is anything but. The problem is when plot holes are left in the core or climax of the movie, everything leading up to it feels false. Why was the 90 min storyline needed, if the 20 min conclusion was going to be cutting corners, you know? The primary emotion this movie left was confusion, like was it a good movie, or just a good execution, because the ending didn’t make sense. Don’t think The Menu will go down well in history.