127 Hours (2010)

Genre: Adventure/Biography/Drama

Starring: James Franco, Clemence Poesy

A mountaineer and adventurer, Aron Ralston (Franco) goes on a canyoneering trip to Blue John Canyon, Utah, where he slips and falls into a crevice and gets his arm stuck between a boulder and the canyon wall. In the middle of nowhere and with scanty resources, he has little chances of survival. His every attempt at rescuing himself does not work and in the end he needs to resort to desperate measures. Whilst being a hostage to the canyon, Aron revisits all his life's memories, regrets his mistakes and apologises to people he hurt. The movies title denotes the number of hours Aron spent trapped in the crevice before finally being rescued. The story is based on a true life incident which occurred in April, 2003, subsequently after which Aron's story gained national coverage. The movie is quite slow but thankfully Danny Boyle has managed to make it a little less boring then it could have normally been. The movie is a simple narration of the actual incident and there really isn't too much to the plot. Probably if the movie was made like a documentary with in-between footage of Aron's actual recordings and photographs, the movie might have just been a bit different, might. If your expecting any of the Slumdog Millionarie drama and energy then you would be sorely depressed. Good but nothing fantastic.

Thumbs up: James Franco delivers the role with perfection

Thumbs down: Slow and some gory and graphic scenes

Rating: 7.4/10

Jackass: The Movie (2002)

Genre: Comedy/Documentary/Action

Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Steve-o, Jason 'Wee Man' Acuna, Chris Pontius, Preston Lacy, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey, Phil Margera

Would you walk on a tightrope across an alligator pool with raw meet attached to your underpants? Would you play dashing cars with golf carts? Would you go deep-sea diving between sharks with shrimps in your underwear? Would you roll across a room filled with mouse traps almost naked? If you answered yes to any of the above questions then your probably one of the above mentioned persons starring in the movie, in case you said no then welcome to the world of Jackass. Jackass is an MTV TV show which telecasts mostly the above mentioned actors performing insane stunts. The show garnered a huge fan following in the United States and hence a compilation of these stunts got together to form the first Jackass movie. If you have never seen one of their episodes or have no idea how insane they truly are, my advice, watch one TV show before venturing into this 90 minute torture. The movie is plagued with ridiculous insanity which would appeal only to those who are fanatics of the show. There are some really funny moments but many parts are utterly gross and completely unwatchable.

Thumbs up: Some really funny and 'sane' stunts

Thumbs down: Other completely ridiculous and horrible stunts

Rating: 5.7/10

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

 

Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman

Gifted with an extremely powerful sense of smell, Jean-Baptise Grenouille (Whishaw) knew that his life would be something out of the ordinary. He grew up in an orphanage and quickly realised his ability and its powers behind it. He could recognise a scent from miles away which gave him the ability to know and do more than anyone else. One night he smelt a girl so lovely that he could not resist her and his mind lost all control. After murdering her he smelt her as much as he could but quickly realised that he couldn't preserve the smell forever. Craving for the knowledge to preserve smell, he encountered Giuseppe Baldini (Hoffman) the once renowned perfumer of Paris who has now lost his touch. Jean-Baptise worked for him and hence learnt all that he could in the art of distilling and preserving smells and all that he wished to know on making the perfect perfume. With all that knowledge and skill within him, Jean-Baptise sought to make the worlds finest perfume, something which no one would have every smelt or imagined. The movie has a very interesting story line to it but it has its own set of flaws which bring it down. The first and most obvious dislike with the movie is its length due to which a lot of parts become a bit slow. After a while the movie feels stretched and you wish you could urge it to move on. Dustin Hoffman did not seem to fit into the role, although he did put up a good performance. His American accent and style did not allow him to be a fine Italian perfumer that he was supposed to be. The movie also has a lot of graphic scenes, although its not gory, but yet it might be unwatchable to some. All in all a brilliant movie with some fabulous performances, but with a nip and a tuck here in there, it could be much better.

Thumbs up: Great performances, good plot

Thumbs down: Length

Rating: 7.0/10

Dabangg (2010)

Genre: Action/Crime/Comedy/Drama/Romance

Starring: Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan, Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Sonu Sood

Salman Khan has managed to create an atrociously huge fan following who praise and worship him each day. His movies are made keeping his fans and mind and would appeal only to them. Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan) is the local cop who has a style and attitude of his own. His step-father Prajapati Pandey (Khanna) has no affection for him and Chulbul hates his step-brother Makkhi (Arbaaz Khan) since he receives all the attention in spite of being a dimwit. The local politician, Chedi Singh (Sood) runs multiple illegal businesses which Chulbul is trying to put an end to. Singh tries to get even with Chulbul by attacking his family and turning his step-brother against him. Its the ultimate test to win back the faith of the family and put an end to Singh and his evilness. Like I mentioned before, the movie has the very cliched Salman Khan antics which entertains only a Salman Khan fanatic audience. Over the top and extra-dramatic action sequences adorn the movie which can be entertaining but not for long. Sharp and attitude-ridden dialogue delivery comes free with Salman Khan. Although these are elements that might gross out critics and the average consumer, its actually quite fun to watch and forget. You can find multiple faults in everything the movie does, but it was meant to be that way. There really is nothing to watch out for in the movie except to sit back, point and laugh at the craziness and forget about it.

Thumbs up: Different from the lot

Thumbs down: Over-dramatic, over done and would not appeal to all

Rating: 6.3/10