Film Reviews by RL

The obvious question is why didn't they choose Mary to portray herself ? She's the same age as Priyanka & can play herself more convincingly. She's also the prettiest boxer I've ever seen & was already in physical shape for the role. She can speak Hindi, albeit not perfectly. Why then did they pick a Yankee glamour girl star & make her look dowdy ? Perhaps they don't like to acknowledge the success for India of someone from a border state, who looks Burmese.

Despite this, Priyanka shows Mary's conviction & aggression surprisingly well, considering her pampered life as former Miss World. In Rocky style, it's gritty true life story is inspiring girls all over India to learn self defence & stay healthy. The real Mary is actively promoting this with her female boxing academy & press appearances. She's also very skilled in grappling & kicking, as well as her local Manipur martial with swords. After watching this great movie, you may find the real Mary more interesting. Whether or not you agree with feminism, you will probably agree that an overhaul of the gender inequality is needed in India.

In fact, there's no reason why women's combat sports can't be as popular as men's. You as the paying audience can dictate.

I agree with GW, but endured it to the end. Woody's character has a relationship with a beautiful intelligent woman, but is totally self obsessed, anti-social & miserable. More than likely a screenplay of his own persona. His constant arty-farty over-intellectual jabbering is irritating & pretentious; why doesn't he just say what he means ? It's not that funny, except a couple of wise quotes at the start taken from Groucho Marx.

Once a top movie, a quarter century on, this is now very dated, as Bollywood has come a long way (good & bad) in it's recent years of westernization. It's a shame, as western movies from that time are still brilliant today. As per usual, the simple plot is blown out of proportion with complexity & loads of songs that sound pretty tame today. Again, western music of that Era is still brilliant. A young lean athletic Salman Khan who could actually act plays the romantic role well, before he beefed up on steroids & personality suppressants.

Only watched 15 mins before suicidal boredom, so can't really say much more. Just cheesy goofing that's not even funny.

Scenario: man suggests a swingers' network to his wife to spice up their love life. No prizes for guessing her feminine reaction. Apparently it's 'parallel cinema', which is not mainstream & is to convey emotion with no particular plot; in this case irrational emotional outbursts. From a mature male perspective, I just can't stand, but I acknowledge that it's a girlie thing. It's a wishy-washy soap opera. They tried to make it comical with incidental jazz music, to no effect. I found the main attraction was Konkona's 'slightly imperfect' face with perfect hair. Her features & complexion are typically Indian, which might explain why she didn't go into mainstream Bollywood, where the girls are all fair & anorexic, with Arabian features from the Mogul rule.

The lumbering cyborg doubled as director & main actor to make this one of his better movies. But it's still not good. At least he shows some social & musical skills as an excellent rock band drummer, putting his real life drum skills to good use. The 'bad guys' don't want money & they have a valid moral for which they should have been the heroes, but Hollywood wouldn't allow that of course. Their leader is a perfectly menacing hard man actor, who deserved an Oscar. Dolph's drummer character bursts into action to justify good old American pop culture behind the iron curtain. With his very high IQ, Dolph could have made many movies with positive morals. Sad really.

Forget the nighclub dancing girls & the posing in speed boats. This is about the real mother India of today. A band of villagers take a stand against the corporate land grab of their homes for the filthy lucrative minerals beneath. They want their traditional organic lives instead of 'progress'. It pits 2 best friends against eachother, each convinced that he is right. The action & effects are superb. The pace is consistent, with plenty of action & great acting interplay between a few main characters. The cast is large enough to illustrate the scale of the conflict.

The acting is so terrible, including Lee Van-Cleef's camp nostril flaring cheesiness. Even an experienced middle aged Lewis Collins could not save it with his loutish charm. They did well on a budget to show the effect of say a burning truck, without going to the expense of burning it & not using toy models. The general ambiance is of a home made Blue Peter production.

Nice scenery in SE Asia though.

An under-aired gem from Yul Brynner, this is a refreshing re-take on the Magnificent 7 theme. Set in colonial India of the 1920's, it's more truthful than just about any Bollywood movie. Having come from Russian gypsy stock, Yul plays the Indian tribal leader well. His romantic interest is clearly a caucasian actress, along with a few of the tribesmen with brown boot polish, but that's not a major detraction.

The British want dominance, Yul wants his tribe's freedom & a British police chief is caught in between, with admiration for the people he is 'against'. There's enough action, but he's not the invincible gunslinger this time. It's realistic, with great emotional play between characters, often without words. Having spent much time in a former colonial Indian hill station, I found it both accurate & moving.

This movie shows a quarter century of Dolph's 'acting' experience. You'd think he'd feel the role, especially having done national service. You'd expect a rainbow of body & facial expression with a dulcet melodic voice & snappy humour. Sadly he's the same teutonic machine in every film, every decade, except he no longer looks good. For a karate champ, his fighting is straight & rigid.

What does he prove ? The colder the country, the colder the people ? Does the media feed us films like this to instill the notion that we must be soul-less machines, to serve the corporate good ? Come on Mr. Lundgren, either present a cheerful, positive role model to young men, or retire.

This movie shows 2 decades of Dolph's 'acting' experience. Another boring blood & guts flick by the aging teutonic moron. No humour, no expression, just a robot on steroids. He has not one film under his belt in which he showed any emotion. The former karate champ's fight scenes are just monotonously rigid.

Come on Mr. Lundgren, either present a cheerful, positive role model to young men, or retire.

Well this film is a blatant message that Hollywood now owns Bollywood. Set in the glitzy glam that doesn't exist in rural North Cyprus, it's a posing parade of cool guys & eye-candy girls. Void of humour, everyone has a hate agenda to deceive everyone in the pursuit of big money. There's no saris, no Ganesh statues, no spiritual values, nor anything even vaguely Indian. They really should have just filmed it in English language & sold it to a wider audience. Saif Ali Khan shone vibrantly in comedies a decade ago, but nowadays acts like a supermarket self checkout terminal. Would appeal to teenagers who hate their parents & spend their lives on game consoles. The only plus point is that the dvd up-scales stunningly crisp, like blu-ray.

This 19th century cult book by sci-fi visionary Joules Verne was superbly rendered here by movie visionary Walt Disney. The Nautilus submarine's interior is lavishly rendered in 19th century style. Splendid 1950's colour fiming. Kirk Douglas lends his charisma to the Popeye type sailor. James Mason was well chosen as Captain Nemo, a man whose compassion for the earth is expressed by ruthless means. The good vs. evil notion is left to your judgement...

1977 was a great year for sci-fi, with Star wars & Close encounters of the 3rd kind. Don't expect this to follow suit. It's poor acting & school play special effects will leave you unaroused. I watched the 1959 version, which is vastly superior. I haven't seen the 2008 TV & movie versions, so no comment.

It's always amusing to see Saif Ali Khan acting immature, although his wrinkles don't suit it anymore. That's the film's appeal: it is funny. Other than that it's rather glossy & Americanized for the Indian taste, with the constant appearance of an irritating girl who tries to speak Hindi in a Boston sounding accent.