Tag: what to watch

The Invisible Man

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https://filmschoolrejects.com/

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Starring: Elizabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Aldis Hodge, Harriet Dyer, Storm Reid
Where to watch: Netflix
To watch or not to watch: Obsessive-controlling-man trope done the right way

Cecilia (Elizabeth Moss) is married to Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who is a extremely rich pioneer in optics technology. She has the perfect plan to escape and she does it by the skin of her teeth, but her husband gets hurt in the process. She goes underground with the help of her sister and sister’s police boyfriend with no connection to anyone from her past. Then it is heard on the news that Adrian has committed suicide and left his fortune to Cecilia, bringing a much needed relief to everyone involved. Cecilia begins leading a normal life, looking for jobs and socialising with people, but strange occurrences start happening around her. In fact, she is arrested for slitting her sister’s throat in a crowded restaurant. She suspects Adrian has faked his death and is using his optics technology to somehow become invisible. By then, she has had enough and fights back.

The movie is done right – it takes the oft done theme of an obsessive male partner abusing the female partner and turns it into solid movie. It has done the opposite of what is unusual these days – great execution. While the theme might seem to many as common and might deter them to check this one out, the way this is ideated, crafted, acted and directed would be a treat. Another thing it does which makes it stand out is it is female centric, while most movies in this genre are centered around the male and his actions (slightly glorifying and justifying the toxicity).

The Invisible Man is visually stimulating, has the least amount of sound effects and only two false scares. Elizabeth Moss has once again delivered a brilliant performance, and it is safe to say The Handmaid’s Tale is the best thing to happen to her and her to it. Without it we wouldn’t have seen her in these leading roles. It is not very common for a female to carry off these roles and not easy either, and since these both things are present, it makes a must watch for more reasons.

Criminal: UK

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https://bgiccnew.bgicc.net/

Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Starring: Katherine Kelly, Lee Ingleby, Mark Stanley, Rochenda Sandall, Nicholas Pinnock, Shubham Saraf, Aymen Hamdouchi 
Where to watch: Netflix
Seasons: 2 seasons, 3 and 4 episodes each, 43 min per episode
To watch or not to watch: A highly recommended watch for every whodunit aficionado

Criminal comes in different versions, that is, for different countries, but this review is only specifically for the UK version.

Jumping the gun here a bit (and breaking structure of the reviews), this is one of the best series written (and seen) in a long while. In a world of mediocrity, comes this masterpiece which will have you at the edge of the seats and biting your nails, heart beat so loud that you can’t hear the dialogues.
Ok, that last part was a bit exaggerated. But the series is good. Ok?

This is an anthology series, with every episode a new case, so the viewers get the gift of 7 expertly crafted episodes, which have compelling stories with masterful performances.
The concept of the series is to get to the bottom of the crime and the criminal while the suspect is in the interrogation room and is being questioned. Most of the investigation is already done and that makes the series a kind of closed room mystery, what is left is either irrefutable proof of the crime or a confession. The police officers in the interrogation room and the ones in the observation room (on the other side of the mirror) have one goal only – to catch the criminal.

The series is very focused on the case, but there is a small sprinkling of office politics to keep the viewers invested in the characters as well as the case. The tangential story line is only the sprinklers, and not the actual donut so it adds to the whole, but doesn’t distract. All in all, a refreshing, must watch.

Aside: There are about 3 plot holes, which appear towards the last few episodes, but it is nowhere a deal breaker.

Bhoothkalam

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https://www.manoramaonline.com/

Rating: 4 out of 5
Starring: Shane Nigam, Revathy, Saiju Kurup, James Eliya and Athira Patel
Streaming on: Sony Liv
To watch or not to watch: A good watch for people on the hunt for a thrilling movie

Asha (Revathy) and her son Vinu (Shane Nigam) live together with Asha’s mother in a house. They are financially hard-up, with Vinu not having a job since one and a half years after graduating, and Asha being a school teacher, not making enough. Vinu has taken to substance abuse and Asha suffers from clinical depression, which is aggravated by her mother’s passing. Slowly and steadily Vinu’s mental health starts declining and he becomes sleep deprived, easily startled, and aggressive. So his hearing sounds at night and seeing shadows is attributed to his addictions and is a counsellor is consulted. That is when the history of the house, incidents with the past tenants comes to fore and story takes shape.

The storyline is stupidly simple, in a good way. There is linearity in things unfolding and not much is said about what happened in the past in Asha’s and Vinu’s lives which has shaped them this way – it is only hinted at. And it is annoying. It neither helps nor can it be ignored, as it is fundamental to the relationship mother-son share, which is in-turn fundamental to the story. There are also false starts (Granny staring at Vinu when he is helping to put her to bed), loud music from out of no where, which dies the sudden death special to amorphous entities, with nothing to show for it. And also a love song in the background of Vinu’s and Priya’s date, when it has not shown to have any bearing on Vinu’s life – Priya just exists.
Now that that’s out of the way, we can come to why this movie is recommended. The movie shines in camera work, direction and ACTING, a bit of story too. The play of shadows and difference in views of Asha and Vinu are beautifully done, the viewer gets to be in the same room as them and understand the agitation, helplessness and frustration when they are not able to understand each other. The show-not-tell segue into the past of the house with the counselor investigating the truth is better done than in most movies, though far from perfect.

This movie wins on most points, specially since horror has been an under-performing genre in Indian cinema as a whole. The fact that Revathy stars in it, who is better known to the masses, helps bring this movie to the fore, and demography of cinema lovers is all the better for it. It is a simple movie, no gore, crazy made-up ghost or VFX, it is a plain haunted house horror. The last 17 minutes of the movie, shot in one bedroom and dining area really does justice to the almost one and a quarter hour spent before. Only wish the cinema can grow to understand movies can be made with without a romantic angle in the lead’s life and some more of the backbone story. And it is only being said because this movie was so so close to perfection. Highly recommended.

Another Miss Oh

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https://asianwiki.com/

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Starring: Eric Mun, Seo Hyun-jin, Jeon Hye-bin
Streaming on: Netflix
Episodes: 18 episodes, each close to 70 min long
To watch or not to watch: Should watch, it leaves a happy feeling in the heart

One day before getting married, Oh Hye-young’s (Seo Hyun-jin) (aka just) fiance calls off the wedding, saying he has fallen out of love with her and that he doesn’t like to watch her eat. Understandably devastated Hye-young has only one condition, that the world should know she has called the wedding off. Some time passes, and Hye-young meets Park Do-kyung (Eric Mun) and they start to fall for each other. There comes the twist in the story. Park Do-kyung was engaged to be married to another named Oh Hye-young (Jeon Hye-bin) (aka pretty), who left him on the day of the wedding. One year after that, he hears Oh Hye-young getting engaged to another man, and ruins his business as revenge. Only that woman was not his Oh Hye-young. So yea… Also, Do-kyung is suddenly clairvoyant and can see how the future will pan out.

The biggest reason why this series stands out is because of Oh Hye-young’s (just) attitude. She is the boss. Despite being gossiped about, ridiculed and almost cast away from society for cancelling her wedding, she owns it like a bada**. Whatever her internal emotional state may have been, she never let anyone put her down. Another reason to like the show is because it is good. The story line is very different and refreshing and all the main character and most of the supporting characters were well crafted, they had depth. The human state of mind is pretty rightly defined, there is jealousy, revenge, want of societal acceptance and self-esteem issues. The chemistry between the main characters is lacking though – Oh Hye-young (just) has a better on screen chemistry with her ex-fiance than the man she is supposedly in love with.

K-dramas do know how to play on the heart strings, they have that right. The viewer cannot help but feel Oh Hye-young’s words when she says she is ok to not be happy later, but she wants to be happy now. As with all other K-dramas, the series could have been wrapped up within 12 episodes easily, if they had reduced the work which Park Do-kyung was doing. And his sister’s absurd behaviour was overly exaggerated and at some places stood out like a sore thumb with respect to the tune of the main story. These can be easily skipped. But the rest is well worth the watch, highly recommended.

Nine Perfect Strangers

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https://www.primevideo.com/

Rating: 3 out of 5

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Luke Evans, Tiffany Boone, Manny Jacinto, Regina Hall, Bobby Cannavale

Streaming on: Primevideo

To watch or not to watch: Meh. Watch it because it is available and you have time to kill

Nine people (4 individuals and 2 families) get accepted at a healing centre in Middle of Nowhere, USA. They all have suffered some form of setback or trauma in life and are looking to somehow get over it. The retreat is run by Masha (Nicole Kidman) and she is assisted by 3 other people.They keep everything under control and design the treatment program, customised for each attendee. Every attendee has some dark secret behind their traumas, which they are hididng, and apprehensive of each other in the beginning. Masha claims to have healed/cured/changed people’s lives in the 10 days they spend at the ridiculously expensive retreat. As time goes by, people make friends, share their life stories and generally open up to the others. In the parallel, we have Masha and her team conspiring about the treatment and have secrets of their own, which also forms a plot in parallel with the attendees’ stories.

First of, the name of the series is incorrect. It isn’t 9 perfect strangers all around. There is a couple and a family of three, which reduces the number of “strangers” for them. Secondly, the whole strangers meeting each other has been done with multiple times, ever since Agatha Christie wrote “And then there were none”. Here too, the part of getting to know each other and making friends, which is a large part of the series, is quite expected and hence feels dragged. Except the storyline of Frances (Melissa McCarthy) and Tony (Bobby Cannavale), which is entertaining and sweet and witty. There are instances in the first half of the series in which people question their presence at the retreat, as if it was not voluntary application?! If that is the question posed, the viewer needs either to know the origin of the question (like in Oldboy) or the answer to it (Matrix). That whole plot is left to open, never to be brought up again, discussed or revealed.

The series tries really hard to be full of intrigue or suspense and a sense of underlying plot twist, hinted all along through different memories of the people, but there is none. The deep soundtrack, tracking shots, psychedelic experiences, none of them lead anywhere, only give a sense of building upto something, which is ultimately nothing. In fact, the whole series can be reviewed by calling it “Tries Hard” – the staff tried hard to be full of intrigue while preparing the treatment plan, which is nothing more than felony crime, Nicole Kidman tries hard to be Masha who is inexplicably revered and is all that is ethereal but it fails because watching her speak can be physically painful, the guests try hard to make their lives hard, but in reality the regular medical world already has solutions to most of their troubles.

One thing the show highly favours is the appearances of people – everyone is in awe of Masha because she is this skinny silhouette clad in white, with a Russian accent as far from real as the physical distance between the countries. There is no reason for anyone to like her, or trust her, as it is revealed that she drugs the guests without their knowledge, all in the name of “healing” (really wrong messaging here, by the way, and surprising that not many people are speaking about it). Despite the potential to deliver on life-changing solutions to the very real problems some of the guests do seem to have, it just falls flat on the face, like having a Christmas gift from a favorite person, with beautiful wrapping, but the box is filled with packing peanuts. This analogy is more true, since this comes from the same set of creators and adapted from the same author who wrote Big Little Lies.

Melissa McCarthy deserves an award for her performance in this show, she is finally getting a role where she is able to show her range – no more goofy comic sidekick. She is also the only one who has a more detailed and relatable trauma from which she is a trying to recover. If you need a reason to watch the show, she is it. And nothing else.

Dial 100

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https://www.bollywoodmdb.com/movies/

Rating: 2 out of 5

Starring: Manoj Bajpayee, Neena Gupta, Sakshi Tanwar, Abhijeet Chavan, Nandu Madhav

Streaming on: Zee5

To watch or not to watch: Extremely predictable, with good performances

Nikhil Soni (Manoj Bajpayee) is a police officer supervising emergency calls, when they receive a call from a woman in distress, who is planning to commit suicide. She is depressed because of the death of her young son in an accident the previous year. Meanwhile, Nikhil is also dealing with a domestic situation – his 17 year old son has a criminal past and is doing little to mend his ways, giving his mother Prerna (Sakshi Tanwar) sleepless nights. The suicidal woman (Neena Gupta) reveals her true agenda, which is vendetta against the people responsible for her son’s death.

It all sounds thrilling, right? Yea, it’s not. From the first, it is obvious the caller lady is connected with Nikhil Sood and has something to do with the crime connected to his son. All the thrill of the movie is collected in the trailer, which undoubtedly is compelling. The whole is lackluster to say the least. The fact that Manoj Bajpayee is a police officer, same as in Family Man, which was rightfully popular, does not seem like a coincidence. It is definitely clickbait. The actors have all delivered flawless performances. Special mention of Sakshi Tanwar, who is not praised nearly enough and who has delivered absolutely believable performance – quality stuff.

This was another disappointing release by Zee5 and another one which was tirelessly promoted across all platforms. Another release with class A performance and script from the bottom of the barrel. It is fundamentally wrong to continuously produce low quality content, specially by a production house as big as Zee. It is our responsibility as consumers to respond by our actions and not watch or promote content which is bad and plain lazy. As for the movie, nothing against the performances, but don’t watch it.

Rebecca

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https://www.imdb.com/

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Starring: Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas

Streaming on: Netflix

To watch or not to watch: A movie no one asked for, and makes the 1940 movie look far superior in comparison

It is based on the novel by Dame Daphne du Maurier. It follows the married life of an unnamed protagonist (Lily James) who started out as a lady’s companion, and meets a wealthy widower, Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer), while on holiday in Monte Carlo. After a short and whirlwind romance, they get married and move to Manderley House in England. There the new Mrs de Winter comes in contact with the memories of the previous Mrs de Winter (Rebecca), who lives on in the minds of the housekeeper, the indomitable Mrs Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas) and basically everyone who has met Rebecca. To fit the image of the perfect wife, Mrs de Winter tries very hard to emulate Rebecca, but it seems nothing can please her husband, who grows more distant with time. The story closes with a deep secret which has the potential to destroy the life of the married couple, if exposed.

*Sigh* Even without much expectations, the movie disappoints. The performances of the protagonists isn’t spectacular to begin with, and the awful direction makes it worse. The only one worth mentioning is Kristin Scott Thomas, who is every bit as Mrs Danvers as in the book, but unfortunately doesn’t get enough screen time. The director seems to rely on the knowledge of the viewers about the story, so he doesn’t put in much effort. Things do progess (slightly) in act 3, when it differs from the Hitchcock’s adaptation and Ben Wheatley seemed to come alive on the set for the first time. It doesn’t help though, as the whole premise – the extent of the unnatural adoration of Rebecca by Mrs Danvers – is never fully explained or explored. There was ample opporunity to make this movie stand out, as multiple themes of obsession, homosexuality or illegitimacy could have been explained which were a taboo at the time the book and first movie came out.

It is sad to see a lost opportunity in the world of cinema. The story in and of itself is a masterpiece and the failure of the reproduction cannot go to the performances alone. The only thing that stands out, other than Kristin Scott Thomas (who is the only reason the movie got as many stars as it did), is the cinematography, sets and costume design. The direction fails to capture of the set, which seemed to put the location subtle so as not take away from the movie, but without the movie delivering, it fails on another score. Watch the Alfred Hitchcock’s version if possible, or watch it while scrolling through the phone.

Raat Akeli Hai

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12567088/

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Shweta Tripathi, Ila Arun

Streaming on: Netflix

To watch or not to watch: A good whodunnit to watch over a meal

Raghuveer Singh, a politically connected, powerful and old landowner is found brutally murdered in his home on his wedding day. He was shot with a rifle and his face was bashed in with the same gun. The bride is Radha (Radhika Apte) who was sold to Raghuveer Singh and was his mistress. The wedding party was small, with only immediate family members in attendance. They opposed to the marriage, and they all collude to blame Radha for the murder. In comes Inspector Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) to investigate the crime, which includes political plot points and internal conflicts between family members.

It is not a very refreshing movie, as crime/mystery/thrillers are a dime a dozen and are a formula for success. This is different from others, in that it has a larger cast list with more well-known faces and a bit more serious crime plot. The movie touches a few social issues and doesn’t veer off the plot. They could have built upon the character stories a bit more, specially Radha, who has a key role. Even Jatil Yadav’s character is only understood by some subtext spread across the movie, making it difficult to understand the reason behind his actions and decisions.

The performances by Radhika Apte and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are perfect. In theory, they would have made an unlikely pair online, but in execution it all looks seamless. It isn’t something which demands constant attention and can be watched while getting chores done. It is good content from Netflix Originals, maybe their best yet.