The Usual Suspects (1995)

Genre: Crime/Mystery/Thriller/Drama/Action

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro,Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollack, Peter Postlethwaite

Making a good murder mystery is easy and difficult. The formula for it is quite simple, a nice crooked story and an ending that would blow your mind away. It is the execution that makes this genre a hit or a miss. Roger 'Verbal' Kint (Spacey) gets pulled up by the police after being found as one of the two only survivors post a massive shootout on a ship. The other individual being a Hungarian who can't speak English, Verbal is made to spill the beans on what happened. After Verbal does not reveal any significant information and being backed by powerful individuals, U.S Customs Special Agent Dave Kujan (Palminteri) insists on interrogating him and promises to make him talk. Verbal explains how it all began in New York when the police rounded up Dean Keaton (Byrne), a corrupt former police officer, Michael McManus (Baldwin), a professional thief, Fred Fenster (del Toro), McManus' partner, Todd Hockney (Pollack) a hijacker and Verbal himself for a stolen gun shipment from a truck. The five became accomplices and decide to get even with the cops and also accept jobs from one of McManus' accomplice. One thing leads to the other but there is just one question on every ones mind. Who is Keyser Soze, where is he, what does he look like and what does he do? The movie is an example of a movie being brilliant, simple but yet not too overtly simplified. It's not the kind of movie that you would get lost or distracted too easily, it is light and gripping but at the same time requires you to concentrate and pay attention to every detail. This movie has to go down as one of the best murder mysteries ever and no matter what your movie preference is, you can never go wrong with this one.

Thumbs up: A good twisted tale with a stunning climax

Thumbs down: Maybe some dark Quentin Tarantino comedy would've been the icing on the cake

Rating: 8.9/10

Crimson Tide (1995)

Genre: Action/Adventure

Starring: Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Matt Craven, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen, James Gandolfini, Rocky Carroll

The United States and Russia have had a historical standoff and Hollywood movies have always made the Russians as their evil counterparts who are trying to destroy the world. Post the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union, a Russian revolutionist has taken control of Russian nuclear missiles and threatens to fire them if either the Russian or American government tries to confront him. A US submarine, USS Alabama has been ordered to remain on standby in the Pacific and in case of escalation, to fire a nuclear warhead at Russia. Captain Frank Ramsey (Hackman) is a Navy veteran and a staunch nationalist. His ideologies being that anyone who stands in front of America and denies the people their freedom, must be crushed. Lt. Commander Ron Hunter (Washington) is the designated Executive Officer of the submarine and has a different way of putting things. He believes that war itself is wrong and a peaceful compromise is always possible and the military is only in force in dire consequences. The consequences do get dire which results in a standoff between the Frank and Ron and what would be the best action to take given the circumstances. The movie is a fairly entertaining action movie that can help you easily kill some time. Yes it gets gripping at some moments and can get involving but in a complete nutshell it's not something that will be outright fabulous. Directed by Tony Scott, the usual American military movie that is good Sunday afternoon killer.

Thumbs up: Engaging and thrilling

Thumbs down: It has a good blend of a lot of things but doesn't excel in anything

Rating: 7.2/10

Adam and Eve (2005)

Genre: Comedy/Romance/Drama

Starring: Cameron Douglas, Emmanuelle Chirqui, Chad Lindberg, Jake Hoffman, Brian Klugman, Branden Williams

Have you ever witnessed a movie whose trailer is all that it takes for you to get a hold of the movie? Adam (Douglas), is a college senior and an aspiring musician. By chance he meets Eve (Chirqui) one day and it is love at first sight between them. Adam's only intention is to get laid with the oh-so-hot Eve but unfortunately she has other plans. Eve is a virgin and doesn't intend to lose it any soon. The reason is quite simple, she wants it to be the perfect moment that she would remember and not something she would regret. The rest of the movie is pretty simple, Adam keeps trying to woe her and she keeps saying no. And yes, everyone goes home happy towards the end. If there was ever a word for a pointless, cheesy and outright boring movie then this would definitely be it. The acting is extremely stiff, the movie gets boringly repetitive with the constant 'lets-make-love' and 'I-am-not-ready-yet' situations coming up every now and then. Maybe if the movie used humour to make things better, it might have worked. In their defense, they did use humour but it didn't quite have the result they hoped it would. If it is a teenage romance comedy that you seek, then this movie is far away from the word 'entertainment', to be offered only to your enemies.

Thumbs up: Nada

Thumbs down: Hopeless story, bad acting and almost everything else

Rating: 3.8/10

Singham Returns (2014)

Genre: Action/Crime

Starring: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Amol Gupte, Dayanand Shetty, Anupam Kher, Zakir Hussain, Sharat Saxena, Mahesh Manjrekar

The ever-so ferocious lion returns once again and this time he is out to clean the city of Mumbai. The first movie gained a wide fan following for showing an aggressive cop and his fight against crime, corruption and poor governance. It was a movie that the common man related with and wished for something like this to happen in the real world. The second movie lives off the success of the first with Bajirao Singham (Devgn) now being a part of the Mumbai police force. When a officer from Singham's squad is found dead inside an ambulance loaded with money, fingers start pointing towards corruption in the police force. Guruji (Kher) is an honest politician who wants to revolutionise the political system by introducing younger ministers, more accountability and focus towards development. Prakash Rao (Hussain) is a corrupt politician who doesn't like the way Guruji is changing the political landscape. Along with phoney godman, Swamiji (Gupte) the duo decide to teach Guruji a lesson and eradicate anyone who comes in their path. Singham decides to step in and prevent Rao and Swamiji from fulfilling their needs and to ensure that his deceased colleagues name is not tarnished with false accusations. There were a lot of unique elements in the previous movie because of which it became so like-able. There were some dialogues, acting styles, story and a host of other smaller things that contributed towards the first movies success. The second movie, sadly, decides to cash in on all the success factors of the previous movies and hence lacking any kind of innovation. The famous dialogue of Ata Maajhi Satakli was chanted numerous times, to the extent of making a song on it. Prakash Raj too had a major contribution in the previous movie for his brilliant performance of a villain. His sole performance in Singham is probably why he has managed to get a lot more work these days. Amole Gupte and Zakir Hussain look like the conventional Bollywood baddies and do not seem to do anything special. The good thing about the movie is that it has equal amounts of energy and aggression as the previous movie with Ajay Devgn making strong statements and shouting every now and then. All-in-all the second part seemed like the first movie all over again with all the good elements re-used to the point that it became simply annoying. And yes, Kareena Kapoor plays the irrelevant love interest with far too much over acting and being a part of all the song sequences.

Thumbs up: Great levels of power and aggression, enjoyable but typical Bollywood action

Thumbs down: Over doing the good bits from the first movie

Rating: 5.8/10

Need for Speed (2014)

Genre: Action/Crime/Adventure/Drama

Starring: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Immogen Poots, Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez, Michael Keaton

If you take all of the worlds car lovers who are also gaming enthusiast, you will find one common string amongst them all, Need for Speed. The gaming franchisee has earned a reputation for itself over the years and remains the undisputed king in car racing. It was only a matter of time before they decided to make a movie on it. Tobey Marshall (Paul) is a car mechanic who runs a workshop along with some of his friends. He is known to be the best mechanic there is and also a polished racer who regularly takes part in illegal street races. Dino Brewster (Cooper) is Tobey's arch rival on the street circuits and an entrepreneur who buys old cars and restores and upgrades them and makes money by selling them for a profit. Dino offers Tobey to complete an unfinished Ford Shelby Mustang and would get paid 25% of it's sale value. Julia Maddon (Poots) is an exotic car dealer who connects rich people with the cars of their dreams. With the sale going through, Dino challenges Tobey to a race that would entitle him to all of the $2.7 million that he received as a payout. Pete, a young friend of Tobey's and also Dino's girlfriends brother, takes part in the race but unfortunately loses his life after Dino shunts him. Tobey gets falsely framed for the accident and is made to serve time. Once out, he is hungry for revenge and with the help of Julia manages to get hold of the Mustang and takes part in the infamous De Leon race where he could redeem himself. There are very few movies out there who focus only on car racing and are actually good. The Fast and the Furious series of movies started out being just that but somehow shifted its focus soon after. This movie is paradise for a car lover and has the right mix of adrenaline, car chases, crashes and exotic wheels. The only part that could have probably been improvised was the last De Leon race that seemed to happen far too fast, predictable and easy, it was a let down in the name of a climax. I would have expected some very exciting racing that builds up to a climax that is fit for the movie. The story is loosely based on some of the games and does not draw from any one particular game, which is good and bad. Good because it means that the story has some amount of innovation and freshness but at the same time is bad because it does not connect back to the game except for the name. It would have been good if the movie would have borrowed some key points from the game to include in the movie that fans could identify, but sadly there are none. An amazing action movie for the one who loves some smashing cars but the pure NFS fan might feel a little let down with the disconnect with the games.

Thumbs up: Great car racing action

Thumbs down: Weak climax, no relation to the games

Rating: 7.2/10

Year One (2009)

Genre: Comedy/Adventure

Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera, Olivia Wilde, David Cross, June Diane Raphael, Juno Temple, Matt Willig, Oliver Platt, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Vinnie Jones

When you have a movie featuring Jack Black in the lead, you know exactly what you are getting into; slapstick and stupid humour that might give you more of a headache then entertainment. Zed, son of Zero (Black) belongs to an ancient tribe where he works as a gatherer. He wants to gain more respect in his tribe by doing something good but fails at both hunting and gathering and gets soon kicked out of the tribe for eating the Forbidden Fruit. His companion Oh, son of Ooh (Cera) follows him into exile after taking pity on his condition and decides to journey with Zed to edge of the world where they would theoretically just drop off. Their journey leads them to encounter more advanced civilizations than their own and meet Cane (Cross) who murders his brother Abel and flees out of town with Zed and Ooh. They then encounter the Sodomites who had invaded Zed's village and have taken Maya (Raphael), Zed's love interest and Eema (Temple), Oh's love interest as slaves. Zed and Oh decide that they should go at any lengths to save the people of their village that leads them to Sodom, the city of sins. The movie traverses the story of the Book of Genesis in an outlandishly humorous and stupid manner. Like I mentioned earlier, the humour is very typical of Jack Black and is far too slapstick and stupid to arouse any kind of humour. In spite of a relatively short run time, the movie seems far too long to go through and is quite a pain. It cannot be watched with a mindset to evaluate critically but something to enjoy with friends and enjoy the ridiculous humour.

Thumbs up: Jack Black's humour might entertain some

Thumbs down: Completely outrageous and can get a bit annoying after a bit

Rating: 5.3/10

Big Nothing (2006)

Genre: Comedy/Crime/Mystery

Starring: Simon Pegg, David Schwimmer, Alice Eve, Natashcha McElhone

In a small town in Oregan, USA, a serial killer is known to be at large for killing and mutilating young women. Charlei (Schwimmer) is a house husband who is currently unemployed and is banking on his book to slingshot his career. His wife, Penelope (McElhone) is a police detective and is supportive of Charlie and his current condition. When Charlie decides to join a call center, he meets Gus (Pegg), a frustrated employee who quickly gets along with Charlie and they both are sympathetic of each others situation. Gus reveals to Charlie his plans of blackmailing the reverend after he learns of the reverends illegal visits of porn sites. Gus' friend, Josie (Eve) who was once a teenage pageant queen, learns of their plan and joins the duo. Initially reluctant to be a part of the plan, Charlie comes along due to a desperate need for some money to support his family. With the call made, amount agreed upon and alibi's ready, the group decide to put their plan into action which gets bungled with the reverends accidental death and a host of other mishaps. A good blend of comedy and crime with a good number of twists thrown in, the movie is very typical of Simon Pegg and his genre of comedy. With David Schwimmer playing a supporting role, the movie does reasonably well for itself although it fails to be an outright entertainer. Pegg seems to have heaved the entire movie on his shoulders and lands up being the only one putting any efforts into making it watchable. If you enjoys Pegg's style of blending crime, murder and comedy then this movie is a great watch but he sorely needs someone next to him to compliment the humour.

Thumbs up: Simon Pegg

Thumbs down: Pegg needs a sidekick

Rating: 6.3/10