Some more film-watching 2006 (4)

Never expected the Match Point review to end up as big as it finally did. Hence this separate post for random films I caught on the big screen in the past month. Hope you enjoy these mini-ops!

When A Stranger Calls (2006): ** and 1/2

Blame it on my impatience. A wait of a mere 30 minutes more and I could have watched the French thriller Hidden (Cache). But my attitude of barging into the cinema and into the screening straightaway meant I ended up with this teenybopper horror-lite. As if the title couldn't be any longer and self-explanatory, its about a high school girl getting harassed by a prank caller (read serial killer) one night when she's baby-sitting at a posh and sprawling riverside mansion.

Its more generic and predictable than the words themselves convey but somehow the formula concocted doesn't end up being an absolute disaster. The menace in the atmosphere is well maintained by clever lighting techniques (stepping into every room switches on the room's lights–works bigtime in chase sequences) and the opening sequence where a lonely woman (living next to a local fun fair) gets called and then killed manages to terrify thanks to inventive camera and sound design. But then these plusses are never quite equalled by a screenplay which is ridden with stupid sequences, characters that behave less logically than kindergarten children and a lead actress that pitches in a consistently pale performance. The end product isn't even a patch on Panic Room but thankfully doesn't bore either.

Silent Hill (2006): **

You can count the pigeon-holes into which the contemporary horror films broadly fall into– Grimy Gore fest (Saw, Hostel, Wolf Creek), Supernatural Thriller (Sixth Sense, Others), Costume-n-Mask Horror Dramas (Ghost Ship, Exorcist, Descent, Evil Dead) and lastly fantasy horror (Constantine, Silent Hill). I normally try to avoid the last group like plague, but somehow landed up watching this.

Though the basic premise in this case–a concerned mother takes her daughter to the demonic place that haunts and possesses the latter while sleepwalking-does elicit some reaction, the actual film simply fails. And there are many reasons for this–first, there's absolutely no warming up to the characters. You have barely found your seat and bang! you see the possessed daughter standing at the edge of a cliff while her mom shouts off in the background. Barely 5 minutes after that, both mom and daughter are on the trip to the godforsaken place called Silent Hill. A crash later… mom finds herself amidst a foggy, snowing with ashes, town of yore replete with dilapadated buildings, empty streets. The daughter's gone but can be heard running. Mom (Rose) follows the sound, and suddenly a loud siren starts firing away. Mom continues walking down the stairs of a huge building and suddenly a huge black mass starts to entangle and numerous blackfleshed screaming children mutants start to materialise.

As the film unfolds, one comes to know that the siren represents the falling of "darkness"–a sign of evil that resides in the limbo land of Silent Hill alongwith the godfearing fanatical Catholics. But how clear the line really is, between the good and evil, is the premise for the remaining film as Rose unearths the dark secrets of the Silent Hill. Problem is, there's too much of such gibberish and it takes itself way too seriously.

The film is filled to brim with conflicts and showdowns between cacophonic characters who, because we don't know about, we just don't care about. Making it all just a pile of nonsense and in the process, boring us to death (a cardinal sin for any film). The only highlights being the two-three sequences of "darkness falling" which sees the otherwise unsuspectingly falling-to-pieces walls and floors transform into a network of blood vessels and inaninmate objects turning into yucky creatures like human sized roaches etc. A flashback sequence done in grainy film about witch-hunting towards the climax is a valiant attempt to unlock this puzzle of a film but just succeeding that is a so-bizarre-it-cracks-you-up vengeance episode of the devil which really makes you wince and wonder how you ended up watching this.

I can fill up paras on how tacky the CGI was but just to summarise my experience–I was laughing my humble a*se off everytime the crafted monsters (a plastic-pyramid headed devil or a team of zombie nurses that go on a twitching frenzy..LOL) came on the screen.

Please don't waste your time and money on this tripe unless you still haven't been spoonfed the message of being judged after death.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006): ** and 1/2

Though never quite as ambitious as Pixar's or Dreamworks' animated ventures, of late Blue Sky Studios have set about a good account for themselves with gorgeous looking but simple feel-good animations like Ice Age and Robots. Surprisingly enough, Ice Age 2 as a sequel doesn't quite entertain on the same level as Shrek 2 did. Simply because its just more of the same old thing. The principal characters still carry on walking and meeting more silly characters en-route, and a love story and a predictable conflict later its all over and they continue walking happily ever after. Don't get me wrong–it really is an enjoyable fare with two things working bigtime in its favour-Scrat (the acorn-obsessed squirrel who'll go down the annals of animation as the best character ever) and the wit in the dialogues, but one only wishes they hadn't rushed the scriptwriter quite so much as to pen such a wafer-thin, predictable plot that ends up boring us of characters we had come to adore in Ice Age.

Still, I know I am repeating myself (but what the heck), just watching Scrat struggling to keep up with the forever slipping and out-of-reach acorn through half-liquid peaks and half-frozen water bodies will have you rolling in an un-abating laughing fit. This is one amazingly conceptualised character and hopefully, Blue Sky would release the next Ice Age sequel with only 90 minutes of Scrat and his acorn. Now that'd be something!

More Later,

Karan!

Match Point

Match Point (2005): ***

The trophy for the singlemost theme about relationships that’s so over-done on the big and the small screen that there’s just no more to say, has to be presented to extra-marital affairs. Sparks at first sight leading to months of secret courting and sex to normal life getting progressively neglected to the doubting spouse at home to the finale. We know the notes, the moments, hell–even the reactions and dialogues for every character. So what does Woody Allen throw into the mixture to make it just a tad more exotic? The element of luck. Getting caught or going scotfree.

Chris (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), the protagonist and a tennis pro bumps into Chloe (Emily Mortimer), sister of his new student Tom (Matthew Goode). On a dinner night, he gets to meet Tom’s fiance Nola (Scarlett Johansson) who’s a struggling American actress and is absolutely enticed by her charm. But of course, he’s gone way too far with Chloe to turn back and Nola is Tom’s fiance anyway–reason enough for him to take the wedding vows with Chloe and start the job at his in-law’s super-successful company. As luck would have it, no sooner is he married that Tom breaks up with Nola fed up with his mother’s not-so-subtle criticism of Nola’s lack of direction in life. Chris, now somewhat bored of his new life and wife and in no mood to suppress his temptation second time around , kickstarts a steamy extra-marital affair with Nola and within no time has sowed his seed. Now that Nola’s reluctant to go through abortion yet again (remember Tom? Well, basically he had also banged and then left her), things start spiralling out of control as Nola pushes Chris everyday to take the leap and leave Chloe once and for all. Which is when Chris decides to take matters in his hands, rather violently. Watch the film to check out the brilliant climax which’ll have you swearing by Chris’s favourite line– “I’d rather be lucky than good”.

If his directing repertoire is to be believed (haven’t seen any of his previous films), Woody Allen is a thespian when it comes to delivering character-centric cinema. And deliver he definitely does with Match Point where he lets the characters drone casually from one cliche to another and another. Until the unsuspecting climax makes you jump up and take notice (surprisingly, even here, in the film’s most impactful 30-minute finale, the camera and sound would carry on to be as unsuspectingly quiet as in the rest of the movie but the whole sequence is such, it jolts you no matter what). Reading what I’ve just written I definitely have used stronger adjectives than I’d planned to but in such a genteel and lush film, the thriller elements towards the end really come across more shockingly than they’d otherwise be worth. A perfect example of genre-mixing that works.

Till the final shocker though, you have to sit through a surprisingly timeworn romp of an upper middle class British family that believes in leading a high life– watching operas, ordering rather immodestly at the best restaurants, practice shooting and tennis, drive around in Beemers and holiday in the Greek Islands. And yes, speak in a language reminiscent of pre-pre-Victorian era. Seriously, the dialogue of Match Point is either written by someone who’s read all his Dickens and Twains and Eliots so many times he’s lost touch with how people speak in the real 21st century London or someone too desperate to “construct” a prim-n-propah British feel. Either way, it stands out like a sore thumb and is unintentionally funny for the first few minutes (after which your brain just ignores it).

A much larger part though in keeping your attention from wavering is played by the drop-dead sexy Scarlett Johansson who gets to show off some real stuff (anatomically and vocally) and boy, does she rock or what. All my doubts about her acting talent (after watching her sleepwalk through Lost in Translation and Island) have really burned to ashes. And then there’s the good ole charming British ensemble headed by a certain Matthew Goode (playing Tom) who could really teach a thing or two to the leading man in question (Jonathan R.Meyers) about improvisation and voice modulation. Mr Meyers turns in a surprisingly self-conscious performance (or is it his calculating character?) with a rather strange accent and hilarious mannerisms but somewhow manages to pull it together in key sequences and doesn’t, thankfully, hamper the film’s energy.

Overall, an old fashioned caper about extra-marital affairs that’ll leave you with a smile (for all the wrong reasons) with its smartly canned finale.

Quoting from the film: “There are moments in a tennis match where the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, remains in mid-air. With a litte luck, the ball goes over, and you win. Or maybe it doesn’t, and you lose.” Watch it to see if the hero manages to get a match point.
More reviews to follow!