Black Mass (2015) Movie Review

A Good Johnny Depp Movie After A Long Time

     Black Mass, a crime, drama biopic directed by Scott Cooper, it represents the true story of a 20^th century infamous crime lord, James “Whitey” Bulger, who also happens to be the brother of a state senator, and about his alliance with the FBI to become an informant in order to bring down a mafia which is affecting his business.

     Now the plot of this film isn’t that interesting, there is nothing really to hold on to in the entire film, but it’s the performance of these actors which makes you keep your eyes on the screen all the time.

     James “Whitey” Bulger portrayal by Johnny Depp is fantastic in this film, one of the Johnny Depp’s best performance in the recent years, after Alice in Wonderland, he kinda faded away after that movie for like five years or so; bad movie, one after another, looks like he is finally back.

     Joel Edgerton is great as John Connolly, an FBI agent, he and James Bulger grew up together, both are like a backbone to each other, and he has given some excellent performance in this movie. He was great in Warrior, even in Exodus, and in his directorial debut The Gift; he is one of the talented actors at present.

     Benedict Cumberbatch as William “Billy” Bulger, senator brother of James Bulger; he is really good with this amazing Boston accent; he doesn’t have much to do in the film but his performance was really great, and the audience always have his attention when he is on screen. He was the bold, top notch looking person in the whole movie, after all he is a senator, he has to look like that and he really nailed it.

     Jesse Plemons AKA Meth Damon; Todd from Breaking Bad is in this film as Kevin Weeks, an associate, as a right hand man to the kingpin Whitey Bulger; he is good too. He and Johnny Depp have some serious facial makeup throughout the movie.

       Kevin Bacon, another FBI agent, boss of Joel Edgerton, he is really good. Dakota Johnson is in this film, so is Peter Sarsgaard, and they are great, almost every actors in this film are really good, so enough of the characters and performance, let’s talk about the actual movie.

     The movie as a biopic is just  absolutely amazing; it has great cast, their performance is just crazy, great cinematography with great beautiful wide shots, but the thing is you don’t feel anything toward these characters, of course the acting, the performance is great, but you are not emotionally attached to these people; you don’t route for them, you don’t care, you don’t give a crap if they win or lose or die or whatever, you are just watching to know about this FBI-Mafia-Kingpin thing as it’s a true story and for the performance given by these actors; it’s not that it’s a negative thing, it’s just there is nothing that could be done to make the audience feel something about these people; it’s a biopic, if that’s how these people were, if Whitey Bulger was an actual dick to everyone he knows, then we just have to deal with it. If you try to add something off chart to this amazing biopic, to make it more “Interesting”, then it won’t be a biopic anymore; it will just be another bland crime drama thriller.

     Another issue with this film is that a person in it just right off disappears from the film; the character is nowhere shown in the movie later, I won’t spoil who it is, it’s just one of those tiny issue we happen to notice during the movie, you don’t know what happened to that person, where that person went, nothing; it just feels a little incomplete.

     There is also a slight problem with the pacing, even though the movie is a sub two hour movie, it feels like it’s a very big one, I literally thought that the cinema is gonna show an entire movie without the interval, and the ending kinda felt a little bit rushed; a five or ten minutes more could have done the justice.

     Now the verdict; the movie is really good, a great one time watch, with great performance and cinematography, along with a few issues here and there, which doesn’t really bother you very much, and a great biopic. Watch this movie for Johnny Depp’s comeback performance, as well as for the performance of the other actors. I am gonna give Black Mass a 7 out of 10 star rating.

     Watch this film with your buddies, or just alone, all by yourself. Do not watch his with your Parents or your partner, I just won’t recommend you to do that.

        

       Thank You for Reading J

Brothers (2015) Movie Review

Blood against Blood

    Brothers, a Bollywood action-drama film, an official remake of 2011 Hollywood film Warrior, based on Mixed Martial Arts (MMA); directed by Karan Malhotra known for his directorial debut Agneepath.

     To begin with I really had high expectations for this movie, after watching the trailer few months ago I was really pumped up, then again you shouldn’t really have high expectations for remakes. The film is about two estranged brothers, played by Akshay Kumar as David Fernandes, a physics school teacher who quits his daily job to become a fighter and to save his ill daughter. And Monty Fernandes, a street fighter who has grudge on his brother David for something he did in their tragic past. The two set out to face the fight in the R to F tournament, Right to Fight, which has just been legalized in India; along with their father Gary Fernandes played by Jackie Shroff, a former street fighter, who is just out of prison and is a recovering alcoholic, and is trying to set things right between them.

     The cast is really good in this movie, Akshay Kumar as David has given a terrific performance. A young school teacher/fighter, a family guy character really suits him, and he pulled it off.

     Sidharth Malhotra as younger brother Monty, he works as an illegal street fighter and his tragic past just makes him stronger. This is his fourth film and I think it’s his best performance so far.

     Jacqueline Fernandez is good in the film as David’s wife. Ashutosh Rana is in this film as David’s trainer, even he has given an amazing performance; but its Jackie Shroff who is worth mentioning, he is really struggling to get things right between him and his sons, he isn’t able to come off from what he did in the past, his two sons are the only things left for him in his world, and one is avoiding him completely. There is a scene at the beginning of the movie, where he comes out of his prison cell and we have this long shot of him going through his belongings, he goes through his wallet searching for something, and the camera focuses on hands which is shaking with anxiety, it’s just amazing, and really emotional, a tear jerking moment in the movie.

     First half of the movie isn’t really that great, as a whole this movie is an emotion packed action film, but there are a few cheesy things in it like Akshay Kumar showing which hits the ground first experiment to 8^th or 9^th grade students, I had a big pokerface when in saw that, that experiment is meant for little kids, not for high school students; and there comes an unnecessary item number just out of nowhere to lure the audience into the theater. Well thank you for ruining the movie sir.

     In the Warrior; the two brothers are dealing with something really bad, Joel Edgerton has an ill daughter and he needs money for the treatment, his brother Tom Hardy has a really sad tragic past, a gripping backstory, something bad has happened to him, and we audience are crushed between these two brothers, stuck in between this sibling rivalry, not knowing whom to root for; we feel so bad for both of them and we want both to win the fight, the fight sequences were really amazing and it felt so real. Well that’s not the case in this film; whenever Sidharth Malhotra(Monty) is on screen, all you see is him wearing a vest, depressed, holding a small bottle of alcohol, with an angry revengeful look on his face; how can you back someone like that? You wont feel anything towards him and you will end up rooting for David.

     The actual fight scene starts only after the interval; it’s the second half of the film which really counts and its way better than the first half. The fight sequence is good, but we have those overused fake punch sound effects, way many cuts in between, and too many close-up shots and shaky cam to make it look intense; that’s kind of a huge turn off; but still it’s enough to keep you entertained throughout the movie.

   So over all Brothers is an emotion packed, tear jerking action-drama film, which isn’t even nearly as good as the original 2011 film Warrior, but it’s good enough to keep you entertained, and way better; a sensible movie when compared to most of the Bollywood films we are getting these days; and it would have been even more better if the first half of the movie were as good as the second. So I am gonna give Brothers an average 6 out of 10 rating.

                                              Thank You

Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation (2015) Movie Review

                         Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

      Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation stars Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner and Alec Baldwin; a spy action film directed by Christopher McQuairre and it’s the fifth film in the Mission Impossible Franchise. One of the best movie franchises out there which is getting stronger and stronger without failing to impress the viewers.

    This film is about Ethan Hunt and his team trying to prove the existence of the Syndicate, an unknown terrorist organization which is behind many disasters around the world, and is also trying to bring down the IMF(Impossible Mission Force). The action sequences are amazing in this movie, the plane sequence which you see in the trailers, a beautiful underwater sequence, a really good bike chase scene; if you haven’t seen Christopher McQuairre’s previous film ‘Jack Reacher’, it has this beautiful car chase sequence which reminds us of those classic chase scenes from movies like Bullitt or Ronin; pure adrenaline filled car chase scene, with no background music, none of those interrupting cheesy dialogues in between, all you can hear is the engine grunt, those eargasmic exhaust sounds, police sirens and just tires screeching; that’s exactly what we audience wanted a car chase in a movie to be and he delivered it in Jack Reacher. Now he does the same thing in MI5 but this time with bikes and it works so well. I don’t think I have ever saw such an amazing bike chase scene in a movie.

   As far the actors goes, Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, he still has it, in fact he kills it, he still has that badass nature, and he does a far better job than most of the young actors out there; doing most of his stunt work by himself; especially in that plane sequence, that’s just amazing,  he has amazing driving skills, he shows dedication to what he does and we have to respect that, he deserves every single praise he gets for this.

   Rebecca Ferguson, she, OMG she is amazing, she was the highlight of the whole movie, bold and badass in one single body, or package; whatever you want to call it; I liked her way more than Maggie Q from MI3, or even Paula Patton from Ghost Protocol for that matter; She was like a mother of Ethan Hunt, she protects him like three time in the entire movie, when she is on screen it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a Mission Impossible movie, it feels more serious, it feels more like a dark James Bond movie; she would be a perfect bond girl. Speaking of 007, for all the James Bond movie fans out there and petrolheads; there is an Aston Martin DB5 near the end of the movie; at a charity auction, make sure you notice that in case you watch the movie.

   Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell is in this movie and he has much more screen time than in the last film; thank you so much for that. In Ghost Protocol they just gave him like a two minute screen time, that was just so unfair, a very bad move; I am sure many MI fans were pissed at that.

   Simon Pegg as Benji, such a talented actor, even though Ving Rhames is in this movie; the chemistry between Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg was far more superior than in the last film; they looked after each other all the time, they were like brothers; he brings so much to this movie, his performance, his great timely sense of humour, works like a charm.

   Jeremy Renner, even though he is a great actor he doesn’t have much to do in this movie like in the last film, he doesn’t have much of a field work in this movie; all he does is trying to track down Tom Cruise where ever he goes, alongside Alec Baldwin who is a Chief Director of CIA. They have just put him there so that people won’t be disappointed for not adding him.

   As far as the villain goes, he is fine, he is good actually, he is the one who is running the Syndicate. I’m not gonna say who it is because they don’t really show who it is in the trailer, so I’m gonna leave that part out, but when he first appears on screen I had chills because, he looked so perfect, like what a perfect villain should look. He had the same MI3 villain Philip Seymour Hoffman I-am-going-to-destroy-your-life look, but the problem is he doesn’t really speak when he first appears, but when he does after a while, and the ultimate baddie impression just vanishes just like that. He looks really good as a villain; take Benedict Cumberbatch from the movie Star Trek Into Darkness with black large overcoat and stuff, give him a pair of clubmaster glasses, there it is, that’s exactly what he looked like; but it just isn’t there when he speaks; I mean he is a great actor, he is really powerful and does a great job at messing up with Ethan’s head and destroying his team and all but, I’m not convinced being him as a proper MI villain. Best villain in this franchise so far has been Dougray Scott from MI2 and Philip Seymour Hoffman from MI3, they both tried to destroy what Ethan Hunt loved and it worked. So yea, that’s why I consider them as the best villains of the franchise.

   So in the end Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation is an amazing film and is worth watching, its action sequences might not be as enjoyable or thrilling as in its prequel Ghost Protocol but, man the plot is good enough to keep you entertained on the edge of your seat throughout the movie. So I am gonna give Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation an 8 out of 10. 

P.S. Kind of a clue for what Mission Impossible 6 will actually be about......
   There is a scene in the middle of the film where Rebecca Ferguson will be holding a key with a Rabbit Foot key chain, watch out for that. MI3 fans will crearly understand what I just mentioned above. 

                                    (: Thank You For Reading :)