PRISONERS

                        PRISONERS

Starring:

Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Terence Howard

                 

Synopsis

The Dover and Birch families meet for a Thanksgiving dinner, after which their six-year-old daughters Anna and Joy go for a walk, They don't return. The occupant of a van parked outside is the immediate suspect. Keller Dover (Jackman) then embarks on his own manic search for the girls.

Critic's Review

Keller is a religious man whose motto is to 'be prepared'. Accordingly, his basement is stocked up for an apocalypse and the lines on his face show that he's known struggle all his life. Alex Jones (Dano) is the occupant of the dilapidated van parked outside their home and after the girls go missing, Keller's gut instinct that Alex is behind the abduction turns him into a man obsessed with breaking Alex.

Investigating the case, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) is tattooed, brooding, speaks little but is firm. His only sign of emotion is a nervous facial tic. He has never lost a case before but this one tests his mettle to breaking point. His performance builds with quiet intensity. After a round of questioning, Alex, who seems to have the cognitive ability of a small child, is released. Nancy and Franklin Birch (Davis, Howard) believe in Loki's efforts but are mired in grief. As the search goes on and hope begins to dim, Keller descends into his own heart of darkness and his wife Grace (Bello) slips into a sedative haze.

The violence isn't glamourised, but looks as real as possible and therefore, sometimes disturbing. Most visual cues are suggested, but are never overt. Villeneuve's meticulous vision and cinematographer Roger Deakins' lustrous palette of greys, blacks and overcast skies set up an ominous mood, aided superbly by Johann Johannsson's music.

A film with many emotional components, the visceral panic, desperation and helplessness any parent would feel when their children are abducted, forms its bedrock. Each watershed point takes its own time to build. This ensures that you will want to pay attention to the details that makes Prisoners so enjoyable.

Note: You may not like this film if you don't enjoy dark thrillers that touch on morality issues.

Reviewde By - Reagan Gavin Rasquinha, TNN.

• 
  Director:
  Denis Villeneuve
• Music Director:
  Johann Johannsson
• Duration:2 hrs & 32 mins

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ABOUT TIME

                                        ABOUT TIME

                                                         

Synopsis

Tim (Gleeson) gets clued onto a family secret - all the gents in the house have the ability to travel through time! He then goes about using this power to sort out various wrongs in his life and win over his lady love.

Critic's Review

With a movie title that couldn't possibly be more literal, About Time features an amalgamation of love and philosophy. From the director with a filmography including Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary, you could safely come to the conclusion that Curtis could spin out another romcom blindfolded. He manages to move beyond flightiness and stops just short of being maudlin or mawkish.

Tim's dad (Nighy) reveals the time-travelling secret to junior one day. Forget about quantum physics and those lifelong labours of Stephen Hawking and his ilk; apparently, all it takes to time-travel is to close your eyes, clench your fists and focus really hard.

Not one to waste such a phenomenal gift, Tim is certainly a man with his priorities in order. Forgetting about everything else, he decides to focus on romance in general, Mary (McAdams) in particular, and use his new time-travelling trick to set right certain wrongs.

Mary is a bit airy. She has her faults but attempts to be endearing. Indeed, Tim and she share an easy chemistry. Gleeson is no Hugh Grant, but McAdams is a highlight in this film. The film is inexplicably long but the genuinely funny jokes that pepper the plot save the film from plodding into a sentimental soup.

There is a strong idealistic streak running through About Time. After all, which one of us wouldn't want to go back in the years and change certain things? What if we had said the right thing at the right time to him or her...or perhaps avoided that misunderstanding? Wouldn't that relationship have worked out?

Ultimately, the message is simple and visceral enough to have crossover appeal. Give it a shot if romantic comedies float your boat.

• Director:
  Richard Curtis
• Music Director:
  Danny Elfman
• Duration:2 hrs & 3 mins

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ESCAPE PLAN

                                                   ESCAPE PLAN

Synopsis

Ray Breslin has written the book (literally) on structural security. His job is to pose as a prisoner and then escape from that jail, in order to alert the authorities to its security flaws.

Critic's Review

Story: Ray Breslin has written the book (literally) on structural security. His job is to pose as a prisoner and then escape from that jail, in order to alert the authorities to its security flaws. The last job he accepts is to break out of an ultra-secure facility, whose location is secret. Once inside, Breslin realizes he must work with fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer in order to escape.

Review: After a successful breakout from a high-security lockup, Breslin's business partner Lester Clark (D'Onofrio) then convinces him to accept one last job offered to them by the CIA because of the large payout guaranteed to them. Accordingly, Breslin and work-mates Hush (50 Cent) and Abigail (Ryan) head to a rendezvous point in New Orleans. Things quickly take a different turn.

Like lumbering man-mountains, Breslin (Stallone) and Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger) harness some serious brain-muscle to go with the testosterone-powered brawn. Hafstrom (known for his horror flicks) gives each of the main characters clearly-defined attributes. Breslin never loses his cool. Rottmayer is unpredictable. The evil warden Hobbs (Caviezel) looks calm, unflappable and collects butterflies, but you get the feeling that inside, he's a raving psychopath. Dr Emil Kaikev (Sam Neill) is the prison doctor whose critical sense of conscience injects some much-needed pathos into the proceedings.

Arnie and Sly are synonymous with action films. Even though both, The Governator and the Italian Stallion are a tad worn around the edges, the two of them serve up some unfussy meat-and-potatoes fare. The script avoids cheesy lines but Schwarzenegger does have some memorable ones, like "You hit like a vegetarian".

Their biceps and forearms are as thick as hams, but the ammunition expenditure and fight scenes are scaled back. The pace does, however, go into higher gear during the second half. The characters fit to a tee, except for 50 Cent, incongruously miscast as a computer nerd! The action is routine but the way they plan the escape is interesting and inspired. These guys may be old, but they sure know their chops and can still deal the dice, old-school style.

• Director:
  Mikael Håfström
• Music Director:
  Alex Heffes
• Duration:1 hrs & 57 mins

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THE FIFTH ESTATE

THE FIFTH ESTATE

DreamWorks has released the first poster and a few new images from director Bill Condon’s (Kinsey) upcoming WikiLeaks film The Fifth Estate.  The pic centers on the relationship between Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) and Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch), as the story follows the early days of WikiLeaks, culminating in the release of a series of controversial and history changing information leaks.  Assange/WikiLeaks is certainly timely subject matter and Condon has assembled an impeccable cast, so The Fifth Estate enters the fall fold as .  Moreover, the pic will be opening the where it will hold its world premiere.VIA www.filimspot.blogspot.com

Here’s the official synopsis for The Fifth Estate:

Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news leaks and the trafficking of classified information, WikiLeaks forever changed the game. Now, in a dramatic thriller based on real events, “The Fifth Estate” reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century’s most fiercely debated organization. The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world’s most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society—and what are the costs of exposing them?”

Synopsis

The movie traces the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who teams up with Daniel Berg to become international watchdogs

Critic's Review

Story: The Fifth Estate traces the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Cumberbatch) who teams up with Daniel Berg (Bruhl) to become international watchdogs. Via WikiLeaks, they expose corruption, lift the lid on corporate crime and shed light on government wrongdoings. Review: The slick opening montage of this movie sets the stage for a potentially exciting and gripping story. Assange starts out with nothing, but his silent resolve, coupled with vision, determination and focus, far outreaches his finances. His reputation as a hipster/hacker grows and partnering with Berliner, Berg (a brilliant programmer) is a masterstroke.
Together, they make Wikileaks a force to reckon with. As Assange knows that Wikileaks offers the kind of shocking information that he feels people want to - and probably should - know about, his obsession starts veering towards paranoia. He also has a nose for sensationalism. His friendship, followed by a disagreement with Berg is reminiscent of the Zuckerberg-Saverin equation from The Social Network. While that movie brought to light various aspects about human nature, Estate doesn't come close in edginess. You will however, wonder about whether Assange is in it for the greater good, or to feed his own galloping ego. He realizes he has access to information that can make governments quake, and that kind of power can go to anyone's head. Sarah Shaw (Linney) and James Boswell (Tucci) of the US State Department portray their roles well and represent much about the US Government's perspective on transparency. While the real Julian Assange presently languishes in diplomatic asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Cumberbatch does a good job of portraying the embattled whistleblower. Cumberbatch's Assange is emotionless, cold and sometimes a bit sinister. For someone who insists on global transparency, his own personality is paradoxically as impervious as a cold steel wall. You wonder what actually is going on inside his head. A movie about Assange and Wikileaks is bound to be tough to tackle and while it has a few things going for it, Condon could have scored better if he chose to focus deeper on Assange's admittedly complex and mysterious psyche.

• Director:
  Bill Condon
• Music Director:
  Carter Burwell
• Duration:2 hrs & 8 mins
  
  

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