Vishal's Blog

                                                      Movie Review : Fast and Furious 6                              What I thought was most impressive about Fast and Furious 6 was the end of the film in particular which provides an inkling about the sequel with Jason Statham. As he warns Dominic Torreto (Vin Diesel), fans have already started speculating what his role would be. Talking about this one, the current crew members of the film who were present in the previous version also really impress - one and all. The one-liners by Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson (popularly known as The Rock) are simply superb. The film begins with Torreto and his family - Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana ...

                                                DJANGO UNCHAINED : FILM REVIEW When you think of cow-boys and gun toting action, Clint Eastwood movies immediately come to mind. I have been a huge fan of his movies especially - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Django Unchained too is a similar kind-of movie wherein the director dwells in the civil war America when slavery ruled and the slaves were treated like dogs. But then there always emerges a Hero be it fiction or real life – as Coelho puts in his book ‘The winner stands alone’. Django is a blood soaked story of a slave turned bounty hunter who fights white men to win back his love. The prime deficiencies to me were too much violence used to exaggerate those bloody effects and unusual length of the film. After about 120-150 minutes (normal leng...

                                    OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN - FILM REVIEW  In all good v/s evil showdowns in Hollywood movies, when you think of a kidnapping scene, Bruce Willis' Die Hard immediately comes to the mind. The Antonie Funqua directed film Olympus has fallen too like many other films has derived inspiration from this all time best movie. Well, there is no Bruce Willis in this film but Gerard Butler does a pretty good job to keep the baddies at bay. And the stage is set. More so, the location which the baddies attack and keep people hostage is no ordinary building but the safest building on the planet - The White House. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is one of the top most security agents in the American President's security team. He has a personal relationship with the first family espec...

THE CALL With the IPL going on, movie goers like me are starved of choices. But watching a movie like The Call is definitely a pleasant experience. I do love watching thrillers but with an irresistibly charming Halle Berry in it.. the fun just doubles! Jordan Turner (Halle Berry) works as an operator in the the department of LAPD - 911. She gets a call from a teenager seeking help as a man enters her house. While Jordan is on the call with the girl, her intelligent and purposeful tips help the girl to hide away from the intruder. However while they are on the phone, it suddenly gets disconnected before Jordan calls her back. The phone rings alerting the intruder who succeeds in finding the girl. The girl is kidnapped and is murdered later on. This incident leaves Jordan devastated and puts her in a horrid state of mind. She refuses to take calls and works as an instructor preparing new joinees for the emotionally draining operator job. On one of those OJT's (On Job Tr...

Film Review – Blue (Rating 1 out of 5) The director of Blue, Anthony D’souza wanted to paint the nation Azure during the Diwali festival. He therefore sought the most expensive star cast in Bollywood – Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan in addition to some great underwater shots and an imported dame in Kylie Minogue. The 100 Crore film, an opulent spectacle, is a dampener though. The credit should be given to the marketing team of Shree Ashtavinayak films for creating a hype and hysteria around the film that it succeeded in accumulating 16 Crores in the first week itself. I too was a victim of the hype and saw the film on the Diwali day. Blue was supposed to be a jaw-dropping tryst, the first Bollywood underwater film with a huge array of under the sea stunts. However, these stunts by Pete Zuccarini (Pirates of the Caribbean fame) are not as fascinating as predicted and seem straight out of some Discovery channel show. The plot is desultory and dangling too. Sagar (Sa...

There was much anticipation about this film directed by Sooni Taraporevala who has been the screen-play writer of award winning movies such as Salaam Bombay and The Namesake. Secondly, the Hindi Film industry has too many talent Parsi actors and therefore this all Parsi film was expected to win hearts with its light humor. It does to a large extent. The film is a story of a little boy Xerxes Khodaiji (Jahan Bativala) who is a motherless child and is called Zizou because of his admiration for the football star Zinedine Zidane who is nicknamed Zizou. Xerxes is the son of Cyrus Khodaiji (Sohrab Ardeshir) who calls himself the religious leader and healer of all sins of the Parsi community. Xerxes’s uncle Boman Presswalla (Boman Irani) is opposed to Cyrus Khodaiji and publicly announces his dislike. Xerxes has an elder brother Artaxerxes (Imaad Shah) finds peace in caricatures and love in Boman’s elder daughter Zenobia (Dilshad Patel) who however loves Arjun (John Abraham in a special appea...

Daniel Craig in one of his movie pre-release interviews mentioned that he wanted the Indians to watch the movie before the Americans. There was an anticipation for this movie before it was released because of this. A superb performance by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale was the reason why this movie too received such a stupendous welcome. A sequel to Casino Royale, Bond this time fights with Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) who heads the Quantum gang, poses as an environmentalist but actually wants to take control of the Bolivian water supplies. Chasing the bad guys across Austria, Chile, Italy and Austria, Bond wants to take revenge of the killing of his love interest Vesper Lynd who was killed. The movie begins with Bond being chased by a few henchmen who are eventually killed by him. One of the trusted aides of Madam M, who turned a traitor, is killed by Bond. The search for another lead-Edmund takes him to Haiti and is killed again. Annoyed by the constant killing of such important l...

Slum Dog Millionaire was released in India amidst its share of glories and controversies. After the golden globes bursts, it not only received Oscar nominations but also was criticised by someone who on any day can easily be a brand ambassador of Bollywood – Amitabh Bachchan. There was, therefore a lot of curiosity for this movie. Danny Boyle’s Slum Dog Millionaire is a soul-stirring, fast, entertaining and a rags-to-riches story of a boy who can be easily written off as one from the slums but eventually goes on to become a millionaire on the “Who wants to be a millionaire” show hosted by Anil Kapoor. The movie is very enthralling and delves into the darker side of our own Mumbai. One may feel a bit odd watching the English version of the movie hearing the kids in the movie speaking a high accent English language. The story begins with the main character of the movie Jamal Malik enjoying his life as a child in our own Dharavi along with his brother. They belong to a family who cannot e...