The Lost City of Z: An Ode To The Spirit Of Discovery

The subject of historical geographical exploration is one that has been depicted in cinema usually as a taste of exaggerated fanciful adventure (cue: Indiana Jones), animation (cue: Tarzan), or comedy cue:  the upcoming Jumanji 2). As a medium of information apart from plain entertainment, there was a dearth of cinema that could showcase a detailed picture of the physical and emotional journey of an explorer, wandering in uncharted, potentially dangerous regions, invested into the fact that this journey could well cost them their lives. 

Then you come across this absolutely beautiful piece of cinema – a beautiful account of a British explorer and soldier, Major Percy Fawcett, a name forgotten over time, and one of the most influential figures linked to the mythical land of El Dorado believed to be harbouring a secret civilisation much ancient and more advanced than any other known the world over. The film covers Fawcett’s journey, from his admittance into the Royal Geographical Society of England, upto his eventual disappearance in the dense jungles of the Amazon. Major Percival ‘Percy’ Fawcett is assigned to an expedition near the Brazil-Bolivian territory for mapping uncharted territory along with Corporals Henry Costin and Arthur Manley. On his first trip down, he faces threats such as extreme climatic conditions, rampant disease, invisible bloodthirsty tribesmen, and in the least, a piranha-laden Amazon River, surrounded by an unfriendly forest that cannot be relied upon for subsistence.

An unblemished vision and its raw portrayal, and an extremely well-picked ensemble come together to make this film a lush, intricate account into the darkness faced by explorers working to discover new lands to the point of obsession, and continuing on despite continuous challenges to their reputation, health, lives and sanity.

Robert Pattinson as Corporal Henry Costin,
Fawcett's aide-de-camp

Fawcett is played by Charlie Hunnam, most well known as Jax Teller in the long running Sons of Anarchy, Raleigh Becket in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, and the title lead in Guy Ritchie’s crime-comedy-fantasy film King Arthur: Legend of The Sword. One could say Charlie Hunnam’s naturally brooding look and demeanour helps him fill Fawcett’s shoes quite well, as he captures the turbulences faced by the explorer and his aide-de-camp Costin, played by Robert Pattinson, another gem of an actor (discount the Twilight saga, and you’ll know what I mean), and how the obsession over the possibility of finding a hidden civilisation came to become the defining account of his life as the world knows it. Sienna Miller delivers a splendid heartfelt performance as Nina Fawcett, the major’s devoted wife who is nearly equally dedicated to him accomplishing his objective.

Enough said about the cast. Coming to why this film struck such a chord with me, I would point out a particular sequence in which we get to witness the near-summation of the dire straits Fawcett and his men find themselves in, halfway through the movie. On their second trip down the Amazon, they are intercepted by a familiarly aggressive group of tribesmen and forced to retreat to the opposite bank of the river. Trying to reason with the indigenous people, Fawcett bursts out into song and using a book as a shield for his face, moves forward towards them to attempt communication. Suddenly an arrow comes flying and pierces the book, missing Fawcett’s face by bare inches. The incredible build-up to the sequence pauses with a heart-stopping instant. But if I wasn’t invested enough in the story, Fawcett instead of being the stereotypical film explorer and brushing the arrow aside, momentarily phases out, and we see his life and everything he yearns to return to, literally flashing before his eyes and he tries to compose himself, all the while maintaining his stance and composure, and despite the same, proceeding to broker peace with the very same tribesmen.

Though for a short amount of time, Tom Holland appears as Jack Fawcett, Percy’s son who accompanies him on his final journey to the Amazon before their disappearance, and gives a more-than-decent performance, showcasing his serious chops, a grade above what we see in his latest Spiderman: Homecoming.

Hunnam and Holland caught between two tribal groups

In the age of larger-than-life commercial cinema, which hinges on extreme camera work, high profile names and style above substance, I feel glad that sometimes filmmakers like James Grey move out of the track to make cinema such as this – cinema that manages to evoke a hundred emotions other than plain exhilaration from intermittent one-liners, something we’ve become way too used to owing to commercial cinema. Where most films manage to establish a scenario where we view events through a window and feel a fraction of the thrills, the few like The Lost City of Z gets you holistically and deeply invested into the journey of their characters, where after a point you build an almost personal emotional connection with them.

In the name of all things Wonderful - Review of Wonder Woman

The people at the helm of the DCEU can finally take a collective sigh of relief, because finally they will be able to salvage some of that competitive dignity that they lost with Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. And after 2 pathetic attempts at making films on female superheroes, with Catwoman (2005) <ugh> and Supergirl (1984), they finally gave us Wonder Woman, AND AM I GLAD! And should YOU be! And that's a lot of ands. And I should stop. And you should read on ... and so. 

However, not getting carried away, there are both pros and cons of the movie: PROS in terms of the story’s consistency, comic timing, acting and background score; and CONS in terms of what is the bane of every DC movie till date. Rest assured the PROS outweigh the CONS.

It is quite a task to take one of the hottest comic book superheroines and render them on screen in such spectacular fashion, because it’s easy to hire an attractive actress to fit into the stereotypically tight clothes of a typical comic book superhero, but it’s absolutely another task to make her look so convincing in the role, it’s as if she was born into it. 

Words fall short in praise of Gal Gadot, or as I call her, “DC’s gift to the cinematic world.” Gal Gadot flirts very gracefully with the line that defines Wonder Woman as a pin-up girl on one side and as a symbol of female empowerment on the other. This is not the first role the Israeli girl is known for though , who you may remember behind the driving wheel in the multi-million dollar Fast & Furious franchise, in a comparatively lesser significant role. She perfectly fits the bill as the curious young Amazon demigoddess trying to come to terms with the reality of her birth and the extent of her powers. Superman and Batman have us used to a particular dark, grim brand of superheroes. Gal Gadot as Diana restores an inherently childish and grounded element of humanity into the DCEU that was much, much required after their last 2 offerings (not saying that those were bad films, those were some pretty good, mildly underappreciated (okay, quite underappreciated) films) which had been trying to establish themselves in the shade of the massively successful and ingeniously rooted Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The movie explores the origin story of Diana, the Princess of a race of Greek women warriors that live on the island of Themyscira, who are hidden from and exist for the destruction of Ares, the Greek god of war. When fate lands American spy Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine) on the beaches of Themiscyra followed close behind by a fleet of German soldiers, Diana comes to know about men, and starts on a journey of rediscovering a world embroiled in World War 1, and the true purpose of her mysterious birth.  

A beautiful spectacle of a film, with fluid fight correctly timed fight sequences, choreographed to a power-packed background score by Junkie XL and Hans Zimmer, DC and Warner Bros. have provided a grounded film that sticks as close as possible to its comic book roots, with classic forgotten villains and yet dissipates information in a way that even a layman audience getting introduced to Wonder Woman for the first time can tune into.

The only CON that seems to have become a running disease for every DC movie, is its cinematography and green-screening. Bringing in the MCU at this point, it must be pointed out how realistic all of their films appear, making it very easy for a viewer to imagine those same characters in front of themselves in reality, because that’s how close to reality their sets and their world is. DC has this penchant for featuring fights in the dark, something one can observe even in the trailer of the upcoming Justice League.  And not wanting to be harsh, but DC’s cinematography is more like a video game rather than a film. This becomes a huge problem, even with a movie like Wonder Woman, who has a monumental build-up to a climactic reveal, to feature a boss-fight in a night-sky that looks so artificial, it very nearly kills the entire momentum it had built up till that point.

VERDICT – 4  /5 toots of the bugle 

Probably the best thing by DC after the Dark Knight trilogy, in the name of Hera!!

Gal Gadot is truly a Wonder Woman for one of the most earnest and immersive performances of her career, and for restoring faith in the DC universe, one which is hoped shall not diminish with Justice League. 

Poor Joke - Welcome Back : The Bugle's Verdict

Uday and Majnu are back... why??!! Whoever came up with the idea for a sequel to these fools’ story deserves a round of super-slow claps. The only thing that this film by Anees Bazmee was successful in, is proving that Bollywood producers and sequels don’t really fit in the same sentence, except this one of course.

Same storyline, same characters sans Akshay and Katrina, and impeccably ghastly performances by an otherwise decent star line-up, render Welcome Back the candidate for worst film of 2015.

Uday and Majnu have left their gangster lives for a legitimate hotel business, when its revealed that Uday has a second step-sister he never knew about (Yeah, apparently his dad’s quite the player), who must be married if the duo wishes to be part of the fake swayamvar organised by con-women Dimple Kapadia and her daughter (played by newcomer Ankita Srivastava).

Uday and Majnu caught coochee-kooing

And who’s better for this situation than Dr. Ghungroo, the duo’s very own ‘shareef’ bridegroom reserve. Things turn awry for them when its revealed that Ghungroo’s son is apparently not as ‘shareef’ as they supposed him to be.

Rest of the plot you can probably assume, if you've seen Welcome.

The story is painful, lame, but thankfully, forgettable. Truly, the only thing one will remember about this film after watching it is the memory of those painful 2 and a half hours, and that beautiful bucket of cheese popcorn.

Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor were supposed to be the saving grace for this bad joke. If just they weren’t enough, there were 2 Nanas!! So one can understand how bad the script was, when even their antics illicit nothing ahead of the usual eggs and tomatoes. Anil Kapoor was a sad departure from his recent offering in Dil Dhadakne Do.

John ‘Protein Shake’ Abraham was so, so, so bad, that he was good. He’s supposed to be a brash, stupid sort of street thug, and the bland expressions and stiff dance moves somehow get the job done (Reverse psychology, you see). Shruti Haasan fails at handling her stooping lip job, let alone her rusting acting skills.

New members to the cast are Dimple Kapadia, Naseeruddin Shah and Shiney Ahuja. Dimple’s ordinary, Naseer as a blind crime-lord is immensely pathetic. Shiney on the other hand does decently well as the drug-fuelled, maniac son of Naseer.

Newcomer Ankita Srivastava needs enrolling into an acting institute. ASAFP.

Verdict – 1 out of 5 stars

Nana's reaction to the rating

A film can't be rated in integers. Welcome Back could probably set a precedent. 

I tried to have a good time. I genuinely did. But all this movie was able to accomplish was ruin my memories of the first film. Why, Anees, why?!! 

Rocky Climb - Manjhi The Mountain Man : The Bugle's Verdict

It’s quite sad that the biopic honouring a man such as Dashrath Manjhi should leak online almost 3 weeks prior to release. That being said, Manjhi released this friday, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the eponymous lead. Fans of the actor, that have grown in explosive numbers, especially since the Gangs of Wasseypur duology, will be thronging the theatres regardless of the online leak. For all others, let’s see how much justice this movie does to the history of the Mountain Man.

Story (pocket book version) – Dashrath Manjhi was a labourer whose lady-love, Faguniya (Falguni Devi), died upon slipping off a mountain that stood in between his village and the closest town, Wazirganj, thereby reducing the reach of medical facilities. Her death sets the man off on a mission to make a road through the mountain, that would eventually shorten the travel distance between the two places from 70 kms to a mere 15 kms, over a period of 22 years.

If you’d remember the Gangs of Wasseypur films, then you’d recall the slick, smooth portrayal of the average Bihari, so easy-flowing and so natural, that one is completely lost, pleasantly, despite all the abuses and the gore and the excessive depiction of cannabis. It’s a wonder why the same can’t be said for any other film set in Bihar. Manjhi joins the league of the said category of movies, where every line of the script, every joke, the sets – seem like they’re part of a high school theatre club’s setting.

Manjhi is an uphill climb through clichéd narratives, stereotypical Bihari performances and the unreasonable compulsory length of a masala Bollywood film. The reason that this is sad, in this scenario, is because Manjhi was not the run-of-the-mill masala film. Director Ketan Mehta’s project was ambitious and could have told, very beautifully, the story of the man who broke down a mountain for the sake of his love. Instead, the film tells all sorts of stories, addresses all sorts of side issues, while beating around the bush with the epicentre of the film i.e. MANJHI. There are sub-plots within sub-plots about untouchability, naxalites, economic conditions of Bihar, and all other things you’d associate with rural Bihar, that after a point, viewer’s start asking, “All that’s fine, but where does Manjhi figure in all of this?”

Maybe the filmmakers had intended to show that Manjhi accomplished heavy, despite all sorts of wacky odds: but then again, they failed at it, resulting into a movie that is more of a political satire rather than a biopic. Some hopes were vested in the people playing the satirical Biharis, with a powerful cast comprising Prashant Narayanan (Murder 2 fame), Tigmanshu Dhulia, Pankaj Tripathi (Sultan in GOW), etc. but even their efforts were belittled owing to the heavily dragging themes that bring nothing that may be beneficially required for telling Manjhi’s story. 

The only saving grace to this over-burdened tale, are the leading pair – Nawaz and Apte. Nawazuddin is a visual treat. He, though playing around in the same ballpark that his performances have been stereotyped into, manages to whip up something new, as always, further stepping up his game from his laudable performance in Bajrangi Bhaijaan. His version of Manjhi is correctly measured and overflowing with emotions at all times – whether it’s his love for wife Faguniya, or his verging-on-insane obsession and love-hate relationship with the mountain.

Radhika Apte does well as Faguniya, the humble wife and the ultimate catalyst to the village’s development at the hands of her doting husband.    

Verdict – 2 ½ out of 5 stars

“Shaandaar! Jabarjast!! Jindaabaad!!!” - the comment doesn't apply to the movie as well as it might to Nawaz.

Manjhi, along with all its distractions and side events, passes by like a medium paced train on a rocky terrain, with the Mountain man’s story flashing by at random intervals, lost somewhere amongst all the hullabaloo. Truth be told, few would have been able to tolerate this rocky journey, if it hadn’t been for Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s humbly grand presence, and the curiosity to know the tale behind the Mountain Man. 

Mixed Martial Masala - Brothers : The Bugle's Verdict

Dharma Productions tries to do a solid, and makes a legitimate copy of a Hollywood film, unlike the other 90% of Bollywood films. Last official Hollywood remake was Bang Bang, ‘inspired’ from Knight and Day. Like it, Brothers too, keeps up the good work, and proves that spray-painting something golden, doesn’t make it gold, something in this case being the quintessential Bollywood masala film.

Brothers, the official remake of the Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte and Joel Edgerton-starrer, Warrior, follows the exact same plot-line and climax as the original, with minor twists to the story. So those who have seen the first, skip ahead to the next paragraph. For the uninitiated, the film is about a dysfunctional family of wrestlers... sorry, ‘MMA fighters’ (I never knew that the MMA scene was that strong in India). Anyhow. David (Akshay) and Monty (Sidharth) are step-brothers, and sons of Gary Fernandes (Jackie), a recovering alcoholic who has served time in prison for the accidental murder of his wife, Maria (Shefali Shah). A turn of events and individual desperations leads both brothers to an international MMA championship being organised at Mumbai, where they emerge against all odds to face each other as finalists.

Bad direction, a bad script, and excessive use of slow-motion render this film a sad waste of 2 hours and 38 minutes of precious time. The story is commendable. Way richer than Warrior, Brothers comes packed with a lot of emotional content. The problem is, director Karan Malhotra loses control somewhere in this emotional sea, putting out over-stretched, artificial fight sequences, that are the polar opposite of what one would expect from a gripping MMA fight.

Jackie Shroff delivers one of his most moving performances, playing a man who has nothing left in his life but regrets, and wishes to make amends with his estranged family. Everything is right in his equation – the trembling, the shivers, and the abusive drunkenness. Akshay Kumar is not bad, but then again, not that good. He passes off convincingly enough as a doting family man, who is ready to fight any battles for his sick daughter. Sidharth Malhotra is straight-faced and plastic. Shefali Shah does an expected good job in the role of the boys' mother. 

Dharma Productions gave a dull shot this time, with a bulb that tried to shine so bright, it fused right out. Over-the-top dialogues, a cartoonish supporting cast that includes Ashutosh Rana and Kiran Kumar, and an extremely artificial sports setting, just add to the insipidity that this film wasn’t lacking upon in the first place.

Verdict – 1 ½ out of 5 stars

I know it was a bad movie bro! I know ours was better! Please don't cry!!

Every few years or so, someone comes up with the grand idea of a sports film that intends to elevate the popularity for the featured sport in India. Brothers tries to hold the mantle for the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, and fails magnificently. 

Ethan Dynamite - Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation : The Bugle's Verdict

It is impossible for a genuine Hollywood buff to effectively ignore an MI instalment, especially so if they are Tom Cruise fans. Despite the repetitive story layout, and the beaten-to-a-pulp character descriptions, the American James Bond series manages to hold its own in the market, and for obvious reasons.

<GUILTY PLEASURE ALERT>

It’s the same old dynamite stick concept with Rogue Nation: a ticking clock of guns, technology, face masks and crashing BMWs, leading upto the destruction of the plans of a terrorist mastermind.

With Rogue Nation, the MI series takes on the same comic-book-meets-reality action, returning to its roots in the popular television series of the same name, with the introduction of the Syndicate, a nemesis entity for the IMF, which functions exactly opposite to the IMF’s ways.  

The story is familiarly predictable, and the stunts are getting redundant, if not less high-octane. Tom Cruise whips up his most popular persona as Ethan Hunt – a charismatic, sensitive, highly flexible (that came out wrong) super-spy.

At the beginning of the film, a US senator states that the success of Hunt’s missions has always been dependant on sheer luck. It’s funny. He had to wait for 5 films to arrive at this conclusion??

Rebecca Fergusson plays the female lead; a disawowed agent working undercover in the Syndicate. Quite the muscular girl, this one. Her favourite pastime is getting on top of guys. (No really, check out the picture below).

Sorry dude.. You're not my type. 

Fergusson quite ably stands tall next to Tom, often even exceeding him in the testosterone department.

Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Jeremy Renner reprise their roles from previous films, with Alec Baldwin joining the fray as the Director of the CIA.

Sean Harris, Pegg’s rugged, identical twin, plays the antagonist, as the leader of the Syndicate, giving a Bob Biswas kind of villain, who speaks in a raspy voice, and a volume lower than that of a buzzing bee. Half the time, the viewers have to stick their ears out in order to not miss out on the dialogues of the angry, blond mastermind.

Director Christopher McQuarrie, who has frequently collaborated with Cruise on previous projects like the Edge of Tomorrow, Jack Reacher as well as Valkyrie, provides a decent summer action flick (okay, a little off-season).

VERDICT – 3 out of 5 stars

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation picks up on the scabs left behind by the previous films, trying to put out some Cruise pastry, which while not as delicious as expected, lands somewhere close in the ballpark.