Movie Review: Vertigo (1958)

Vertigo is considered an Alfred Hitchcock classic and is one of the best movies made in history of cinema. It is a psychological thriller directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock.

The story is about detective John Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) who has fear of heights. John retires from his profession after a police chase results in his partner falling from the roof due to his fear from height.

The next day, a college friend of John, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) asks him for a favor. He asks him to follow his wife Madeleine (Kim Novak) and find out to where she goes, not that he doubts her faithfulness but he suspects that she is being possessed by someone.

 He follows her and finds out that she is constantly hinting about her being possessed by Carlotta Valdes, in the graveyard she was staring at Carlotta Valdes’s grave, at a palace she was staring at Carlotta’s portrait. He learns from a book store owner that Carlotta Vandes had committed suicide after having left out by her husband who also kept her child with him. From Elster he learns that Carlotta Vandes his wife’s great grandmother. He also learns that her possession of Carlotta was not due to obsession, in fact she never had heard about Carlotta. 

The next day he again follows her to the bay and sees her instantly jumping into the water after throwing away the flowers she bought. He jumps into the bay and saves her. He takes her to his home and lays her on bed. When she wakes up, they talk and he inquires about her being found in the bay. They meet again the next day and he takes her to show old evergreen trees grown big, she later on tells him about the other world she often drifts into after her fits return. The next day she again comes to see him and tells him about the old San Francisco sites that keep haunting her. 

He takes her to those places and tries to research more and more into Carlotta’s past in order to cure her. Her fits again seem to return when she faces an urge to go to church, he after seeing the height of the church, follows her there, he sees her climbing the stairs, he follows her but stops at a point where he remembers he has fear of height. He sees the girl’s body falling down from the window. Although the jury passes the verdict that Madeleine’s committing suicide was the result of her mental illness, he is driven by guilt of not having saved the women.

 He constantly dreams about Carlotta’s necklace that Madeleine used to wear. Eventually he drives into the hotel room where Madeleine used to stay and meets Judy Barton who looks like Madeleine. She shows him her identity proof and domicile after a lot of convincing. He then asks her to have dinner with him just to remind himself of his love that he lost. She agrees. Now the suspense is revealed that the girl who ran on the stairs of the church was Judy and the girl who was thrown down from the ledge was the wife of Elster. It was Elster’s plan to kill his wife. She thinks about writing a letter to John explaining him about his plan but out of anxiety and fear of losing his love forever, she tears the letter. John and Judy start to love each other. John convinces Judy to dress like Madeleine. When he sees her wearing Carlotta’s necklace, he deduces that she is the actual girl who ran up to the church stairs. He takes her to the same church and forcefully takes her up the stairs while reciting her and Elster’s complete plan, he faces his phobia of height again and again but somehow overcomes it with his anger. When they reach the crime site, she tells him that she actually loves him and begs for forgiveness, in the meantime a nun appears at the spot, Judy while kissing John, almost startled by the sudden distraction by the nun, steps backward and falls from the church building to her death. The nun terrified by the site rings the mission bell and a startled John stands on the ledge in horror.

The movie was too long and thus became slow at some parts but that is acceptable considering the long screenplay movies which were made at that time. The suspense shown in the movie was thrilling and the story was it’s biggest plus point. No doubt Alfred Hitchcock is considered the master of suspense.

The best thing about the movie was that the suspense in that film was very entertaining and at the same time did not require too much brain to understand, this quality lacks in movies made nowadays. I believe that if a director is unable to explain his movie properly, it is the result of poor direction. I hold this case true for the movie Prestige. It required me one repetition and an hour of internet research to understand the film. The concept was excellent but the director failed to convey it to the audience properly.

It is after a long time that I watched a classic and happy to have chosen Vertigo.

Movie Review: Bobby Jasoos

Whenever people talk about detectives, the image of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Feluda etc popup in our mind. Bollywood has started to treat the subject from a different angle, it started with Joe B Carvalho which was a disaster, and actually it deserved to be a disaster. Before that there was Barfi too, it was not exactly a spy flick but still a little bit detective touch was there but that film was also criticized for more than half of the scenes copied from Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Chan films. Now the latest entry into this race is the movie which I am going to talk about today.

 The story is set in Hyderabad. A small time private detective (Vidya Balan) who aspires to work in a private detective firm pursues her spying passion by solving neighborhood cases of little account. Her name is Bilqis Ahmed popularly referred to as Bobby Jasoos. She has least interest in household work and therefore is most of the time neglected by her father. What drives the story is the one chance she gets when a man named Anees Khan (Kiran Kumar) approaches her and offers her huge amount of money to find a girl. He doesn’t provide her any solid identity of the girl except a birthmark. She enthusiastically takes up the case and finds her, after this he offers her more amount to find another girl, and this is how the story proceeds giving the audience a twist at the end. Do not be too enthusiastic about it because the twist is not too much unexpected kind of. The story also has a touch of romance and emotions but I am sure that’s not exactly what audience is looking for; still, seeing the storyline, the emotional touch was a necessity.

This is the most easy going decent detective comedy which although has a villain angle but does not actually have a villain. It is one of those movies for which you can hold your patience and wait for it to air on television or subscribe on DTH. The movie does not have a very good storyline but the storyline is not bad either. A decent one time watch which entertains you at some moments, that’s what the movie is.

Vidya Balan was excellent in her character, she is a middle class unmarried girl who aspires to make it big; in all her looks that she possesses, be it the Jyotishi who reads palm for free, a bangle seller, student etc she was perfect throughout. Ali Fazal as Tasavur, Bobby’s friend who eventually falls in love with her, was also justified for his character. All the others specifically including Kiran Kumar as Anees Khan, Arjan Bajwa as Lala and Rajendra Gupta as Bobby’s father were great with their characters.  

Final advice, this movie is a decent watch for all those who are brain licked by watching Joe B Carvalho. This film is ten times better than that. The comedy is funny though not too much tickling but at the same time the writers and directors had not taken the help of illogical situations and characters.

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Movie Review: Raging Bull (1980)

When I was small I used sports like boxing and wrestling as a means of excuse to beat my friends or pick a fight with them. My parents used to stop us and lie that everything shown in there is false, was it really false? I used to wonder. If I had seen Raging Bull at that age, provided that I also know it’s a true story, I would have had known the actual truth.

Yes, Raging Bull, released in 1980 and directed by Martin Scorcese  was a true story about a boxer named Jake La Motta who was also known as “The Raging Bull” and “The Bronx Bull”. The film was adapted by Mardik Martin and Paul Schrader into a screenplay from Jake La Motta’s memoir ‘Raging Bull: My story’.

The film starts with showing an aging and overweight Jake La Motta practicing a comedic routine. The rest of the film then shows in flashbacks starting from his first loss in 1941 from Jimmy Reeves to his arrest in 1958 for introducing underage girls to men in a club he owned in Miami. The movie basically shows the character of Jake La Motta, his relations with his brother Joey La Motta and wife Vikki LaMotta. How he lost everything due to his rage and sexual jealousy was what this movie intended to convey.

 He hated it when he saw his wife talking to other people, and frequently slapped and scolded her. One of the important reasons for his victory in the ring was his jealous rage against his wife which he used to take out on his opponents, the most important being Tony Janiro whom he had brutally beaten up after his wife had made an offhand comment about him that he has a pretty face. His jealousy became more and more violent day after day, he started to slap her and beat her and eventually also started to suspect his own brother Joey La Motta to have had intimate relation with her.  After a long argument about this matter with Joey, which also forms an iconic scene of this film, Jake’s suspicion makes Vikki sarcastically shout that she had sex with Joey and other men, Jake brutally beats Joey up at his own house, in front of his wife and children, when Vikki tried to stop him, she was slapped too. He later regretted his action and was able to convince his wife about not leaving him but was alienated away by his brother. After defeating Laurent Dauthuille in 1950, he tries to make contact with his brother for reconciliation but to no success. By 1956, Jake and his family had moved to Miami where he has grown overweight, and owns a nightclub La Motta’s. 

After he stays out all night, Vickie informs him that she wants a divorce; he is later arrested for introducing underage girls to men in his club. He tries to bribe his way out by using the jewels from his championship belt but is jailed in 1957 after which he sorrowfully punches the wall and crying in despair over his misfortune. In 1958 he is back in New York and lands upon his brother Joey, he asks for forgiveness constantly; Joey elusively forgives him. The film cuts back to where it started and ends with a biblical quote.

There is no need to comment about the movie’s screenplay and Martin Scorcese’s direction, me not being a fan of sports also enjoyed the movie. The film stars one of the best actors in the history of cinema, Robert De Niro and one of my favorite comedians Joe Pesci. Needless to mention about Robert De Niro’s acting, and Joe Pesci as his brother succeeded to obtain himself the tag of one of the best supporting actors in history. I think somehow somewhere Martin Scorcese also knew that some of his characters can be best portrayed by Joe Pesci and now realize that his super hit collaboration with Robert De Niro in movies like Raging Bull, Casino and Goodfellas is incomplete without the support of Joe Pesci. 

Movie Review: Angshumaner Chobi (2009)

This Tollywood movie which is also a debut film of Atanu Ghosh, features the story of four people, Angshuman, a director from Italy who comes to Kolkatta to make a movie; Madhura Sen, a onetime national award winning actress who now works in Jatra; Pradyut Mukhopadhyay, a depressed 72 year old man who was once a superstar but now has nightmares of his makeup man nagging him and Neel, a gigolo who is having an affair with Madhura Sen.

 Angshuman (Indraneil Sengupta) comes to India from Italy to direct his first project which is a biographical movie based on the life of a 72 year old celebrity painter who suffers from Dementia and his 31 year old nurse. People whom he wants to enact the lead roles at any cost are Pradyut Mukhopadhyay (Soumitra Chatterjee) and Madhura Sen (Indrani Halder). Pradyut Mukhopadhyay was a superstar of his time and now has chosen a life of exile, he does not wish to act in movies anymore. He frequently dreams of his makeup man nagging him and shouting that his part has finished thus he should wipe off his makeup.

Madhura Sen had won a national award in her debut film and because of her arrogance and tantrums; her career declined and now leads a life of frustration and acts for jatras. She has a secret affair with a gigolo named Neel (Tata Roy Choudhary), who is passionate about dancing and astronomy.

Madhura and her husband Sudip, who was once her big fan, have no contact with each other, yet they are not divorced. Madhura receives news of Sudip committing suicide; CID crime branch officer Sourya (Ananya Chatterjee) suspects it to be a case of homicide. Angshuman in the meantime seeing all this is still determined about making his film.

Every fresh filmmaker has to struggle to make his first feature film, what kind of struggle they go through may vary. In this movie, it is shown what kind of struggle Angshuman, a young director who studied filmmaking in Italy has to go through to make his first feature film in Kolkatta. Firstly he had to convince yesteryear’s superstar Pradyut to come out of his lonely life and start acting, then he had to convince Madhura, who signed for the script easily but her brief conflict with Pradyut, and then her husband’s murder case, her affair with a gigolo and her tantrums were obstacles on his way towards the completion of his film shoot. It was not just Angshuman’s story, whatever obstacles occurred from Pradyut, Madhura and Neel’s sides were a part of their own sufferings.

The direction and writing style is a mix of genres capturing emotion, little bit humor, thriller and tragedy. It is one of those movies which someone would watch only once but then that onetime watch for him will be necessary. With a powerful story, the movie also has powerful star cast with actors like the legendary Soumitra Chatterjee, Tata Roy Choudhary, Indraneil  Sen Gupta and Ananya Chatterjee along with special appearances from Bengali film industry’s renowned artists like Sabyasachi Chakravorty, Rudranil Ghosh and Kaushik Sen.

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Movie Review: Grace of Monaco

Produced by Uday Chopra of YRF studios and Arash Amel, who is also the writer of this movie, Grace of Monaco shows the life of actress Kelly Grace after her marriage with Prince of Monaco, Rainer III. At that time there had been a dispute between France’s Charles De Gaulle and Prince Rainer III, at the very time she was also considering returning to Hollywood to star in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Marnie.

Grace Kelly’s (Nicole Kidman) married life with Prince Rainer III (Tim Roth)  was not a very pleasurable one, her husband is busy most of the time and due to the dispute between Monaco’s Rainer III and France’s Charles De Gaulle, the prince was already distressed. She realizes that the royal family of Monaco stress more on luxuries and politics than family and as a naïve, everything she says have consequences hence she is told to say nothing at all by the Prince. During the same time director Alfred Hitchcock also proposes her to return to Hollywood with his next movie Marnie. She at first refuses but later considers doing that film. 

Prince at first is supportive but the council members oppose her decision fearing that it may result in studio publicizing the movie in their name to which Grace’s publicist assures them that Alfred Hitchcock has agreed about not publicizing the film in their name. They agree and decide to keep it a secret for time being; however someone from the family leaks the news to the newspapers. Although Grace is eager but due to public outcry, tells Hitchcock that needs some time to decide whether she would do that movie or not.  She decides to investigate the matter herself.  Deciding not to be naïve anymore, Kelly starts to learn customs and traditions of being the princess of Monaco; she takes personal French tuitions and learns about the historical importance of Monaco. Grace Kelly finally rejects doing Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie. Later she suspects that countess is the traitor and spots her meeting a French detective. Much later Rainer and Grace learn that Rainer’s own sister is the traitor who had hired the French detective and the countess to handover Monaco to Charles Gaulle so that she can take over the thrown as princess. In the end, people of Monaco accept Grace Kelly as their Princess.

The movie only has the power of star cast, apart from this; I can’t find any reason to recommend it. The objective to show a particular scene in the movie had not been properly conveyed. Firstly I don’t understand why such a story has been adopted into a screenplay in the first place, I mean it’s not like Grace Kelly had a very extraordinary story or something. She was an actress and had difficulty in adjusting to the royal family, that’s it. The public outcry due to her return in movies gave her the need to behave like a princess. And at the same time the conflict and conspiracies happening which were not necessarily true because when the movie starts, it’s written that it is a fictional account of the life of Grace Kelly.

Overall, there’s no point watching this movie. If you have already seen this movie and have a different opinion then do let me know in comments. If you want to rate my review then go to this link

Movie Review: Ed Wood

Over the years I have developed a liking for Johny Depp because of the roles he played. Among my friends, he is best known for fantasy roles he played but there’s this other side of him, not many know that he has also enacted a lot of biographical personalities also namely Donnie Brasco in Donnie Brasco, George Jung in Blow and the one I am today going to review, Edward Davis "Ed" Wood, Jr. in Ed Wood.

This 1994 biographical movie shows the struggle of Ed Wood in Hollywood. It also explores the friendship between Ed Wood and Bella Lugossi, the actor well known for playing the title role in 1931 movie Dracula. The film also shows Ed Wood’s relationship and breakup with actress Dolores Fuller who would later have a successfull songwriting career, his brief involvement with actress Loretta King and relationship with Kathy O Hara after his break up.

This Tim Burton directed flick not only explores Ed Wood’s vision and the cheap methods adopted by him for his screenplays but also explores his carefree attitude and friendly and lenient nature as a director having to take almost zero retakes during film shoots. With Orson Welles being his idol, Ed Wood remained a struggling producer, director, scriptwriter and actor throughout his life having had made movies which were critical as well as commercial failure. He had signed many stars of that time namely Bella Lugossi and Vampira to name a few. The film shows the making of three Ed Wood movies namely Glen and Glenda (which was a critical as well as commercial failure) ,Bride of the Monster (in whose premiere it was shown that Ed Wood, his girlfriend, Vampira and the rest of the cast attending the premiere were chased away by the angry mob to have watched such a silly flick)  and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

As a person, he had a good heart ,having had the tendency to keep everyone happy which his movies could not do, staying loyal to his friends and naturewise, he loved to wear women’s clothing, this was the reason why he claimed he was the perfect director for the movie I changed my sex  later renamed Glen or Glenda because in a way it was his own biography; as a businessman he had excellent convincing power, he had managed to convince B movies producer George Weiss to let him direct Glen or Glenda, he convinced Bella Lugossi to star in his movies Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster , he had persuaded meat packing industry tycoon Don McCoy to fund Bride of the Monster, McCoy’s son  Tony McCoy did the lead role in that film; he had also persuaded a church leader named Reynolds to fund his movie Grave leaders from outer space which would later be renamed Plan 9 from outer space.

As an admirer of biographical films which show the titular character’s rise and fall and then death, I really wish they could have shown the last years of Ed Wood, but then in a way they did that. After the climax which shows Ed Wood at the premiere of Plan 9 from Outer Space believing that this will be the film he will be remembered for and driving off to Nevada with Kathy to get married; the closing credits reveal that Ed Wood continued to struggle in Hollywood but could not achieve mainstream success, Kathy had been his loyal wife throughout supporting him in his ups and downs, he later made many monster nudie films and died, two years after his death he was posthumously given the accolade of ‘The Worst Director of all time’ earning him a new generation of fan following.  The aftermath of other actors like Bella Lugossi, Amazing Chriswell, Vampira etc were also revealed before closing credits.

Almost all of Tim Burton movies star Johny Depp, however his movies have title roles for which Johnny Depp is the perfect choice. This movie was a surprise to have been directed by Tim Burton, and that too so perfectly. Johny Depp was awesome as ever in this film too. The biggest plus point of this movie was the star cast, they were all supposed to play real life characters and I checked out the real pictures of the characters in internet, it was as if they all have come alive in this Tim Burton’s directorial venture. 

For people who love to know about the classic period of cinema, this movie is a must watch since Ed Wood is a director who deserves worth a mention in Hollywood’s history.

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Movie Review: Ek Villain

Ek Villain is a story to show transformation. The fact that a brutal gangster can become a good person if loved and a normal man can become brutal if he receives hatred and nothing else forms the crux of the story.

The story is about Guru (Siddhartha ) who is a gangster working under don Caesar, he has a guilt to have killed a young man mercilessly. When he meets Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor), his life changes, throughout his life he hated his destiny until Aisha makes him fall in love with her and he starts to discover the wonders of the life he unknowingly wanted. Parallel to this love story is the story of Rakesh (Riteish Deshmukh) who wants to be his family’s ‘hero’ and always gets nagged by his wife Sulochna (Aamna Sharif) and thus spends time killing the girls and women who talk rudely to him. He states that he also wants to kill his wife but cannot since he loves her more than ever. Guru’s and Rakesh’s path intersect and then you get to clutter your fingers during the movie.

The best thing about this movie was watching Riteish Deshmukh in the role of a psychotic serial killer who relieves his stress, given by his wife, by mercilessly killing other girls who had been rude to him and stealing one of their ornaments and gifting it to his wife.

 Riteish was excellent in his character, throughout the movie, during the boring conversations between Guru and Aisha, I waited for Rakesh to commit another sin. Ek Villain is an example of such a movie in which the audience will cheer for the antagonist, Deshmukh. Through this movie Riteish has proved that apart from being the comedy king, he can flawlessly enact serious and villaneous roles too, though he had proved this point earlier also while giving movies like Rann and Naach, but our audience is so addicted to good looking heroes that talent goes unnoticed most of the time.

 Siddhartha was also great in his role; he has a romantic character but not a chocolaty lover kind of role that he did in his earlier movies; no doubt this gangster role fits into his profile. Shraddha Kapoor was irritating, she has an irritating voice, she had irritating dialogs, each scene that comprised only her and Siddharth were boring, thanks to Mohit Suri that he imposed a beautiful song after each of their scenes. Yes the songs were excellent; almost all of them were liked by me. Mohit Suri proved that whatever the genre is, he will rightfully produce the results that audience will love. The surprise was Kamaal R Khan, I think he should carry the comedy genre forward, even when he laughs out loud and delivers dialog, it is comedy for us. Others had a limited scope and thus properfully fitted into their charactors except Remo Fernandez who enacted the role of Caesar, he appeared to be overacting. The story has many loopholes so I won’t say that the story was excellent. Certain things weren’t explained for example what Caesar’s reaction was after Guru does not kill Rakesh’s child in the end. Why Rakesh kills Guru’s father-in-law? If Rakesh would have simply told the address to the policeman, Guru would have reached there anyway to beat Rakesh, there was no need of a psycho to kill Aisha’s father and how Rakesh did even know that the particular person is Aisha’s father? The story has these kinds of unexplained scenes which the writer and the director failed to make clear.

Overall this movie is a decent watch, at least for Siddharth and Riteish, you should watch it. After watching the movie once, you will definitely want to watch it again by forwarding some scenes only to see Riteish Deshmukh because he was the scene stealer.

Out of 5, this film deserves 3

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Movie Review: Devil's Knot

This biographical crime film is based on the novel Devil’s knot by Mara Leveritt. It showcases the true story of the three boys collectively known as The West Memphis Three, who were falsely convicted for the murder of three eight year old boys.

In 1993, in the working class community of West Memphis, Arkansas, three 8 year old children went missing from the neighborhood. Their dead bodies are found in a pond. The communinity and the police department are convinced that the murders were a work of satanic cult. Three teenagers Damien Echoels, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr were arrested after Miskelley’s exactly four hours of confession. The confession which Miskelley told them was probably false as he is shown telling his dad ‘I tried to make them happy’.

My take on this movie (more precisely the murder case) is that, there are certain things that happen unknowingly due to the supposed bad habits you and the society have. There was no solid evidence from which the police could deduce that the three were guilty but due to the superstitious belief that the murders were a work of a satanic cult, Damien Echoels and Jason Baldwin are arrested. 

They both passed their time listening to hard metal music and a religious leader believed that hard metal music is very much connected to Satanism. Moreover some witnesses revealed that Damien once threatened to kill an 8 year old boy. Another witness also revealed that Damien worshipped satan. 

Vicky hutcheson, who is an important person in the case, claimed that she saw drunken Damien openly bragging to have killed the three boys. So you can say that to an extent Damien was played too brutally by his karma. Police and Society’s superstition, Damien’s satanic nature and Jessie Misskelley Jr’s immature confessions were not the only factors responsible for their trial, there was one more angle arced against the three, the story submitted by the victim’s playmate and Vicky’s son Aaron. 

Aaron told the police that he was an eyewitness of the incident and that Jessie Miskelley made him drink a bucket of the victim’s blood and killed the children in front of him after which Miskelley confessed to have seen Echoels striking the knife into the children. 

In the end of the film, closing credits reveal that the blood samples matched the DNA of Steve Branch’s (one of the three eight year old victims) step dad, Terry although it was never submitted as evidence. Vicky Hutcheson had retracted her statement stating it as fabricated and to have said it because of policemen forcing her to do so. Aaron, their playmate who claimed to have been an eyewitness of the murders today has no idea what had really happened.

The film shows how much misguided the legal system is. Policemen arresting people only on the basis of false witness statements and superstitions and not even single solid or physical evidence. They believed what they wanted to believe.

The movie described the chaos too well, therefore it is watchable. The happenings during the trial had been described appropriately. Reese Witherspoon plays an important role as Pamela Hobbs, mother of Stevie Branch who tries to deal with her remorse for her lost son. But the best actor I would say was James Hamrick, he plays the role of Damien Echols very realistically, he was absolutely natural and dissolved into the character. Others were all great in their roles. After you watch this movie, you will then realize why the movie is called ‘Devil’s knot’.

Out of a scale of 1 to 5, the film deserves a 3.5 definitely.

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