Enough Said (2013) Rating 3.5/5

Love at any age is fascinating and heartwarming. But doing a movie as beautiful as this involving over the middle aged adults is tough. But this movie proves that for a movie to be close to heart all it need is a simple story with a beautiful script and actors that makes you forget that you’re watching a movie.

Eva and Albert are both divorced parents with teenage daughters. At one fine evening they find each other at a party. Later on they discover that they like each other a lot and hope of a relationship touches the horizon. But Eva starts to doubt her relationship with Albert after she coincidently discovers that one of her close client is connected to Albert. And this connection surprises her so much that Eva loses her balance in the relationship which turns things in to grey.

Enough Said is a perfect example of how people react to things what they hear from others. Sometimes opinions matters a lot and they matter too much we forget to see the true picture. In Eva’s case she starts to doubt her relationship with Albert even though he seems to be the perfect person she have being looking for. And sometimes doubts eats in to relationships so much that they can turn in to ugly mistakes soon. The most moving part of the movie for me is this truth. There is no one perfect for anyone but a lasting relationship is always about compromising and seeing beyond your own expectations.

And finally performances by Julia Louis Dreyfus and James Gandolfini is so warm that you feel everything they feel. And with the untimely death of Gandolfini it’s difficult to smile even at the hopeful end of Enough Said. Such great actor and we will forever miss his performances.

Escape Plan (2013) Rating 2.5/5

Stallone or Arnold both are not Oscar type actors. Neither the movies they appear in right from the start. But for the good of the movie industry and the fans alike they make movies that sell. Escape Plan is one of those and the main reason its working is teaming up of the big names. And within the first 15 minutes it presents an interesting plot and grabs the viewer. Towards the ending it is not as pleasing as the beginning but you will hang in there.

Ray Breslin (Stallone) works for a security company and his job is breaking out of prisons. I know it sounds crazy but that’s what he does for a living. And now he is given an assignment to break out of the most high tech and top security prison called ‘The Tomb’ which he himself has no idea where it’s located. Once inside Ray realize that things are quite different to what he has signed up for and the only positive sigh in it is his newly found acquaintance Emil (Arnold) who is equally eager to get out. 

There are no flaws in the flow of the movie. It’s longer than a usual pop corn action flick but it goes good. And as most action thrillers the story depends on coincidences that’s always in favor of the good guys. And excessive and hard to believe knowledge about everything from the leading roles including engineering, architecture, motor mechanism, operating a ship, physics and what not. Knowing that these types of things that make plots like this possible, better not take anything serious. And everyone walks home and lives happily ever after. The end.

Europa Report (2013) Rating 3/5

This movie may not be having a genuine plot nor it’s made with a thumping big budget and it’s moving at a quite a slow phase. But it has enough juice to keep you glued to it with a very limited boring studio set and characters that has more similarities than being exceptionally different as we see in most movies.

When Europa the first manned mission take off from earth with a crew of 5 in order to find life in one of the moons of Jupiter everything’s seems to be right on track. And after travelling for millions of kilo meters the ship suddenly lose all contact with earth. And when the transmission is restored Earth finds out that Europa has seeing things that no man has ever seeing before.

Europa Report is a very limited movie. It has little controlled environment to move about and no room for drama in acting as per the script. There are neither special relationships nor a lot of character development as well.  And being a science fiction the language is not so digestible as well sometimes. Some of those lines make you conclude that there is something really bad going on or some of these things happening is not really happening. But in between all this as a movie it stands out fine. Its stick to the brains and keeps the viewer guessing for the next move. And up to the end it works strong doing that.

Byzantium (2012) Rating 2.5/5

Vampires have gone from scary to sexy all of a sudden and wonder where the fans flipped out. And when a vampire movie is more dependent on other things than hot blood and darkness of the night it looses lot of potential. And for that a strong plot is mandatory. What went wrong with this one are the weak blood part and the compelling story line to fill the blanks.

16 year old Eleanor and Clara who is mother and daughter are vampires in a world where only male vampires exist. And they are in constant movement due to the order is chasing them for decades to fix the damage done to the code. Clara who is ambitious and vicious goes to extremes to keep their identity hidden while Eleanor is fighting an internal battle of survival. She is carrying a heavy burden which is her own life story and longing to express it to someone. And finally she meets a boy and it brings dramatic changes for her and Clara’s lives.

The production quality of Byzantium is very good. It’s a beauty to see as scene after scene there is some elegance unwrap. And it does have a certain emotional depth to it when it comes to the love that Clara has for her daughter and her constant struggle for survival. There is a story that backs this up to a good level as well. But all in all this is neither a strong thriller, horror nor a drama. It falls in middle of everything.

Stoker (2013) Rating 2.5

Rating this movie was somewhat a difficult thing. In one hand it had beautiful cinematography, generous acting and very expressing style of storytelling. On the other hand it’s missing something. Probably it’s the plot that seems to be untrustworthy. The movie tries so hard to prove something but I didn’t fall for it. 

When young India’s father dies from a tragic accident, her never before known uncle comes to live with the family. Her mother who is feeble and an emotional wreck seem to have found some solace in him by India finds his motives peculiar. As time passes India develops a strange connection towards her uncle and even she seems to be trying to solve a puzzle. 

As I mentioned before what made me watch this throughout was the acting and cinematography. This plot has lot of potential. But I lost faith in the plot somewhere down the line. And after that I was just staring at the beautiful things on the screen. But overall as a thriller it does a decent job. Especially in the way it unfolds from start to end and then back to the start.

Captain Phillips (2013) Rating 4/5

Suspenseful, thrilling and emotionally breaking is just the beginning to explain this piece of movie. It’s definitely one of the best adventure dramas made in recent years that based on true events and people. And once you get in to this you will mutter to yourself that these things do happen off screen as well. It is so good that you might want to remember this as fiction.

This is the story of a US owned cargo ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009 where the pirate activity around that region was at a peak. The story evolve around Captain Phillips who was in charge of the vessel and the events that took place from the point the ship sailed off from Oman heading to Mombasa Africa. Soon the ship was boarded by pirates amidst the defense techniques used by the ship’s crew and Captain Phillips ends up being a hostage. 

I can remember reading this story back in 2009 where it had created a great deal of news around the globe as US ships were seldom the target of Somali pirates. When I started watching this I knew most of the detail of the rescue operation and how it had ended. But with all that knowledge this movie blew me off my seat. It’s simply a scene to scene nail bitingly intense powerfully gripping movie that makes the viewer taste some salt water on their faces. 

I believe that there is two major factors working together to make Captain Phillips what it is, Director Paul Greengrass and Tom Hanks. Paul has a reputation for making movies that’s intense such as Bourne Ultimatum and Tom is known for acting in movies that simply does not fail. And this mixture has created a ticking time bomb of a movie this time and it sure is one of the best of year 2013.