Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Senseless Mayhem

                                        Ethan Hunt: Mission accomplished! 

When Brian De Palma brought the TV series of the same name to the big screen way back in 1996, he introduced us to a new breed of super spy far different from his British counterpart–he was American, he doesn’t bed random women, he doesn’t drive an Aston Martin only to let it crash and burn, he worked as a team, his stunts were jaw-dropping and the most important of all–we were introduced to his personal life, he was more flesh and blood and when cut bled, unlike that cold and business -like James Bond who possessed that dry British humor and rarely had a scratch on his face even after a sword fight.  The template of making a spy movie has been the same from the days of the yore, two powerful nations Russia and America mostly, are forced on to the brink of a nuclear war incited by a megalomaniac while a secret agent from either America or Britain­, goes all out to stop the war.  After blowing up buildings and rummaging fancy cars through walls and performing some eye-popping stunts the hero manages to defuse the bomb two seconds before it is about to blow. He saves the world yet again. M.I: 4 stays true to this template with Ethan Hunt being the hunted, falsely implicated as a terrorist after a mission goes wrong, Ethan Hunt and his team race against time to clear their name and save the world from falling prey to another World War.

The Mission Impossible series had been helmed by top notch directors who had brought in their own brand of cinema to further evolve the franchise. If De Palma’s Mission Impossible was a balance of style and substance in the sensible 90’s, John Woo brought in the Asian factor with an overdose of mindless action that was high on style and low on substance in the early 2000’s, J. J. Abrams took over the franchise, and we were introduced to a newer version of Ethan Hunt. We saw the Everyday Man in Hunt, he fell in love, got married, cried when he got hurt, he was fallible. But yet when pushed to a wall he turned back and retaliated.  There were a lot of expectations when it was announced that Brad Bird would be taking over the project, his short resume boasted of two Oscar award-winning animation flicks in “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille”. MI:4 was his first live-action feature film, and he lives up to the expectations, well almost, when he directs a high-on-adrenaline first half that shows one brilliantly filmed action scene after the other. Be it the opening jail-break scene, or the Kremlin infiltration or that breathtaking scene in the Burj, the action takes place in such a grand scale that it never lets you sit back and relax, but instead keeps you on the edge of your seats. By the time the first half ends Brad Bird sets you up in the high towers of the Burj for what you would expect to be a fantastic glide, sadly once the action shifts from Dubai, the story nosedives from the high rises and only plummets into being just another spy movie with action and fancy gadgets. The “oohs” and “aahs” that you exclaim whilst you munch your popcorn only turn into a “meh” when it all ends at a parking lot supposedly shot in India.

There are newer additions to the team along with Benji (Simon Pegg) who has a substantial role to play and enough wisecracks to share when there is not enough action going on, there is Jane (Paula Patton) a femme fatale with a no nonsense approach, and an IMF analyst Brandt (Jeremy Renner)­–a man whose mysterious past is linked to Hunt’s.  Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt has put in every inch of his sweat and blood into this role, as he scales the heights of the Burj Khalifa, slipping at times yet steadying himself at the last moment, he leaves you breathless and in awe of his commitment. This franchise is his own baby and the way he has nursed it through the years can be seen with the wide range of stunts he has performed, be it hanging out of a speeding train or scaling the Grand Canyon, Cruise never ceases to amaze. The inclusion of Renner into this franchise only indicates that he may soon be handed over the reins, (hanging out inches above the ground with arms and legs afloat, a style famously belonging to Cruise is now Renner’s move, if that doesn’t convince you, then what will?) if and when that happens he sure will have bigger boots to fill.  Probably the weakest character of the movie has to be Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) the villain, poorly etched out and with no reason known for his motive to start a war, we feel unmoved by his presence for we know that he will be defeated. He is merely reduced to a cardboard cutout who has to run when being chased, and is lucky enough to land a few blows in a fistfight with Hunt.  The lack of a more potent villain, like the one so chillingly portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the previous edition leaves you with an incomplete feeling. Anil Kapoor’s much hyped role in a major blockbuster lasts as long as that freshly splattered butter on your popcorn, playing a caricatured sleazeball Indian billionaire named Brij Nath he has nothing much to do except get seduced and end up being beaten up by Jane.

M.I:4 offers you a visual treat that you expect from a big budget Hollywood potboiler. From vertigo-inducing action sequences to technology and gadgets that would leave your brain in a tizzy, Brad Bird and his technical team deserve all praise for making this one of the best action entertainers of the year. Yet you feel beyond those explosions and chases and gravity defying leaps Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol only flatters to deceive.

Force – Leaves No Impact

When I watched Gautham Menon’s “Kaakha Kaakha” on the local cable network eight years ago, I was blown away inspite of that scene which seemed to have been “inspired” from Se7en, and that song picturisation starring Ramya Krishnan which “coincidentally” resembled Madonna’s “Die Another Day”, and a menacing Mumbai-returned Madraasi gangster named “Pandia” who abuses in Hindi with a heavy Tamil accent just to show that he is a Mumbai-returned dreaded gangster. Inspite of these little nagging issues Kaakha Kaakha was simple, stylish, slick and very gritty–something which cannot be said of its Bollywood version “Force”.

“Force” is the result of what would have happened if Barbie doll was kidnapped by Mojo Jojo and her boyfriend Ken went on a mission to hunt him down and win her back. Yes, the characters are that artificial, albeit one. Nishikanth Kamath who had directed the acclaimed “Dombivili Fast” in Marathi (Inspired from the Michael Douglas starrer “Falling Down”), and its gripping Tamil version “Evano Oruvan” this time has attempted to make a masala entertainer, within the first few minutes as the story unfolds you realize that this was a bad move.  John Abraham is Yashwardhan, a beefed-up heavily tattooed undercover narcotics cop posing as a drug peddler (the tattoo affirms his bad-assery and the fact that drug peddlers are cooler than regular people) who keeps to himself because the nature of his job does not allow him to mingle with women for they may end up on the wrong side of the gun. During one of his pummeling sessions with a few goons he catches the eye of the ebullient, chirpy and oh-so-irritating-that-she-makes-you-wanna-choke-her-to-death Maya, an NGO worker played by Genelia D’souza –who has won the copyrights to play all bubbly characters portrayed in Bollywood. Her enthusiasm towards life, love and having a jolly good time can make Santa Claus look as depressing as your high school math teacher.

Like how all love stories begin when the hero sets his eyes on the heroine, our hero too while beating up the goon pauses whilst the camera in slow motion shows him dreamy-eyed and wooden faced looking towards Maya who is clearly shocked to see the savagery of our hero. Add to it a woman in the background singing “aaahhh ahhh ahhh” (like an Opera singer) and what you would have witnessed is how all men fall in love with the woman for the first time. Everything happens in slow motion. Our lady is clearly not impressed with the hero’s violent nature, and dislikes him. Indian cinema has always been dependent on chance encounters and on the adage that “The world is a small place”, and with a few chance encounters and other incidents Maya gets to know the true nature of Yashwardhan and on why he prefers to live alone and unattached. But naturally, when an expressionless man and a woman who has got too many expressions meet love is bound to happen.  And fall in love do they when in one scene Maya borrows lines from trashy romance novels about making love and growing old and dying in her beloved’s arms, listening to which Yashwardhan subsequently professes his love towards her.

What they are not aware of is the danger in the form of Vishnu (Vidyut Jamval) lurking in the corner, a ruthless, lean, mean, parkour-skilled gangster who is baying for the blood of Yashwardhan and his task force who had gunned down his brother Reddy. Vidyut Jamval as Vishnu is the only watchable character in the film who gets your attention every time he is on screen. With good looks and an intimidating screen presence Vidyut Jamval steals the thunder from John Abraham, whose role even Johnny Bravo would have excelled–atleast that cartoon character twitches his eyebrows, which John Abraham seems to be incapable of.

How Vishnu exacts his revenge on Yashwardhan and his team, with Yashwardhan in pursuit to save the kidnapped Maya from Vishnu forms rest of the story. In Vishnu, Yashwardhan finds a clean-shaven (a far cry from the days of Sathya’s unkempt Bhiku Mhatre), lithe, ruthless chocolate boy gangster who masterminds the uprising of his elder brother’s gang in Mumbai’s drug cartel, a man with such gymnastic abilities that he beats the shit out of a dozen armed drug dealers in Mombasa, someone who does not hesitate to pull the trigger to prove a point. Sadly, Vishnu is the only strongly written character in the film. For a movie titled “Force” it has the mass in John Abraham’s heavily-built body and the acceleration in a racy narrative, yet it completely loses the direction on where it is going and ends up being all over the place.

For the love of God! Stop the madness!!

Image courtesy: http://www.glamsham.com/

 

What The Fuss?

Today, during one of my regular routines of drinking morning coffee at my workplace a good friend of mine shoved her arm across my face and said "Look, Ginger bit me!” She was the lone lady amidst the company of two other guys apart from me, one of whom raised his eyebrows with a look of disbelief whilst the other chided her with his thick Mallu accent "Good da, I should give Gyinger ya treat at Kay Yef Cee four biting yew", she turned and looked towards me expectantly to say something more that involved less eyebrow raising and more of words coated with warmth that radiated a genuine concern. But alas, all I could muster was a shrug of my shoulders that might have translated to "Ok, so?” The next few minutes were spent with me sipping my coffee as she alleged me of being completely self-absorbed with myself and having a complete disregard for the friendship that we had built over the last couple of years. After her tirade I wondered what the fuss was all about.

Ginger was her six-year old dog.... or was he seven? Well, anyway my point is that no dog named "Ginger" could rip you apart in such a way that would leave you inches away from death. By naming your dog "Ginger" you completely take away his ferociousness, you take away his canine-mojo, * Don’t believe Shakespeare, it is all in the name*. Even a Pomeranian named "Tyson" would be more feared than a Basset Hound who is named "Ginger", you negate all the ferocity that he possesses in his claws by christening him with such a limp-dick sounding name (for the lack of a better word) that it reduces him to a pussy (no, not the cat). So when she thrust that minutely scratched hand of hers across my face, I could all but say "Meh" when I heard the name of the culprit. Maybe if it were someone named "Caesar" or "Brute" I might have suggested her to go get a rabies injection, I would have also suggested her to write a novel on how she survived Caesar's assault and maybe sell it to Warner Brothers so that they might make a movie out of it and make her look like Erin Brokovich against the Canine uprising. But then, it was a "Ginger" and not a "Caesar".

I blamed my indifference on the canine's lack of a more masculine name, but as I prodded further into my psyche in my journey back home from work, I realized that maybe it all had to do with my lackadaisical attitude towards relationships with women, which were primarily restricted to friendship (You see if I were in a real relationship, I would not be blogging here). Women are wonderful creatures - graceful, kind, forgiving, and generous in a way that you would love to be more than friends with them. Yet they are nitpicky, petulant, annoying and obstinate that once in a relationship with them you would wonder why you can’t go back to being friends. They love to blow things out of proportion much like that aforementioned incident; they can't take a joke when you say that they want their boyfriends to stop smoking because they would not want to suck his nicotine-laced blood.

Through my teens and into my early twenties I had tried every trick in the book to woo women, be it riding a bicycle without holding the handle bar or topping up a phone number a dozen times in a week or penning a badly written poem in their honor or pretending to nurse a broken heart to get their sympathy. I was pretty much the fox that tried too hard to reach those grapes at the orchard that after my umpteen tries, now in my mid-twenties I have realized that the grapes are sour. I have misread every clean, sexless indicator of friendship from them to be a sign of love - their willingness to get into a relationship with me just because they smiled at me when I held open a door for them or a smiley at the end of their every sms was only a proof of my gullibility.

"What even made you think that I am in love with you!!??"

"But I paused my videogame just to text you back"

"Yeah, so? You expect me to marry YOU!?"

"But that's what was said in that Facebook image"

You get the picture right?

I am now more wizened by my mistakes, from being the "soup boy" - a nomenclature for boys who have ended up heartbroken coined by that Kolaveri video (If you are from the west, do Youtube it) I now have graduated into the "salad king" (pardon the pun) - the guy who may not know how to get into a relationship, but sure knows how to get out of it. A little more than a year ago, I used to believe in Ted Mosby that never-say-die romantic from "How I Met Your Mother". I liked his idea of meeting that special someone in a coffee shop– we might meet as if the whole universe conspired to make us meet, we might exchange our numbers, catch up for a movie, and might spend an evening at Central Park walking around whilst holding hands (I chose New York because there are no good parks in India where you can walk around holding your hands with your girlfriend, without you getting beaten up or her getting molested).

But right now, I don’t see what the fuss about being in a relationship is. I just want to stand in line and get my cup of coffee.

Image courtesy: http://www.buzzfeed.com/koolnewsblog/if-a-guy-pauses-a-video-game-1dgl