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Spaceman (3 / 5) In director Johan Renck’s Spaceman, early on, a small girl asks Adam Sandler’s astronaut Jakub whether. Can I ask you a question?’ There is a pause. ‘Can I ask something?’ Sandler hesitates again. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘But probably not the question you want to ask.’ ‘OK,’ she says. ‘If you are the loneliest man on the planet, will you come back?’ Sandler tosses his head to the side: I… I am not alone.’ She smiles. ‘Then you’re not lonely.’ ‘No, I’ll be back in a few weeks,’ Sandler tells her. ‘And to my family.’ The hesitation in the astronaut’s reply undermines what he’s saying. Jakub is heading out to Jupiter to find out where Chopra’s particles come from. He’s light years from home. His pregnant wife, Lenka, played by Carey Mulligan, is looking forward to the day he returns, just as much as he is checking the clock down to these minutes. Director: Johan Renck Cast: Adam Sandler, Paul Dano, Carey Mulligan, Isabella Rossellini, Kunal Nayyar It does not take long for Renck...

The Gentlemen (3 / 5) In the end, his spin-off series is an enormous success. A bit too long-winded for its own good in places and too glossy for its liking, especially in its deployment of tropes, but on the whole, its clown car of characters (attached to a wealthy aristocratic family/estate in transition) would hold your attention. Guy Ritchie’s penchant for eccentricity, the oddball and the outright darkly comic is on full display, and if the filmmaking is rarely less than spot-on, few filmmakers can make a joke quite as successfully. (Were it not for Lock, Stock and Snatch, one would be listening to me say Snatch, Lock, and Stock) The spin-off would have been a miniseries with half the running time and more careful distribution of attention to the comic or enigmatic characters, as the case may be. But the lingering production remainders of those early films (such as Mad Mel’s mercenary mayhem) is unavoidable. Creator – Guy Ritchie Cast – Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Gi...

The First Omen (3 / 5) In setting the prequel to The Omen (1976) in Rome, as the debut director Arkasha Stevenson has done, you can better show why an antichrist is ‘ altering into a hotbed of anti-clericalism in government. An American (who has previously worked in the New York Police Force and is called Margaret Daino, but is referred to by others as Nell Tiger Free) comes to work at an orphanage in Rome, and to take vows of nunhood, even as her piety leads her to question some of the orphanage’s most worrisome practices (keeping some smitten-with-evil students in lockbye) – whose extreme nature is fully exposed by her compassion for one such student. Like Conner, Daino finds herself privy to the diabolical machinations of the Church. And, while it is clear (to us) that she will fail in her quest to stop evil – on its way to The Omen and its sequels – the second half of Arkasha’s The First Omen focuses only on the unavailing attempts of kind people to stay the inevitable. Possibly it...

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire Movie (2.5 / 5) All of the joys and delights and embracing goofiness of a Kaiju film have been there, but that’s been undone by the human drama. You’re used to how stories work – so we don’t complain when the picture cuts away from Godzilla glowing-red with rage and radiation, to puny little humans talking about their feelings or whatever. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire magnifies the genre’s great weakness by turning the giant monsters as human as their human characters, and in so doing – adding such goofiness – makes the whole thing kind of enjoyable. What we get instead of this ecstatic experience of giant, alien beasts, of these forces of nature towering over all of humanity, and bowing all of Earth with every stride, is an action movie full of gigantic circus-trained animals. The one monster hero who feels like a monster is Godzilla – he is inevitable – Godzilla is our favourite radioactive Kaiju and he has been reduced to a lengthy cameo appearanc...

Heart of the Hunter (3 / 5) Based on a novel by Deon Meyer, who also co-wrote its screenplay (alongside Willem Grobler), it’s not a bad little action thriller – especially for an embattled South African political climate that teeters between corruption and conspiracy. The premise is hardly novel: nor is the plot armouring of the known political thriller devils – no one can be trusted; the assassination attempt, no matter how successful, can’t actually remove the target because those in need of elimination would rather get their claws onto him than see him exposed or assassinated; insidious elements are deliberately turning a regrettably imperfect state even more imperfect; and there remains an unwashed populace fit only to suffer the sins of their misguided leaders and stumble blindly into the cooling cauldron of their own, one-pot justice. It’s not exactly original, and only mildly original in execution. But where Heart of the Matter does deliver is on the true-to-life performances o...

Hot Spot(2.5 / 5) Fans of the bespectacled, cleft-chinned, ponytail-toting Vignesh Karthick – and those who’ve watched his split-the-d difference Yours Shamefully films, and a few other features – know he loves a bit of shock and awe. Hot Spot goes one step further. The trailer for Hot Spot practically dives straight into clickbait. In shallower waters, it aims to provoke outrage, the very thing that compels many to watch, if only to complain. Instead, it’s a cunning ruse. The film itself is far tamer than the sensational trailer would suggest, even as it covers much of the same ground: patriarchy, incest, sexual permissiveness. While the intent of the filmmakers is laudable, Hot Spot is marred by tonal shifts and uneven portraits. Director: Vignesh Karthick Cast: Gouri Kishan, Adithya Bhaskar, Sandy, Ammu Abhirami, Janani, Subash, Kalaiyarasan, Sophiya Hot Spot, which was hyperlinked by Vignesh Karthick, who also plays a documentary filmmaker in the film, extensively explores four of ...

Inspector Rishi(3 / 5) Though genre walls might be crashing down in exciting new ways, Prime Video’s Inspector Rishi works within the genre conventions of the police procedural and supernatural thriller to create an immensely satisfying experience. If nothing else, the show shows that sometimes it’s enough to kick back and not reinvent the wheel if you stick to the genre and the story. Streamer: Prime Video Creator: JS Nandhini Cast: Naveen Chandra, Srikrishna Dayal, Kanna Ravi, Malini Jeevarathnam, Sunaina, Kumaravel It does it through the strength of its (exemplary) characterisation and (exceptional) world-building, to the extent that the characters become the heart of the show. And as for the writing, without any of the characters – or, really, anything that happens to any of the characters – the show would have been, at best, a good but tired exhibition of tropes. The show also avoids the temptation to tell audiences how to think – to distinguish between subjective and objective, t...

Oru Thavaru Seidhal(1.5 / 5) A film-within-a-film made up of a bunch of 40-year-olds in impeccably tailored suits and styled hair hamming up a gangster film like they’re the Keystone Cops, or some others simply lowering a Marilyn Monroe poster and a dummy propped with a speculum, table lowered, or some who are just plain bizarre… Illayaraja’s music is so beautiful that our ears sweat. The prose goes on and on… You really must read these books! The magic begins unspooling imperceptibly, like strands of nylon stretched so taut that they ultimately snap in two isn’t the punchline or the conceited make-up or the symbolic use of frogs but the literal meaning of the word: ‘no meaning’. Adil Hussain’s Instagram account is shamelessly self-promotional, but good for him. He deserves to be in the spotlight. The director’s name at the end of the movie was still a mystery. ‘This saga is set during my formative years,’ the digression went on. ‘That saga was called Aya Bari Kabar’ (1976). It is a ga...

And what are we left with till the interval in Kalvan, till the main thing finally gets going and we reach that point where these characters actually start doing something interesting? Lots (and lots and lots) of nothing. Kemban (GV Prakash) is a thief. And with his best friend (who doubles as his aide) (Dheena), he tries burgles junctions to save money so he can bribe his way to a forest officer’s job. But that’s motivation behind our protagonist, and till we reach that ‘point’, the film flounders through an insipid romantic track, and a bunch of wannabe-smart comedic bits that aren’t half as funny as jokes about a wet towel. Kemban takes on an old man crippled with loneliness, and we are told he does so to impress Balamani (Ivana). But his real intention, we find out one not-so-surprising plot point down the line, is a much darker, complicated scheme taking Bharthiraja’s character as the centre. That Kemban is possibly a mad, grey character is one of the meagre handful of good things...

Questions flickered in my mind 10 minutes into White Rose. How can one human being endure such unmitigated cruelty? Divya (Kayal Anandhi) has already been rejected by her parents for marrying a Muslim. But moments after she and her war veteran husband celebrate her birthday with their four-year-old daughter, she loses the husband to a horrific accident. Moments later, their house is broken into and the daughter kidnapped by a loan shark to whom Divya owes money. The least of her ordeals begin here – they are only the prologue. With a moody score and jump scares breaking out unexpectedly, the film entertains first and then grows tiring as debilitating misfortune piles on. At one point there are several holes in the plot a meteor could fly through. Director: K Rajashekar Cast: Kayal Anandhi, RK Suresh, Rooso Sridharan, Vijjith, Baby Nakshathra, Sasilaya, Dharani Reddy Deeply in debt and desperate for money to rescue her daughter from a kidnapper who had financed their lives, Divya finds ...

Rebel  Movie Review: A Fairly Engaging drama revolving around student politics Rebel, which has G V Prakash Kumar playing the lead for the first time, also had powerful expectations following buzz generated by its political trailer. The success of this period political drama is uncertain given that Parliamentary elections are only a couple of months away. Rated ‘U/A’ (Unrestricted Public Exhibitions, individuals below the age of 18 years to be accompanied by parents or guardian), Rebel is set in the 1980s. Kathir (GV Prakash Kumar), son of estate workers in Munnar, is an under-privileged boy who has been treated like a lesser citizen by the Keralites. His mum and dad and other villagers are put in a less privileged category, and Kathir knows the only way he and other Tamil boys can walk with their heads held high is by studying really well. He, along with other poor boys from the village, who are offered places under a quota, land themselves college admission in Palakkad Chittur Colleg...

Double Tuckerr Movie Review: A Rollercoaster of Animation and Comedy, Riding Highs and Lows Meera Mahadi‘s directorial debut ‘Double Tuckerr’, which is releasing this summer (June 11) is a film that aims to cater to the young movie audiences across India. Starring Dheeraj, Smriti Venkat, Kovai Sarala, MS Bhaskar, Kali Venkat, Muneeskanth, Mansoor Ali Khan, Shah Rao, Sunil Reddy and Karunakaran, ‘Double Tuckerr’ is an Artflix production and has music by Vidya Sagar. The tragic opening plunge launches our hero Aravind (Dheeraj) on a roller-coaster when a motorcycle accident kills his parents and leaves him with facial deformities that impact his self-image darkly, ostracising him from the world, at least for the remainder of his childhood. Not that it matters much, because more calamities and humiliations come his way. He has a great deal to cry about, and often does so. If he survives to a better place, we want him to linger there for a while. At the centre of the plot is the capricious...