Film Noire : Is it the Next Trend ?

The first teaser promo of Yashraj’s Latest flick – Tashan is out now and from the rushes it looks like that the film would be a pure hardcore action flick and would have completely different styling for all the lead stars ( Akshay,Saif,Kareena & Anil) . The teaser has nothing but just an introduction of the star-cast and background score of a typical action flick . The trailer ends with a dialogue by Anil who appears to be the bad guy which goes something like this in crude english : ” Firsht Impression ish the lasht impression “.

The Tag-line of the film is ” The Ishtyle… The Goodluck… The Pharmoola ” which kinda makes me think that this one would be also an attempt to a new genre for Bollywood – Film Noir . The graphics for the title are also like any typical Neo-Noir film .The recent flick which did this was Sriram Raghwan’s “Johnny Gaddar” . The movie did quite well and got great reviews .

For Akshay it is back to basics time since this one is not comedy and is his first love Action . For Kareena it is a new arena since she has never done an action flick before . I am sure she would leave her different mark among all the other greats . For Anil this one would be a kinda nostalgia since he himself comes from dharavi where bad guys are regulation and abusing on screen wouldn’t be a problem for him . Kareena would have also learnt one or two more (after Jab We Met )from them . Saif would be the Playboy for sure apart from Akshay . Well enough guessing work , I hope the new guy Vijay Krishna Acharya does his job well of Direction and matches Sriram’s Vision.

Vijay has earlier written screenplay for both the Dhooms and also written Dialogues for Mani Ratnam’s GURU . The Yashraj Banner would certainly not compromise on the Action sequences but of late there Scripts have been quite weak apart from Chak De which was brilliant . Expectations would be running high from Aditya for Vijay .

Bollywood is searching for new scripts and genre and Film Noir genre promises to hold all the attractive ingredients . It has all the Dialogue-Baaji and the Beatiful Girls which are enough to attract the audience not to forget the Action and cheap one liners . The production houses today want to rake in the moolah and they can make any kind of cinema to do it . Looks like the Neo-Noir would be the next insect that would bite the bollywood producers .

Beowulf — Movie Review

Two weeks after the Two Diwali Mega-Releases , I decided to take a break from Bollywood and preffered Beowulf over two other releases ” Dhan Dhanadan Goal ” and ” Elizabeth – The Golden Age ” just because it is a Robert Zemeckis flick and I am a huge fan of back to the future series and also Tom Hanks starrer “Forrest Gump” . Beowulf attempts to what well may be the future of Cinema , the Motion Capture Technique .

The movie is a nice blend of Animation and Realism which portrays very well , a World of Fantasy . The best part about this new technology is the way a scene can be shown through angles which any Camera can’t reach . This technology can be and I think should be used in all the Sci-fi and Fantasy flix as it will enhance the viewing experience manifolds .

Well , enough about the technology , the movie starts off with a typical King’s party in which there is enough wine and women . And during this party an unexpected guest comes , in the form of Demon and kills many people in a very brutal way . This whole brutality is stopped when the King Hrothgar , played by Anthony Hopkins , confronts the Demon Grendel which is played by Crispon Glover (who played George Mcfly in BTF series) . King Hrothgar closes the Royal Auditorium where the entire celebration takes place and announces an award for the person who would kill Grendel , the demon .

Then comes the Hero Beowulf played by Ray Winstone who has killed many such demons in the past and is not afraid of this one also . He falls for the beautiful Queen of the King , Wealtheow who hates the Old King . The King also makes Beowulf a hero in the town and trusts him blindly . The king promises Beowulf that if he kills the demon he can have the Queen for his life . Beowulf kills the demon as promised but gets a new surprise in the form of Angelina Jolie who plays the mother of Grendel and who is a monster herself . Then starts the whole sequence of Beowulf becoming a king which turns out to be a sort of a sin .

The whole movie is quite slow at pace apart from an exciting climax sequence which kinda makes up for the dullness of the middle portion of the movie . The movie scares you a little bit at times and has a lot of violence in it . Although , the violent scenes being animated don’t make your stomach feel bad . The movie is a Visual treat with quite scenic picturesque and also beautiful use of colors . The whole experience is quite different and I can’t imagine how incredible it would look in an 3D – IMAX theater .

The acting performances are also good and even though it is animated it still captures very well the emotions of characters . The eyes of queen Wealtheow are very expressive and despite of very less dialogues the expressive eyes make up for the shortage of words . Anthony Hopkins very well portrays the character of a king . The main lead Ray Winstone has performed very well . He spoke like a Hero and the dialogue delivery was up to the mark .

The movie has a never ending type of end and leaves the viewer with a question in mind . The movie has an underlying message in a way which says that there is no need of demons when Human beings are themselves turning into ones .

Overall I wasn’t very satisfied with the storyline considering the past track record of Robert Zemeckis yet the whole new experience made for it . I would recommend this movie just to experience a new kind of cinema .
This one is still worth a watch but only in Theaters , not on DVD .

Movie Rating : Two and Half Stars , for the fantastic climax sequence and the whole new style of cinema .