Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) Rating Genre: 4/5 Overall 3/5

What does Jack Ryan and Jack Baur has in common? Both of them are Americans and got injured in the line of duty, both of them single handedly saved the country from a devastating terrorist threat. Simply put this movie is all about being a hero and risking your life to save millions of others when everyone else is having a normal work day. How familiar the plot may sound and tested for many generations Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit does is so well and far better than many recent action flicks of the same nature. And I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jack Ryan used to be a bright young PHD student at the time when the 9/11 attack took place. But soon he finds himself getting shot down on a helicopter in Afghanistan. And yes now he is a Marine in the US ARMY. But after sometime he goes back to university finishes his PHD and joins a company on Wall Street living the corporate dream. But not quite 100% as he has to work for CIA part time. Yes Jack’s life is complicated. But it’s about to get even worse when Jack finds out that Russians are planning to launch a massive economical terrorist attack and he is the only person qualified to stop it from happening. And now there are many guns aiming at Jack and he should choose which one to dodge first. 

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a straight out action movie. Though it has a slow beginning and not so much action in the first half it still successfully manages to keep the viewer gazing at it. Main reason is the gradual but steady development of the plot which on the background hinting that bigger things are to come. And the wait is all worth. You get this all gooey kind of suspense music played for a long while and then it hits the sixth gear. Thought the plot is kind of predictable there is nothing boring about it so the excitement doesn’t fade. 

Just like all action movies Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit has its common flaws. Farfetched moments, insanely fast (and not yet developed) tracking technology, hard to kill lead character are few of them. But then what action movie will be successful without them. We all know it’s bogus though we stair at it mouth half open. But genuinely Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was much more than I expected. I thought it’s going to be ‘cheap’ but I’m impressed. 

Genre: Action

Director: Kenneth Branagh

The Wind Rises (2013) Genre: 4.5/5 Overall 4/5

For anyone who is familiar with the earlier works of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli from Japan should not be needing an introduction to this movie. The Wind Rises is a long awaited anime from Miyazaki and just as expected it is a wonderful piece of cinema where Japanese animators have yet again proven that they cannot be compared to any other animators but themselves. The Wind Rises is special in its own ways and this time more than being entirely fictional the plot follows the biography of Jiro Horikoshi (1903–1982), designer of the Mitsubishi A5M and its successor, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero air crafts. Both the air crafts were known to have played a key role in the WW2 and a pride of Japanese warfare.

The story unfolds at the time of Jiro is a small boy having big dreams of flying. But due to his issues with eye sight he decides to design air crafts instead. And this big dreamer works nonstop towards achieving his goals. The story also follows his love life with a girl he devotedly fall in love with and their short yet beautiful love story. The combination of these two one mechanic and one emotional story lines strangely yet wonderfully has woven a memorable movie together. It’s indeed fantastic to witness how Miyazaki has put these two stories in to one and give them equal capacity without harming the essence of the whole movie.

Just as all Miyazaki movies The Wind Rises has lot of laughs, fantasies, love and then brief moments of sadness and tears. All of this is depicted through breathtaking cinematography created via paintings that at times makes your jaw drop. There is no doubt that Japanese anime artist are the best environmental painters in the world and each scene shows it over and over. I had to pause the movie so many times just to get my eyes full of those amazing details on the frames. This here my friends is pure art and you cannot escape its beauty.

Beautiful story line that has a perfect start, middle and ending combined with correct flow The Wind Rises is another unforgettable anime. It is a must watch for anime lovers.

"Kaze tachinu" (original title)

Genre: Animation | Biography | Drama

Director : Hayao Miyazaki

The Best Offer (2013) Rating: Genre 4/5 Overall 3/5

One of the number one reasons you should consider watching The Best Offer is because it’s directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. He is an Italian director who is well known for directing Cinema Paradiso (1988) and (1988) Malèna (2000) and certainly is a contemporary artist who knows what he is doing. And The Best Offer is indeed is a good offer for the viewers who does not settle in for mundane and puerile romance and mysteries. The journey through The Best Offer is quite slow and superficial yet at the end of it quite satisfying.

The lead role of the movie Virgil Oldman is an aged antiques dealer. He is well known for his profession and possesses a great deal of knowledge in the field of antiques and lives a luxurious life. However his interest for women is a mystery and no wife no family resides in a large house filled with valuable collectables from many eras. And some of these items which have being collected through backchannels and socially unaccepted illegal bargains seem to be his favorite private collection. But when he receives an offer from a lady named Clair to evaluate her heritage for auctioning Virgil’s life takes an interesting turn. Virgil becomes obsessed with 27 year old Clair but she hides many mysteries and Vigil intends to reveal them.

While the cinematography including camera, lighting and set creation is done beautifully the grand amount of detailing gone in to creating the pieces of art is outstanding. As the plot is heavily dependent on antique pieces of all sorts the cinematic representation of it is vital. Director has gone extra careful and the beauty of the movie is indeed enhanced by it. Then comes the strong performance by Geoffrey Rush and it seems like he was cut out to perform the character of rigid and egoistic Virgil. Finally but most importantly the plot which carefully unfold through the script creates severe enthusiasm. However at a point some things becomes predictable yet this point does not arrive until climax. So the mystery filled tale of romance has its own good run.

The Best Offer has seeing many mixed reactions so far. In my opinion the good about this movie is way beyond the mild negativities. Maybe the only complain is how practical all this can be but the mystery is well put and magnetic.

Genre: Drama | Romance | Mystery

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore

All Quite on the Western Front (1930) Rating Genre: 5/5 Overall 5/5

While catching up with some old classics I came across this brilliant piece of cinema which is made 84 years back. Though it is nearly a century old right now the sheer amount of creativity in this is simply mind blowing. Maybe looking at the long journey the cinema has come up to now from the time this movie was made comparatively the key point that comes to my mind is that ‘not much improvement’. Because in a world where we believe that Saving Private Ryan is a masterpiece (It is no doubt) of war cinema All Quite on the Western Front (AQWF) has done it in a magnitude beyond its time and that’s some mind boggling truth to realize.

The background of the movie is based on a set of teenagers who joins the German army on the first year of World War 1. Thought they are still very young and attending to school the motivation they received through their school professor make them want to fight for their country. However they realize that the true face of war is brutal, unforgiving and severely stressful than the picture they received of it back at home. On blood, sweat and dead bodies they struggle to survive one day at a time seeing the devastation of war getting heftier by the night. While the story follows several individuals in a group the key character is Paul Bäumer who finally gets to return home after getting injured. But once he come back which is after 3 years from being in the front line he realizes that the place he call home is not what it used to be. And he becomes a stranger amongst the people of his home town.

AQWF is based on a German novel (Im Westen nichts Neues) by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The movie is directed by Lewis Milestone. The storyline is very effective in terms of depicting the mentality of the soldiers who are fighting in the front lines and how the hardships of the circumstances break them. Lack of food, long hours on duty, fear of death, being homesick, losing their mates are all taking a toll on their motivation and ultimately the significance of their existence is lost. But the courage these young men show staring at death day in and day out is not to be underestimated. The other key point which made AQWF on top of my war movie list is the cinematography. Right from the start the details the movie concentrates upon is magnificent. In an age where CG was not heard of most of the scenes have being staged live and that must have being a tremendous effort from the whole crew. And there is one astonishing battle sequence that runs for a whole of 8 minutes nonstop and by the end of it the viewer will be sweating for sure.

The true beauty of AQWF is how the director mixes up the selfless war and the humans full of emotions in to one. This mix ultimately proves that wars are fought by ordinary people in extraordinary situations and their lives are just as valuable no matter what side they fight for. But on the battle ground that is the only thing that seems to have no value and it’s devastating. No war can be justified.

Genre    : War | Drama

Director: Lewis Milestone

Blue is the Warmest Color (2013, French) Rating Genre: 3/5 Overall 2.5/5

It is quite a known and agreed idea that all sorts of art including movies from France have a special place when it’s regarding love and passion. However right at the start of reviewing this already controversial movie I must say that France has overdone it this time.  I believe that Blue is the Warmest Color (from this point onwards I’d call as BWC) does have potential to be a masterpiece in one hand but due to some very evident and painful negativities it has lost its rightful place.

The lead character Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos ) is a young and beautiful literature student who seems to be living the normal French life. But after a brief relationship with a fellow student who actually cared for her truly she realizes that men are not capable of igniting her passion. Searching for her desire Adèle meets Emma (Léa Seydoux) at a gay bar and they become extremely close. Adèle discovers love and passion from Emma and she completely melt in front of her.

It is important to understand that this is not the first movie made based on gay love and this will not be the last. The world will be seeing more and more of the kind in time to come and my worry is that does them have to be this detailed to prove a point. The last of this kind which I can recall which was pretty decent and beautiful was Kids are All Right (2010) from Hollywood. And another good example was A Single Man (2009) starring Collin Firth which was very powerful. But BWC crosses the fine line between art and porn not only once but several times proving that the movie is not actually made for art lovers but men who like seeing naked woman. In my opinion a movie is a movie until it keeps its secrets and once everything is revealed it turns in to something else. Not only sex but some other things like dancing, eating spaghetti, taking a shower (naked) is presented with lengthy scenes and detail which directly takes a toll at the duration of the movie which is exactly 3 hours.

Why I like this movie is for two reasons. One is the incredible and passionate chemistry between the lead roles (which I believe that could have being achieved even without the detailed sex scenes). But the true magnet of an attraction is Adèle Exarchopoulos (yes her screen name and real name is both the same) who does a fine job at acting. The director’s relationship towards her through the camera frame is very evident and her emotions pour out of her pretty eyes and lips nonstop. While the director tries to spice it up a bit more by showing her rear side a couple of times (with and without cloths) it’s her face that makes the painfully slow three hours worthwhile. There is nothing extraordinary to mention about cinematography other than the lighting used in bedroom scenes that was quite certain to give the viewer best viewing pleasure.

After I was done with BWC the inner arguments I had was ‘if’ this story was about an ordinary man and woman couple would that be this talked about. And ‘if’ the director has decided to remove some of the details and keep only the essence of it will it still be this controversial. The answer for both arguments I got was a no.

Original title: La vie d'Adèle - Chapitres 1 et 2

Genre: Drama | Romance

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Amores Perros (2000) Rating: Genre 5/5 Overall 5/5

Mexico | Drama | Crime | Thriller

Sometimes great cinema is not always based on things that are easy to watch and digest. Ameros Perros is such movie where the viewer will get to witness painful things and through that pain come the art of realization. Maybe there is no other pleasant way to tell this story without making it less effective. Whichever it is the final result is a staggering piece of true cinema.

Amores Perros is directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and is the first movie of the death trilogy followed by 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Though there is no relativity in plot between these movies the sublime and underlying similarity in style of storytelling is what binds them together. Here in Amores Perros there are 3 parallel story lines that seem very different to each other on surface but speak of a common theme all together. And at one point the characters of each story line overlaps and meets ones another at a common symbolic incident. This incident is what binds the stories together however not largely dependent on each other’s success. This is one reason I called this point symbolic than crucial.

Story line one follows the most painful to watch material. It’s about a young man from the city low class who turns to fighting his dog in underground dog fights to earn money for his plans to get away with his unconventional girlfriend.  Here you may come across the ugly trade of dog fights and the fate of dogs that goes in to them. For dog lovers this section is nightmare. Story line two is about a super model who faces an unfortunate road accident. The drama between her illegal partner and her struggle to survive takes a very different mood and rhythm from the previous story. Yet she also has a pet dog that keeps her company. The key character of storyline three is a hit man. Beaten up by life and mistakes he did in the past he lives with a bunch of dogs and almost homeless. However he struggles to put things right by his daughter and for some reasons he is pushed away from his dreams.

As you may realize these three storylines are far from being common. But they are beautifully connected by dogs. The dog is a symbol of loyalty at each story and the people are symbols of disloyalty and unfaithfulness. This combination works perfectly and Amores Perros gives the viewer heavy breathing. Powerful performances, wonderful cinematography and music ads spice on top of each other without making a single story lines prominent over each other. It seems like the director has done a perfect job in phasing out the sequences and laying out a perfect ending as well. While I highly recommend this I would like to recommend 21 Grams and Babel too if you have not seeing them already. They complete one of the most satisfying trilogies of contemporary cinema. 

Director : Alejandro González Iñárritu