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21 Hours - Movie Review

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21 hours is a slick thriller who’s screenplay is set in 21 hours time. A lonely wife to a supposedly gay husband wants to move out of the relationship and the household. In a chain if events, she gets killed. Who triggered the bullet, find Investigative Cop Srikanth (Dhananjaya).  Madhuri Menon (Durga Krishna) is married to Renjith Menon (Sudev Nair) and fight almost every other day. Her Mother in-law keeps teasing her that she is yet to deliver a baby but Madhuri feels to shy that there is no physical relationship between the couple. Fed up of the feud, one fine day, she simply walks out of the house and accosts her former Ex and now friend Vishal Nair (Rahul Madhav). She informs her parents what she has done while her father Girish Nair (Dinesh Babu) requests his an old acquaintance Joe Machado (Ravikumar Rao) to help her in the mess. Joe connects with a Minister (Dinesh Mangaluru) who in turn connects him with someone else. And all this happens late on that fateful night. Early next

The Gray Man - Movie Review

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Dhanush appears briefly in the film “The Gray Man”, his first Hollywood outing but creates an impact with the morality the character displays. The Netflix movie was released on Fri. 21 Jul. 2022. . Mark Greaney’s novel by the same name has been adapted in to a film which has been bankrolled by the Russo Brothers company AGBO and released worldwide (sic) on Netflix. The film stars Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick and pan-Indian star Dhanush among a host of characters. The film opens up in a prison in the US in the year 2003 when a CIA agent Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) accosts a lifetime prisoner (Ryan Gosling) and asks him to operate as a mercenary, taking directions from the agency to “complete tasks” from time to time by the high command. He is code named Sierra Six, perhaps indicating the number of predecessors he has. Cut to 2021, the scene is now set in Bangkok where Agent Six has to kill a supposed traitor who is sharing critical and confidential information per

Runway 34 - Movie Review

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I have been on thousands of flight trips over the past 20 years, mostly on work. But when I was watching this  movie on a small screen, I was more tensed & worried than ever - not about the safety of flying, rather the nervous moments each Pilot, Co-Pilot & First Officer go through before every take off, landing and everything in between. Runway 34 is an excellent portrayal of what runs in the mind of such a pilot and his colleague, in a 2 hr suspense drama and mostly a fictional depiction of real life events. Produced and Directed by Ajay Devgan, the film was released on Amazon Prime on 14 July after a few weeks of theatrical run where the movie didn’t do well. On the midnight of 16/17 Aug. 2015, a Boeing 777 aircraft owned by Skyline Airway Company is flying from Dubai to Kochi. Capt. Vikranth Khanna (Ajay Devgan) takes the throttle along with his First Officer Tanya Alburqueque (Rakul Preet Singh). Just the previous night, Vikranth parties hard with his friends in a night cl

12th Man - Film Review

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  Set in the midst of a resort in Idukki, the film is all about the 11 men and women and the 12th man who uncovers a murder mystery. Jeetu Joseph, who made the classic Drishyam (Malayalam & Hindi) and Papanasam (in Tamil) is now back with his favourite hero Mohan Lal, The crew, obviously 11 of them, have given a terrific performance with each of them playing a significant role from the word go till the end. Sidharth is engaged to Aarathy and they decide to throw a bachelor’s party to Sid’s classmates – 10 of them. Interestingly, but for one, all other are married within the group, so that makes 4 couples. Banker Sam and his wife Merin are a happy couple. Dr. Nayan and her husband Jithesh are not the perfect match, but they continue to navigate this relationship that is a marriage. Annie & Zacharia are about to become parents and decide to announce the big news at the party the next day. Shiny & Mathew are a couple who have their own excesses. Shiny borrows money from friend

The cult of Agent Vikram

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After 10 days since its release, I finally watched Kamal Hassan’s Vikram, well er… should I say, Lokesh Kanagaraj’s Vikram. That’s how it seems to be, going by the screenplay, the audience feedback and of course, the Box Office collections. As I write this piece (after 3 weeks of its release), the film has collected over Rs. 300 Cr at the Box Office in India and wolrd wide. Plus OTT rights, of course.  Kamal Hassan’s Vishwaroopam 1 & 2 were anything patriotic, to say the least. His critics have always said the gentleman lacked clarity of thoughts in his screenplay, and political stance, later on. But that’s for a different article. Staying true to his age and image that he has created for almost 6 decades now, KH has sprung a surprise in Vikram, where he plays a disheartened father who loses his son to the drug mafia – just that his son was not an addict, rather a cop who uncovered the mafia and stashed their prized catch.  The film opens with a drunk+sober Karnan (KH) who seem to

A Perfect Pairing – Movie Review

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There’s nothing called the perfect match in the world – a couple in love, a geek and his device, a musician and his composition, a spin bowler and his catch and so on. But something that really pairs very well – being a foodie, I can bet you – is Wine with it’s right combo (of foods). A Perfect Pairing is not exactly a documentary on Wine tasting & pairing, rather a breezy movie about a fairly imperfect couple who eventually end up a great pair. Fairly cinematic stuff, unrealistic in life at most time. Hell yea, it’s a feel good movie after all. Lola Alvarez (Victoria Justice) is a Sales Manager at one of the top Wine Import firms in the US and is getting ready for a promotion as a Sales Director soon. After her recent divorce, she wants to take a break before another hook-up. Celebrity Chef Hamish (Nicholas Brown) loves her knowledge of wines and gets her win a big contract for her firm and she’s about to present her newest idea to her Boss Calder (Craig Horner) in the Team Meetin

Black Crab – Movie Review (Swedish)

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A war which is unending, sabotage by those whom one trusts, enemies within and to top it all, a biological war in the making by spreading a man-made virus stored in a vial – I am not referring to the ongoing Ukraine crisis coupled with the Covid-19 led lockdown which is celebrating (sic) its 2 nd   anniversary today in India. Operation Black Crab is a movie set somewhere in Scandinavia where a fighter reaches her destination for just one reason – Hope!   We have seen war movies and many of them. From classics like Ben Hur to the current times’ Outside the Wire, 2 Guns and so on, there has been enough and more where soldiers and fighters use various weapons, fly across regions and use sophisticated guns and revolvers among others. But Operation Black Crab is different. The soldiers use skateboards. Legends! Caroline Edh (Noomi Rapace) skates all the way across an archipelago to deliver a courier to the “base” on the other side which would perhaps end the war. Or so she thinks. The singl