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harinjani
Reviews
Bullet Train (2022)
Fantastic!!! Would love a re-watch!!!
This movie was an absolute roller coaster ride for me. This can be very opinionated and sort of a personal preference. I love the type of camera angles and the 70-80s music that plays as BGM.
The performances of all the characters is mostly enticing for me, especially Brad Pitt. The special appearances are also quite a delight to watch. This might not enthrall all types of audiences but it hits the ball out of the park for me.
The Big Short (2015)
Eccentric yet Amazing
This movie was a great experience to watch. The transitions between humour and horror were wonderful. Christian Bale, Steve Carrell and Jeremy Strong carried their respective characters with a great deal of depth. I personally loved their performances. Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling were also great but they had relatively shorter screentimes which sums up the amazing cast which got me to watch the movie.
The writing was fantastic. I loved the idea of using celebs to explain financial terms. This is where they creatively performed much better than Margin Call. Also since it is based on a true story, many a times the scene would stop and the person would talk to the camera giving his/her opinion or telling us how things worked out in real which kinda worked for me. It gave me the feel of the documentary with the spice of a film.
Margin Call (2011)
Failed to meet my expectations...
So the movie failed to meet my expectations and I would not recommend watching it. From what I understood, the creators explicitly wanted to fictionalize the crisis of Lehmann Brothers without going into the technical details (this can be inferred when multiple people request an explanation in "English"), which is still impossible because of the time constraint. They instead focussed on portraying how the hierarchy of the bureaucracy responds to such a crisis and the human emotions they reflect onto such circumstances. But, in my opinion it fails to deliver that impact. The music is almost absent and dialogues are okayish. As far as acting is concerned, the ensemble cast is what motivated me to watch the film, but the directors and writers failed to utilise such a potent and talented cast. For me, Bettany and Tucci were amazing in their performances and they were the only guys who felt original to me.
Pati Patni Aur Woh (2019)
Okayyish
The concept of a guy falling in a love-affair has been embraced quite a few times in Bollywood, this movie especially being a remake. This movie is average in terms of a general comparison. The guy gets interested in someone outside the marraige and it is followed up with the three eventual and predicatable stages - discovery of affair, apology and unision.
Both Ananya Pandey and Bhumi Pednekar look decently beautiful and act well but there is some intrinsic depth missing out in their character. Kartik Aaryan presents the same flaws as in his other movies, less profoundly bit still, his character is flat and does not change.
Something which goes beyond my logic is the victimisation of Kartik throughout the movie, followed by him apologizing to his wife when his affair did not actually translate to physical or loving consequences and was more of a friendship. The extent to which Bhumi plans and toils to leave this life and move on leads me to believe that she was never to be blamed. But, can you clearly conclude that they shall be happy. Eventually, there was no change in Bhumi and she blamed it on Kartik so that emotional understanding which Kartik craved for was not satisfied and in the end, they shall be unhappy again.
Aparshakti Khurana has done a decent job in his usual role. Besides the flatness, Kartik's role was still decent.
Baaghi 3 (2020)
At Viewers' Risk
This movie is one which can truly compete with Housefull 4. If you do not expect anything of consequence to gain from watching a movie, I would still warn you under considering "Baaghi 3". Though I strongly urge Salman Khan Fans to go and watch the film. Bollywood has finally found a potential candidate to continue his legacy.
The movie has crossed all realms of illogical creation possible. It has no arms or legs and I found myself laughing, not our of humour but out of horror throughout the movie; whether such an exaggerated representation was even possible. It clearly shows the lack of effort made in writing, directing and acting.
The music and acting is especially substandard. The character of Ankita Lokhande was probably the single believable character throughout the film. I do not understand whether the leader of one of the most powerful organisation does not have a single marksman or is so powerless that he has to hide in the garbage dump. A complete farrago of cringy jokes, histrionic dialogues, overacting and illogical storyline.
Love Aaj Kal (2020)
An occasional detour
The movie is a decent watch if one prefers emotional dramas, but is pretty much average for a generic movie watcher. The movie explores the dynamics of a relationship on how it gets influenced by a person's family, society and career prospects.
The name truly reflects the situation in today's world where women in our patriarchal society oppressed or restricted in their economic stature try to move out of the general zone. The issues they face have been depicted though they lack substantial depth.
The character of Kartik Aaryan is very superficial whereas that of Sara is decent. Randeep Hooda and Aarushi Sharma have done a nice job. The music is also okayish.
There are certain points where you ask yourself why something happened and the solution provided either is unconvining or lacks substantial overture to convince oneself.
Cubicles (2019)
TVF Classic
Cubicles is one of the classic creations of TVF. They capitalize on realistic depictions with the cast seeping through the dynamics of the role, thus portraying real-life simulations. TVF Shows such as Kota Factory, Hostel Daze and Flames also share a similar feel of TVF.
I personally liked the acting of Nidhi Bisht(Megha) and Shivankit Singh(Angaad). Megha shares the same aura as Deepesh Sumitra(Pradeep Sir) in Flames or Jitendra Kumar(Jitu Bhaiya) in Kota Factory - the counselor on life - though the latter have much stronger depth in their character. A similar accent along which the protagonist flows - a person getting adapted in the new environment - again the connect with actors in the above two mentioned series is much higher than this.
If you think about individual characters, they do lack depth. But their combined efforts have created a great experience. The opening song was also great, something which had just vanished from Indian Series Industry.
Nevertheless, it is doubtlessly a great watch. I personally think TVF is the future of the Indian Web Series Industry - which produces shows one can watch with their family - upholding the cultural values of the nation.
Love Actually (2003)
One-Time Watch for People Not About Plots
A decent movie, with no huge ups and down. The movie basically explores different facets of falling into love or being in love with someone. If you are looking to watch something of consequence, then watch Interstellar which has a similar take-home message of "Love transcends all", but a solid plot, beautiful screenplay and an engaging adventure. This is probably an intertwined story which observes the relationship dynamics or love interests of a group of friends.
I, wished to watch the film, because of the enchanting starcast with prolific veterans like Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Martin Freeman and Keira Knightley. But, I would say, the huge starcast actually backfired because the portrayal was not able to create the depth necessary to engage oneself to the grassroot levels as the screentime got divided. There was no profound music which I believe is an important aspect in engaging all your senses.
For me, something which was fun and really amazing to watch were the relations concerning Liam Neeson and his son. There portrayal was pretty decent and it did pull some strings. Nonetheless, I am also a huge fan of Rowan Atkinson and albeit, just for a few minutes, his excerpt was also engaging for me.
For fellow Anime Watchers, if you have tried Tsurezure Children, this is quite similar to that just that this is not about teenagers. But, the depiction in the Anime mentioned, is again much more engaging.