Munich

A

After the bombastic bavura about nothingness of War of the Worlds and the sweet nothings of The Terminal, Steven Spielberg again shows his rarely displayed darker side with Munich. And what a dark side it is. This is a movie that is uncompromising in its portrayal of situations and human emotions. Not since Saving Private Ryan has Spielberg made a movie this heart-wrenching and true.

Munich, 1972, a group of Palestinian terrorists have taken 11 Israeli athletes hostages in the Olympics compound. All 11 were massacred. In response, Israel sends a secret squad to track down and kill 11 Palestinians in Europe suspected to have planned the Munich attacks. The team leader, Avner (Eric Bana), is a former bodyguard to the prime minister, chosen not because he's experienced, but because he's a "nobody". Avner soon realizes that the soul pays the wages of killing.

For more than 21/2 hours, we are enraptured in the movie.There were times that the sorrow seem to seep out of the screen to the audience, and a tremendeus strain ensued, but even so they are hardly noticed or heeded. With the first half of the movie crafted as a thriller - how Avner's team go about eliminating their targets - that is both riveting and thought provoking. The second half deals with the unravelling of the team as the strain of killings tortures the humanity out of its members.

Like all the great Spielberg movie, Munich is as wholesome as it gets. It is a little long, but whatever it had to do, it did. Performances are equally well throughout, with Eric Bana displaying the most complex performance in portraying a man torn between duty and his moral judgements - and finally losing the battle. This is a political thriller, human drama and a message about the world we are living in.
~

Home Alone

B

The instant success of the first 2 Home Alone movies created a genre that was temporarily successful in the early 90s. Temporary because as the decade came to a close, Home Alone 4 was made direct to video. The success of Home Alone 1 and Home Alone 2 are not really surprising, since they are both watchable fares. This review is written for a genre that's come to a close and for the childhood memories.

Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is an 8-year-old boy. He's small. He gets bullied by his big brother. He wants attention. But 2 days before Christmas, when his family and extended relatives come over for a group (to say the least) trip to France, he's not getting as much attention as he deserves. He wishes that he has his own home, all for himself. The next morning, he wakes up with the house empty. His family had left without him, leaving him home alone. He starts to enjoy his new-found liberty with glee. However, 2 small time burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) are on the loose this Christmas. It's up to Kevin to defend his newly acquired fortress.

Home Alone is divided into 2 parts. Initially, we see how Kevin adapts and finally learns to have fun by himself. It strikes a chord in all of us to see how young Kevin comes to enjoy and finally regrets his zeal for freedom. Having seen so many crooks get their crotch shot at, kicked on, or (the funniest one so far, in Baby's Day Out) catching fire, I get tired of watching Harry and Marv getting their asses kicked by somethings attached to strings that are attached to doors (if you (still) like these things, the 2nd half offers plenty of that), I enjoy the first half of Home Alone infinitely better than the 2nd. Besides, it shows why a child actor like Macaulay Culkin doesn't come very often. This is the first time I realize why he was as popular as he was.

Culkin was perfect for Kevin. People have been saying how Tom Hanks achieved the nearly impossible in Cast Away, on screen for 45 minutes by himself. Culkin was only 9 years old, and though he didn't exactly share an uninterrupted screen time with a volley ball, he still deserves credit. Culkin is (was) both cute and luminous as Kevin. He is responsible for half the laughs in Home Alone. The other half would undoubtedly belong to the tragic crooks Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. You can only watch a couple of guys get bonked in the head and groin a few times - but not Harry and Marv. You can see them doing that all day.

My earliest memory of watching a movie has got to be either Home Alone 2 or Alladin. I recall the latter because that's the first movie that I asked my dad to watch; the former because I laughed so damn hard. I guess in terms of originality, Home Alone beats Home Alone 2 by a mile - since the 2nd is basically the same movie set in New York. But more than that, Home Alone gives a more heartwarming and honest meaning to Christmas and more significantly, that longing to be independent, followed by regret for losing what you had. That's what, I think, lets Home Alone stand out.
~

Match Point

A

Watching Match Point isn't about watching a movie. It's an experience. I can't emphasize that enough. There were times when I had to turn away from the screen to let my fatiguing brain catch a breather. I don't like slasher flicks for the same reasons, though Match Point didn't have a guy in a mask wielding sharp objects in the dark. Instead, it's ordinary people wielding life in a film sharp with a brutal honesty.

Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is an ex-pro tennis player who has just picked up a coaching job in a tennis club. There he meets Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode), a friendly young man who soon builds rapport and invited Chris to the opera. Tom's sister, Chloe, takes an instant liking for Chris and soon they are in a relationship. Unknown to anyone, Chris is secretly obsessed with Nola Rice, Tom's fiance, and continues to harbor his feelings all through even as he marries Chloe. All went well until Nola breaks up with Tom, and Chris' passion can no longer be contained.

Another movie that can be compared with Match Point is 2004's Closer. Both films deal with infidelities and their strains. However, while Closer was about how people destroyed one another, in Match Point we see them desperately trying to do the right things, but at times their efforts come in vain. These are all good people, all of them protagonists in any other romantic films. But bring them together under an uncompromising Woody Allen, and what ensues is nothing less than gut-wrenching.

Nothing in this movie is less than first rate. The plot, with its twists and turns, is both intriguing and true. The direction is sure-handed. It's been such a long time since I went into the cinema and totally forget that I'm watching a movie. The performances are remarkable. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, appearing in every scene, captures the affable Chris as well as his dark brooding side. It is imperative for him to portray the mental degradation that Chris endured for us to fully grasp the extent of his desperation. Scarlett Johansson plays a character similar to Natalie Portman's in Closer. Though the latter's role was more challenging, Johansson still delivered more than adequately, giving Nola the right amount of vulnerability and toughness. Brian Cox, Penelope Wilton and Emily Mortimer make up the Hewitts as a family that's genuinely warm. I feel the greatest strain seeing Chris in the same room as the Hewitts. It's like watching lovable puppies tied to dynamite.

Nothing that I write here will make much sense. Match Point is something that must be seen to be believed. It's not for everyone though. To some extent, Closer is forgetable because it seemed so distant. Match Point is about the people who we've come to know in all the romantic comedies, who somehow just can't find happily-ever-after.
~

A Civil Action

B

For as long as I know, legal thrillers aren't the hallmark of originality. It's always David vs Goliath with the underdog protagonist ending up finding his soul. While there are always times when a little spice is thrown in a good measure (A Time to Kill added elements of racism), this ubiquitous still applies all the time. I don't know if a movie that uses another formula might be provide a better story (why shouldn't it?), but that movie is still to come.

A Civil Action is an uneven amalgram of lighthearted storytelling, underdog lawyer story and personal odyssey. John Travolta is Jan Schlihtmann, a flamboyant personal injury lawyer, aka ambulance chaser, who is making his way to the top. He has money, career and fame. What he doesn't have is a healthy conscience. When a water-poisoning case is thrown his way, he only became interested when he realized big-money is involved. Eight children have died of leukimia in a small town in New England, possibly because of a corporate illegal dumping of toxic waste. What started as a straightforward, grab-the-money-and-run case turned to be a personal battle between Jan (and his conscience) against the corporate evil personified in its big-wig aging lawyer Jerome Facher (Rober Duvall).

As I said, A Civil Action is both a legal drama and a finding-his-soul story. However, unlike in The Verdict, where both elements go hand-in-hand, here it goes one after the other. The first half of the movie was filled with witness depositions and opening statements, with John Travolta providing the narration of ambulance-chasers Dos and Don'ts; and the much more interesting second was more low-key. The tone of the movie, while evenly light, doesn't complement either side of the narratives and hence the product becomes neither here nor there. Director Steve Zaillian, writer of Schindler's List, uses alot of quick-cuts between scenes, like Robert Duvall talking to a class of Harvard students interlocked with a courtroom scene. Unfortunately they are unnecessary, and only serve to distract the viewer from the drama.

Inspite of this, A Civil Action does have its share of outstanding qualities. Zaillian's storytelling while at times unefficient is still able to keep the audience interested, which, considering how predictable some parts of the movie are, is quite an achievement.

John Travolta is a quintessential choice for Jan. It is imperrative that our protagonist can be a conceited egoist and likeably charming at the same time. Robert Duvall plays a part we see all the time in legal drama, the mousy old lawyer that always packs a punch. William H Macy and Tony Shalloub play partners in Jan's firm with significant dillema of the company's dwindling money. Kathleen Quinlan supports as the mother of a deceased leukimic child. John Lithgow and Sidney Pollack round up the ensemble.

With so many big names, it's hard to not be fascinated by or at least interested in the movie. Cinematographer Conrad Hall paints the canvas with such details that there's always things to see - its a hold-no-bars kind of photography. It's a double-edged-sword since some scenes require subtlety. But maybe that's not what A Civil Action is about. It's a little too many things to be anything serious, but as a 2-hour entertainment goes, it's adequate.
~