rishi_is_here-1 Reviews

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020)

It's a solid 8

[8/10 · 5 February 2021]

Surprised to see a meager 5 ish rating for this great movie. Based on true story, this is a very entertaining take of women determination and capability in the all-male defense world. World has changed a lot in last 20 years but the story of the first bearer is always special. Pankaj Tripathi is as usual takes it to another level. A must watch.

Dunkirk (2017)

Good but far from the greatest

[8/10 · 21 July 2017]

Dunkirk is just over 150 kilometers from where I live. After watching the movie I would surely one day go visit the place, after all it is where the history was re-written by the brave attempts of hundreds of small boat owners to save 300,000 men trapped by enemies. Coming back to the movie, it is a visual and audio feast limited by character development and compelling script. Though far from qualities of the longest day or saving private Ryan, this is still a very watchable movie to be must seen at theaters at big screens. I wish Christopher Nolan has put some more focus on the character development and elaborate story telling, after all he had some of the best contemporary actors and second WW as background.

Miss Sloane (2016)

The best drama thriller in recent times

[10/10 · 21 March 2017]

I gave it a 10 on 10 simply because I was hooked in to the story line from moment go, along with the strong performance, the pseudo spy world of lobbyists and the most prevalent subject matter that is not going to please the gun manufacturers in USA. The perfect blending of present time and flash backs never got into annoying mode, in fact those were so timely that I felt I almost expected that piece of story from that point of time. The characterization of Miss Sloane by Jessica Chastain is so believable that we drift with the unpredictability of the character who is also so determined to get what she aims for. What I missed a little, may be a touch of her childhood, what made her what she is today. The writer , director anticipated this and played with a different angle, so in the story also she keeps on telling others why does she need to have a sad story to support for a cause is also believable. Mark Strong and other actors did justice to their characters, so did the script writer and the director. The twists in the story lines are comparable with some of Frederick Foresyth's best short stories. All in all, a must watch for all lovers of political thriller.

Rajkahini (2015)

OK movie good in few parts

[6/10 · 26 April 2016]

Here are my two cents,

1. Not Director's (Srijit Mukherjee) best attempt; I think he does well in crime suspense genre than period genre. His direction shows parts brilliance as a very short simple story line stretches over 2 hours which could have well been within 1.5 hr. There are unnecessary attempt to develop characters of some who are not important for the main story-line. Nonetheless , the primary storyline is a touching one during the country's partition with mixture of fear, anguish, corruption, helplessness, courage and feminism.

2. Camera work great in some long and short shots, boring when continuously showed one half of faces of the two officers (Ilias and Prophullo) over different situations.

3. Acting mostly ordinary, Rituparna(Begam Jaan) tried hard to convince her character especially when she showed her anger on others, sometimes touching the border of melodrama. Rest are average with exception of Saswata(Prophullo), Kaushik(Ilias) and Jishu (Kabir). Why the actors casted for Lord Mountbatten so lackluster, and a British character Radcliff is played by an Indian face acted by an Indian!!!

The Water Diviner (2014)

A touching movie with immense potential

[9/10 · 9 May 2015]

This war movie was released on 100 year commemoration of War of Gallipoli. Strange enough this is not a just a war movie, because it has such a strong human story that stretches beyond any particular war. An Australian father searching for traces of his three lost sons on the battle field of Gallipoli after 4 years past the war. Would not an actor jump on his feet hearing this theme of a movie! And there was incredibly talented Russell Crowe as an actor as well as director making the most out of the great story line. It just got better every minutes; setting against the backdrop of early twentieth century's Istanbul, as beautiful and standing tall as it is today with its markets, blue mosque and what not. Who could show a better and almost clairvoyant depiction of traditional Turkish muddy coffee? A good movie is never called good for one actor. Yilmaz Erdogan was equally brilliant in his subtle expression, so was Olga Kurylenko, what a transition from Oblivion star! All actors including young Orhan (Dylan Georgiades) are never weak links. The closing song "Love was my alibi" is so melodious. All in all I would recommend everyone to watch this beautiful masterpiece.

Madras Cafe (2013)

An important subject matter of Indian history washed out

[4/10 · 29 September 2013]

I never did a review for Hindi movie on IMDb so far. Unfortunately the very first one will be a negative review. This one had a bigger budget than many political thrillers using guns, helicopters but bad story telling, unrealistic make-ups added with terrible acting add to the misery. For the most part of the movie, John Abraham does not have any facial expressions, neither most of the other actors stand up to fill in. The facts about one of the most infamous assassination of Indian Political history are put together nicely though. However they don't gel up together. I would say this was a fair attempt to make a song-less Bollywood thriller. If you want to see a real thriller then Wednesday or Kahani should be your choice.

25th Hour (2002)

Amazing

[9/10 · 30 July 2013]

After a long time I felt to write some lines and it happens to be this amazing nauseated film. Strangely enough it escaped my radar so far and gosh I am happy that finally I watched it. It's different, it will grow into you. Edward Norton is magnificent , he has this diminutive yet immensely powerful acting ability only another person coming to mind in comparison is Kevin Spacey, may be a little dead pan type. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as credible as always in his shy (and bit creepy) teacher character. The camera work especially inside the night club is experimental and great. The music is legendary, dialogues are so credible and the finale is such thought provoking. Do watch it!

Knowing (2009)

what a dumb ending

[5/10 · 24 April 2009]

Do you know what happens if you try too many ingredients in your soup? It becomes "knowing". This is the exact thought coming in my mind when i saw this movie, which is otherwise in pieces excellent but coherently don't blend. Guys who are reading this comment and haven't seen the movie yet, I don't want to be a spoiler here. However I have to say how do you like a nicely horror/thriller movie(almost as exciting as sixth sense) turned into angels(sort of), sun god, end of the world, preselection of special people(Noah's arc concept), white tree, corn field and junior adam and eve(well this is what came in my mind when i was seeing this scene). Frankly speaking if I were the director, I would have immediately changed the last 30 mins to something trendy and meaningful. By saying this you know now that the first three quarter of the movie is pretty exciting.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Excellent but perhaps not for weak hearts

[10/10 · 25 January 2009]

Slumdog is not a movie for all and specially not for those Indians who love to watch Bollywood romantic movies with all are beautiful and nice things around. It is a film depicting hard realities of slum side of India. These genre of movies even made by Indian directors were never popular amongst general Indian audience as poverty and hard realities of life don't attract people who live inside or around it. So they like to hide in their own world and get entertained by with masala bollywood movies. It is no wonder why it has created so much controversies in India and Indian audience has been splitted up into two groups, one group doesn't like to portray India with its poverty to the outside world, another group is not ambivalent of accepting harder side of poor India. The difference in opinions will continue to be there and even if this movie gets Oscars(till this writing it has got 10 Oscar nominations) many will sniff on this movie saying this is westerners way of defaming India's prosperity. Well, my opinion is accept this great movie as one of the masterpieces and take movie in movie's spirit. There are few of my western friends who also couldn't like the movie. For all of them, take the spirit out of movie and be wondered how an ordinary kid can touch the sky with favour of destiny, also I must add it is nice to be surrounded by wealth and comforts but please do remember you are one of those very tiny lucky percent of population in this earth who can dream of be well-off. If you think this movie is disgusting then thank god that you are lucky and not born like Jamal Malik of this movie. Living in a glasshouse amongst nice paintings on the wall may make you happy but perhaps it is wiser to look through the glass also sometimes to make yourself with a stronger heart. Coming back to the movie, Danny Boyle's best compilation so far added to the flavour excellent tight script , good acting and cinematography and what a Rehman's spell in the musical section. Like I said above if you have a strong heart to see poverty and reality of developing countries then go and watch and be part of the league of real movie lovers.

Burn After Reading (2008)

Good but not great comedy

[8/10 · 5 January 2009]

I watched this movie with my friends in the Kinepolis theater few days back. Frankly speaking I was simply curious and kinda influenced others to watch this one over "The Day earth stood still" and "Australia" because of its impressive casting. When we got out of the hall we all were discussing nitty-bitties of the film and we asked each other "do you like it?", everybody said "yes" but then the extra enthusiasm was missing in saying that. I personally believe that tells the story.I don't think anybody would dislike it but it could have been better. It is hilarious, okay, that was also the plot but can it not be made more comical? Individually all characters played their roles pretty much as expected to their acting images, specially John Malkovich and George Clooney were at their best. Frances McDormand as Linda Litzke becoming crazy to get her beauty operations is as believable as Brad Pitt with his rather shorter role trying to spy on the Osbourne Cox aka Malkovich. Specially the last conversation between two CIA officials played by J K Simmons and David Rasche was extremely laughter provoking and I cannot but help to give some part of it (not word to word) Simmons: What did we learn from it? Rasche: I don't know sir, perhaps you can tell. Simmons: We should not repeat the mistake we did...a pause....only if we knew what did we do wrong in the first place. So in my view Coen brothers did a good job after "No Country for Old Man" but may be they could work little bit more to create more plain comedy rather than "intelligent" comedy to get that extra "wow" from the viewers.

The Matador (2005)

What could be an extraordinary is ruined for lack of 2-3 essential scenes

[7/10 · 16 November 2008]

I love Pierce Brosnan, not because of being Jamed Bond, but his meticulous style and charisma he carries in almost any movies like Thomas Crown Affair or the Matador, sad thing is however bad the overall movie is. My sole ambition to see this movie is him and he is great again. He is not a great actor, but his charisma can pull out a movie from mediocrity. I was tearing my hair after watching the Matador relenting on the director of this movie. He has all the ingredients to make this movie a blockbuster, an excellent unique story line, awesome actors, decent camera , script but man, he misses the crucial points. He misses to give the climax scenes to add to the movies. There are few movies where it is better you are left with thinking what happened at end but in this one, for god's sake , how come he forgets to add at least two scenes where Brosnan is actually helping Greg Kinnear to eliminate his rivals and both of them working out to o the final work. It just looked to me everything was there in the delicious looking food but chef has forgotten to add salt and pepper. How could he miss this ? This is not a thriller that he needs to leave scenes out to make audience think. This had the unique story that we miss so much nowadays. So in my point of view Brosnan , Kinnear get 8.5/10 and Richard Shepard gets 3/10.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

One of its kind

[9/10 · 4 October 2008]

I have a definite issue with this film, that is this movie is not for everyone. You need to settle down to see this almost 2.5 hours movie and I can guarantee you if you have the acumen of watching and understanding and differentiating between a good movie and bad movie , this one will undoubtedly fall into the first category. I want to remember this movie also because of such a solid performance from almost everyone. Daniel Day-Lewis with his long swallowed English accent and impeccable looking like a fortune hunter in early 20th century and Paul Dano with his malicious tone and power monger preaching style for "the church of 3rd revelation" would be remembered for days to come. The story line is just rock solid for a period film based on 100 years back. This has got several pickup lines althrough also but then you need to watch it out yourself. First 10 minutes of this movie has hardly any words and that just makes the base of the film so firmly that once you get into it you will love to see what is happening next. The story of a commonplace man, struggling for getting rich, his compromises with local people's faith in God, struggling with his inner demons, mishaps and successes, dialogs, cinematography, direction everything together make this film a definite 9/10 in my personal rating.

Dark City (1998)

Not a bad at all

[9/10 · 23 August 2008]

This is a movie you would love if you love the Matrix movie's concept. Well, the concept remains same but not the action which makes Matrix one of the most watchable sci-fi movie of this decade. This one does have clean cinematography though, with okay acts by Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Stherland, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly. If one is intrigued by the mystery of our very existence then this kind of movie is surely going to provide some food for thought. If one day you get up and find that everything around you is just a big lie and the whole world surrounded you is fabricated, manipulated then what will be your reaction. In this one like Keanu in Matrix, Rufus also possesses the power of the changers, somehow lacks the brightness, smartness of Matrix. However all in all this is a watchable movie, just don't expect and compare with Matrix.

Flavors (2003)

funny movie could be better scripted

[9/10 · 14 August 2008]

Guys this movie is so kool..and this is made so authentic...i have seen these characters in real life..my god, hardly any one of them are known actors except Anjan Srivastav and Bharati Achrekar as very old faces in Indian soaps, yet they made it so real life..but only one small problem , the story ends in a bit dull way, i don't know what could make it better..its like all is well at end but that could be achieved with some senseless humor like on the final wedding day everybody caught up in some funny race even the bride and the groom and kinda accidental happy ending could have made this movie a block buster..nonetheless as i said if you guys want to know about true colors of Indian it guys in US watch this movie....

The Objective (2008)

Good first half, disastrous last part

[6/10 · 9 August 2008]

I just didn't get it, it started so promising. It has created all the supernatural sensations during the first half, added with very good acting and pretty good cinematography. But then it loses. Mainly because nobody would understand what is the objective of the soldiers who are following a horror trail in middle of nowhere. I would say its a perfect example of very bad story telling where you created all the attention and then just don't deliver it. The end is so disappointing, what did it mean? Is the guy still living and in a trauma center or he died. What is it that they were following in the entire movie? Well it may be shrouded with mystery and director may keep it for the audience to think on , but then at least give something to think on.It will get marks only for its low budget but good direction except the end, good acting , tight conversation and creating the tension.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

Good thriller

[9/10 · 9 August 2008]

I loved this movie, well almost!!! What can be a better plot of a slow (i argue with its slowness) psychological thriller on a mystic demonic trail in half deserted , cobbled streets of Europe. And how can we forget Johnny Depp's acting ability accompanied by necessary support by rest of the crew. I am not European but i love Europe and live in there. If you are a lover of history shrouded with mystery, middle ages , Gothic mansions, stoned roads , slow paced life then you will taste the background set of this movie to the fullest. In the beginning I said it is almost a perfect movie, the doubt is in its ending. I thought it could be better if we could know the identity of Emmanuelle Seigner as the mystery girl, is she the devil herself or a keeper of the ninth gate or the book, why did she help Johnny Depp? There are many questions and audience would be left in imagination. Also at some places I thought director could have created the tension a bit more like in the palace of St-Martin where Depp and the mystery girl broke in and were caught and the events that followed. Well perhaps then he needed to deviate from the actual book but that should have been done. Anyways still if you like thriller you gonna like this movie.

The Signal (2007)

waste of time

[3/10 · 27 July 2008]

Its simply a bad and waste of time movie. I regret i watched this movie thinking as a horror movie. Normally i am quite generous in giving points to the movies in IMDb but sorry cannot give to movies like this. It could have been made by 3 different directors with 3 different perspectives and dome as a sort of experimental work, but look at the end result. Watch it come out of hall, you will like to forget it asap. No real story, low budget, sub standard direction and camera, ordinary acting, nothing is great in this movie. Don't know what these rookies wanted to achieve. It seems like with a camera in your hand you can also make this sort of movies. My suggestion don't watch it. You will not get anything out of it.

The Great Raid (2005)

one of the very few great war movies

[10/10 · 25 July 2008]

There are bunch of war movies , some of them are ordinary, few of them are worth mentioning, and very few are great movies. This one belongs to the last category. Why ? First is Story ; well almost all WW movies are based on true stories and this one also, point is how vivid how convincing that is portrayed. This movie gets a rare 9/10 in story telling. Acting is second; all performances are solidly founded. No over dialogue, no weak acting, excellent camera work, convincing sets of 1945 Manila and prison camp. I simply don't find any weak point about this movie. Besides it has a strong and rendering love story which never sideways the actual rescue operation. My recommendation will be to collect this movie in your private collection of war movies just besides "Saving Private Ryan" and "Bridge On The River Kwai".

Outpost (2008)

Started well, ended bad

[7/10 · 25 July 2008]

I love watching movies with war torn ambiance, people scurrying, military convoys passing by, in short any realistic atmosphere for any war movie or war related movie. But like I said if there is not much outdoor shooting it is difficult to keep the interest intact. This is the same problem with this movie, this is definitely low budget movie. In spite of very strong actings by the actors and interesting plot the movie doesnot fulfill my expectations. It could have been more intriguing, the story ends also quite lamely. Nevertheless , I would recommend to watch it once and I am sure first 30 mins anybody will be enjoying.

Untraceable (2008)

best thriller in recent years

[10/10 · 22 July 2008]

I just don't get it how this movie got a submissive rating of 6.1 at the time I am writing this comment. This is an extra ordinary movie, the sheer pace, tension, camera, story, acting are all rated between 8 to 10 out of 10. Diane Lane is an awesome actress, I love her in Under the Tuscan Sun that i happened to see in a flight over a span of 3 years, no kidding. In one long flight I started watching that movie but could not finish it in flight as the destination reached. Somehow I could never see that movie but always in my mind and happened to see that in another flight after 3 years. Anyways back to this movie, she portrays her character perfectly with anxiety, grief, intelligent. Colin Hanks as her colleague deserves special mention also, but I like to mention the name of the director, Gregory Hoblit. Only other movie I saw from him was Hart's war and this one is just too some. My recommendation , just go watch and if you guys want collect a good movie buy the DVD.

Catacombs (2007)

good one

[8/10 · 10 June 2008]

I watched this movie y'day and must say it is a good one...the lead actress Shannyn Sossamon is natural in depicting her fear and nervousness...BTW i just happened to watch another latest movie of her "One Missed Call" and that too is good... there are many horror movies which deal with gore and bloodshed only, this is not that type, rather kinda chased down by a maniac in a deep dark tunnel can breakdown anybody's nerves... however everything became clear towards the end and you gonna like the climax, its undoubtedly different only that i can say... When I am writing I saw this one got an average rating of 4.7 which is very unfair with this movie...I would say a decent 6.5 should be given... only one comment about the music, it could have been more spine chilling....