The Dark Knight Rises...and how

When you have Chirstopher Nolan in the driving seat, you expect a roller coaster ride. The journey started with The Batman Begins and for the first time we witnessed someone taking superheroes seriously. In India we have Ramayana and Mahabharata; in Europe they have Iliad and Odyssey but comic books are closest thing to mythology for Americans and here we had someone treating them the way they should have been. You see how a directionless Bruce Wayne became Batman and decided to fight crime in his city in Batman Begins. Then you see Batman going into hiding after taking the blame of a crime he did not commit, trying to make Gotham a better place to live based on a lie in The Dark Knight, which by all means remains the best superhero movie ever made. Making a follow up to The Dark Knight is a challenging task. Since the day I had seen that in 2008, I have been waiting for the Dark Knight Rises and followed every news/gossip around that. Then Chris Nolan released Inception in between and raised the expectations even higher. 

I have been wandering how the trilogy would end. What would be the epic conclusion? Then the first look for the movie was released and it was a statue of Batman in Gotham city hall and I thought may be finally we get a filmmaker bold enough to kill a superhero. Then the question is how will Batman be killed? It will be stupid to get him killed by some villain. You cannot possibly have a villain stronger than a hero, that is beyond the age old concept of good vs evil. So I was thinking may be Batman will go evil for some reason and will be killed by either Alfred since he had promised to protect him and this could be his way of protecting from himself. Or would he be killed by Gordon? Then I saw the casting and found that Joseph Gordon Levitt is in there too and expected him to be the one to kill Batman and make Batman what became of Harvey Dent in the end of the Dark Knight, a symbol of goodness in Gotham. 

Finally putting all speculations to rest, the wait was finally over and here I was watching The Dark Knight Rises, the most anticipated movie in the history of film making. The movie starts eight years after where the Dark Knight ended. Crime rate in Gotham is almost zero, thanks to the Dent Act. Batman has not been seen since the day he took the blame of killing Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne is living a solitary life in Wayne Mansion. Gorgeous Anne Hathway is Selina Kyle, a thief wearing a cat mask. You guessed it right, she is the Cat Woman. (It had to be someone as Anne Hathway to erase the memories of Halle Berry's horrible version.) From this very scene the movie starts building the premise for the epic finale, which you realise and appreciate when you see the last scene. 

Bane is the League of Shadows and intends to finish Ra's al Ghul's destiny i.e. complete destruction of Gotham. He starts with crashing a plane after kidnapping a scientist mid air. He looks menacing with his towering presence and radiator mask. Batman decides to come out of retirement to face Bane but this time he is in for a surprise. For the first time he is facing a villain physically superior than him and the fight results in Bane breaking his bones and throwing him in the pit called "the worst hell on earth" with a tv to watch what he is going to do to Batman's beloved city. But Batman is not destined to die in the pit. He has other plans. Other than his usual friends Alfred, Fox and Gordon; he has James Blake a rookie detective along with the Cat Woman to help him in his fight to save Gotham.

The movie has some references to the first movie and you are in for some surprises and twists. However it is the ending although little bit expected that bowls you over and leaves you as excited as you were in the beginning of the movie. I cannot imagine a better fitting end to the trilogy. 

I will not talk about the usual cast members because you already know. They are all in the same form as they were in the earlier two movies. This time you have Tom Hardy playing Bane, who scares you with his intimidating presence and that husky voice filtered through that radiator mask. Anne Hathway is Selina Kyle/Catwoman and she is awesome. I may be little biased here though. Marion Cotillard is Miranda Tate who joins Wayne Industries' board to save it from going into wrong hands and has little fling with Bruce in the process. Then you have Joseph Gordon-Levitt as James Blake, the rookie cop who believes in Batman. 

The story is well crafted keeping the finale in mind with interesting twists in between to keep you hooked. The action scenes are well executed like the aerial stunt in the beginning and the destruction of the football field you must have seen in the trailers. In the gadget department also you have a new introduction the Bat, "there is nothing like some aerial superiority". The dialogues are to the point, be it Bane's commanding tone or Alfred's philosophical conversations or witty one liners by Selina. Hans Zimmer's background score does well to alleviate the tension. 

So all of you. Get your seats booked and don't forget to fasten your seat belts because you are in for the ride of a life time. A fitting finale to an epic tale. On the sad note we will never again see Chris Nolan direct another Batman movie and neither we will see Christian Bale in that Cape. Whenever DC Comics decides to reboot the franchise they have really high standards to meet. 

My Favourite Acting Performances so far in 2012

Almost half the year is over and we have seen some very fine movies being released. Directors like Tigmanshu Dhulia, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap, making sure that we are not forced to watch mindless movies. There have been some very fine performances by some very fine actors and here I am listing three of my favourites. There are my best actor nominees for the first half of 2012.

Irrfan in and as Paan Singh Tomar

Irrfan is undoubtedly one of the finest actors Hindi film industry has got and in Paan Singh Tomar he plays the title role of the national record holder athlete who turns rebel to protect his family when authorities fail to take any action. He becomes an athletes because there was no limitations on amount of food he could eat. He chooses steeplechase over 5000 meters race because his coach wanted someone else to with 5000 meters race. He becomes a rebel because his cousin beats his son and his mother. He chose to be interviewed because he did not want to be considered as a brutal murderer rather he considered himself to be known as a rebel with a cause. He does not surrender because he believes in always finishing the race, no matter what. His only regret in life is that when he was an international athlete nobody cared for him and when he became a rebel everyone was talking about him.

Irrfan is so convincing that at no point you stop rooting for him whether he is running for the country in a race or chasing his evil cousin or running from the police. You always want him to win and that is the power of Irrfan's talent as an actor. He brings Paan Singh Tomar back alive and tells his story as if he himself is telling his own story. He looks the part, he speaks the language and he expresses the pain perfectly.

Emraan Hashmi in Shanghai as Jogi Parmar

It was such a surprise to see chumma man with such a dirty mouth and stained teeth that nobody would dare kiss him and what a pleasant surprise that is. Jogi Parmar's character in Shanghai is a complex one. He shoots illegal porn videos for living but risks his life to unearth the truth behind the killing of an activist for the sake of a girl he barely knows.

He works in a photo studio and earns his living by making illegal porn videos however his disinterest is evident. He knows it is dirty and stops the girl whom he considers his dreamgirl from sitting on the same bed where he shoots his dirty pictures. He has lived a life of anonymity and loves the attention whenever he thinks he has done something worth showing off like when he gets the foreigner girl to sit on the backseat of his scooter. He abandoned his family to save his life and in an attempt of correct that he endangers his life to recover the proof that could help identify the real conspirators behind the killing of the social activist. Emraan Hashmi as Jogi Parmar has clearly proved that kissing is not his only talent.

Manoj Bajpayee in Gangs of Wasseypur as Sardar Khan

Sardar Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur is personification of pure evil. There is not a single quality in him. He enjoys killing people and justifies it in the name of revenge. He cheats on his wife and justifies it by citing a convenient interpretation of religion. He is scared of his wife because he knows he is bad.

Manoj Bajpayee brings back the memories of Bhikhu Mhatre, who bowled us over. He is in top form in GoW and is having fun playing the evil protagonist. Be it casually killing someone without showing any emotion or flirting with his women or panicking when his son it hit by a bullet or showing his contempt while publicly challenging his powerful enemy or trying to spot his attackers after being hit by multiple bullets, he does everything to perfection.

I have only seen the trailers of Gang of Wasseypur 2 but I am expecting that I will have to add one more name to this list after watching that and that would be of Nawazuddin Siddique. He is one fine actor.

ACP Pradyuman's Law of Solving Crime

ACP Pradyuman needs no introduction. Everyone who has ever seen any episode of CID in last 15 years knows him very well. Who have not seen CID would know him from a lot of CID jokes doing rounds over the internet and mobile world. Whomsoever still does not recognise him can stop reading further because this post is not for them.

ACP has been solving crime for last 15 years without fail with no promotions or transfers. He has not been promoted or transferred because he is indispensable. He has derived a method of solving crime, which is foolproof and has not failed him ever in last so many years. We will call this method "ACP's Law of Solving Crime".

Everyone familiar with ACP is familiar with this image of him.

Over the years people have noticed him making this gesture with his right hand and likened it to Fleming's Right Hand Rule. Very few people have actually understood the real meaning of this gesture. For the benefit of all here is the explanation. This is ACP Law of Solving Crime. His three fingers are pointing towards three different directions and they mean that you need three points to solve any crime conclusively i.e. it requires a combination of total three evidences or witness to nail the correct culprit. With two points you can reach a suspect but it always requires a third point to find the real criminal.

This three point rule is the reason any typical CID investigation is run in three parallel streams. One is normally headed by Abhijeet, second is headed by Daya and last but not the least third is headed by highly talented Dr Salunkhe. When all these three mutually exclusive lines of investigations point to same direction you finally nail the criminal.

Gangs of Wasseypur

After so many disappointing movies this year, this was a movie I was looking forward to. You expect a lot from a movie with likes of Anurag Kashyap, Manoj Bajpai, Tigmanshu Dhulia (director of some of my favourite movies, acting for the first time), Piyush Mishra, Nawazuddin Siddique (Peepli Live and Kahaani) associated with it.

The movie starts with a bunch of people attacking a house with guns and grenades. Then the movie goes into flashback and we are told about the history of coal mafia in Dhanbad and the rivalry between Qureshi's and Khan's. Rashid Khan is forced out of his village Wasseypur by Sultana daku and he is forced to work for Ramadhir Singh. When Ramadhir discovers about Rashid's plans to kill him, he gets him killed instead. Rashid's son Sardar Khan makes revenge from Ramadhir only motive of his life. He does not just want to kill Ramadhir, he wants to destroy him and wants him to know who is causing this destruction and why. He tells his wife Nagma, "Saale ki kah ke lunga." While Sardar is planning his revenge in Dhanbad, the story shifts to Wasseypur and Sardar gets into fights against Sultan, nephew of the same Sultana daku who forced his father out of his village.

In Dhanbad, Sardar Khan is making babies with his wife Nagma and in Wasseypur he get involved with Durga. The story moves on and Sardar's sons grow to work for him, while Sultan now working for Ramadhir plans to get rid of Sardar and attacks him. Now we must wait for the next part to see where the story goes.

It's difficult to make audience relate to a protagonist who is made of all evil. It requires talents like Francis Ford Coppola and Al Pacino to achieve that. Anurag Kashyap and Manoj Bhajpai have achieved something of that sort here. Sardar Khan has not a single good quality about him, yet you can relate to the character. Thanks to brilliant direction and superb acting. Tigmanshu Dhulia is the surprise packet as Ramadhir Singh. Who knew the talented director can be so good in front of the camera as well. Richa Chaddha is spot on as Nagma. It was Nawazuddin Siddique's act as Faizal Khan that ensured even higher expectations from 2nd part. Everyone of the actors were spot on and played their part perfectly, which is so rare when you have a such a big line up of characters. The setting and the language was consistent through out the length of the film. This is one Indian gangster movie in true sense showing the real gangs from the part of India that is rarely explored by our film industry. There is so much happening to so many characters that most of the characters are not developed completely and many times you rely on the background narration to know about them, which sometimes can be confusing if you are not paying attention. You have to be at the edge of your seats to completely appreciate the movie.

In the end special mention to the music. Did anyone ever think that "teri kah ke lunga.." can be a song?

The Amazing Spiderman: A Love Story

If you could erase Spiderman 3 from your memory, first two Spiderman movies were almost perfect. After third movie studio decided a reboot of the franchise and came up with The Amazing Spiderman. They changed everything, but kept all that was wrong with Spiderman 3. The result is less of a superhero movie and more of a love story. If I wanted to watch a love story I would not have chosen Spiderman. When I go for a superhero movie I expect some super action and I believe it was stupid of the makers to sacrifice action for the sake of parallel love track.

The Amazing Spiderman starts with a young Peter Parker being left to his uncle Ben's custody by his parents, who never come back. Search for his father's past leads him to Oscorp where he gets bitten by a genetically engineered spider and gains his superpowers. He then uses his new found powers to confront high school bully and impress his crush Gwen Stacy. When he decides to not stop a burglar, who ends up killing his uncle, he turn a vigilante searching for his uncle's killer. In a stupid move he hands over his father's formula, to Dr Curt Conners, probably the same person his father was trying to hide it from. The formula helps Dr Conners become a giant lizard, giving girls across the world more reason to be afraid of lizards. Now spidey takes it as his responsibility to save the world from the giant lizard. The climax fight is not very impressive and much less spidey-like.

While Andrew Garfield does a fine job as Peter Parker, I believe Tobey Maguire was a better Spiderman. Green Goblin and Doc Oc were more menacing than Dr Conners' giant lizard. On the positive side Gwen Stacy is much better than monotonous Mary Jane. Director Mark Webb leaves his mark on the scenes between Peter and Gwen but I would rather watch (500) Days of Summer again for that rather than look for those elements in a superhero movie. Also 3D experience in Big Cinemas sucks.

I am now waiting for The Dark Knight Rises, hoping Nolan will not disappoint.