10,000 BC

Genre: Action/ Adventure | Year: 2008 | Duration: 109 mins | Director: Roland Emmerich | Medium: VCD (BIG Home Video) | Trailer: HERE | Language: English | My rating: 2.5*/5*

Favorite Dialogue: ” D’Leh (Steven Strait) [in the pit, to Saber-tooth]: Do not eat me when I save your life!”

Roland Emmerich takes the sciences of evolutionary biology and anthropology and turns them into fiction. This film was actually so historically inaccurate that not even the giant ostrich attack & sabre-tooth scene made up for it. As the film progressed with the voice-over of the narrator (the legendary Omar Sharif) telling that this is a “story of blue eyes” and all the trappings that come along with magical realism, it became clearly obvious that 10,000 BC is a bad ripoff of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. It seemed as if Emmerich had lost all sense of time in 10,000 BC, as the film showed Egyptian pyramids being built using woolly mammoths, ships, horseback riding, and Steel. It’s ice age in 10,000 BC, and then the hero D’Leh (Steven Strait) walks over a hill and suddenly he’s in the Nile Valley of 2,000 BC! Was Emmerich trying to put in a further taste of science fiction through time travel?

After an attack on their village Yagahl, by ‘four-legged demons’ (horse-riding slave raiders), D’Leh and his mentor, Tic’Tic (Cliff Curtis), brave the snow-capped mountains, forests with dinosaur-like ostriches, wide savannah and parched desert in search of those who were abducted along with D’Leh’s beloved Evolet (Camilla Belle). In between this journey, D’Leh has to learn to fulfill his destiny as a leader to save his people. 

This awfully directed and archaeologically inaccurate drama can be avoided.

Rowdy Rathore

Theatrical Release Poster

Genre: Action | Year: 2012 | Duration: 140 mins | Director: Prabhu Deva | Medium: Theater (PVR-EDM) in 2012, repeat on DVD in 2020. | Trailer: HERE | Language: Hindi | My rating: 3/5

Favorite Dialogue: “Rowdy Rathore: Don’t angry me.”

Rowdy Rathore, a remake of the Telugu film Vikramarkudu, was supposed to be a come back film for Akshay Kumar as an action heroEven though there’s several good sequences of action throughout those 140 minutes, it somehow lacked the punch of Khiladi Kumar, especially with no story or plot whatsoever, the characters are easily forgettable. Prabhu Deva has used all the tricks that goes in making a successful Telugu hit in this Hindi remake – song, dance, crass humour, romance, thunderous action and a fearless supercop out to outsmart a bunch of fearsome goons. Comic scenes are not so comic, and what really made me laugh was the dialogues in Bihari Hindi of the villains and the way it was delivered UP-style with southy twang. After a very long time, I got to hear words like, ‘Pagalet’, ‘Baklol’, ‘labarchantis‘, etc. Prabhu Deva made Akshay Kumar wear multi-colored pants forgetting Akshay’s style and using Telugu tricks, reminded me of Raja babu of 90s.

The story is of a small time crook Shiva (Akshay Kumar), who is obliged to get in shoes of his look alike, Vikram Rathore, a fearless cop who dies with severe head injuries during a fight, to rescue a fictitious village Devgarh in Bihar, from its despotic feudal lord.  Shiva falls for a girl from Patna, Priya, played by the buxom Sonakshi Sinha, whom Shiva refers as ‘Mera Maal’ repeatedly, and who could have done better than just showing her midriff!

This low-IQ, deafeningly loud, unapologetically crass, regressive drama full of mindless action is my re-watch Movie of 2020.

Alexander

alexGenre: Action | Year: 2004 | Duration: 175 mins | Director: Oliver Stone | Medium: DVD (EAGLE Entertainment) | Trailer: HERE | My rating: 2.5*/5*

Favorite Dialogue: Alexander: “Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.”

The screenplay of this epic movie based on the life and times of ‘Alexander The Great’ king of Macedon, who conquered Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and part of Ancient India, is based on the book by the same name written by historian Robert Fox. The story of Alexander (Colin Farrell) is narrated by Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins) throughout the movie while he’s getting his autobiography scribed 40 years after 323 BC from Egypt. The story moves from his childhood and his closeness to his mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) and teachings of Aristotle to his youth and his love for his childhood friend Hephaestion (Jared Leto), who was charecterised more like a cock tease homosexual than his heroics throughout, to his conquests across Asia Minor defeating Darius, and later marrying a tribal girl, Roxana. Towards the end he gets poisoned by his own generals fed up by his eccentricities and lust for war.

However the movie failed to capture the greatness of Alexander, and nearly succeeded in making a mockery of it all. Unfortunately, this awfully directed cinematic disaster is my Movie of the day.

The Marine

marGenre: Action| Year: 2006 | Duration: 92 mins | Director: John Bonito | Medium: VCD (EROS Home Video) | Trailer: HERE | My rating: 3*/5*

Favorite Dialogue: Rome: Would somebody *please* shoot this guy?

WWE wrestler John Cena plays John Triton, an U.S. Marine who returns home honorably discharged after violating his commander’s order in a rescue mission in Iraq, only to have his wife, Kate (Kelly Carlson) kidnapped by a ruthless criminal, Rome (Robert Patrick). The rest of the movie is all about the chase through country roads and swamps on burning cars and running across, spewing and dodging bullets, hijacking monster truck and police boat, gasoline fires, ending up in a semper fi  style death to Rome and rescue of Kate under water.

This action packed mindless fun thriller is my Movie of the Day.

Silverado

silverGenre: Western| Year: 1985 | Duration: 133 mins | Director: Lawrence Kasdan| Medium: VCD (BIG Home Video) | Trailer: HERE | My rating: 3.5*/5

Fav Dialogue: “Cobb: We’re gonna give you a fair trial, followed by a first class hanging.”

Silverado is a western to its core with with wilderness, cool gun fights, lonely good guys and bad guys on a killing spree. Kasdan has approached a 50′s & 60′s story from a present-day standpoint, which is quite refreshing. The film is about four cowboys, Emmett (Scott Glenn) an ex-con, who while travelling to Silverado meets Paden (Kevin Cline) lying in the desert after being robbed and left to die. They travel to Turley and rescue Emmett’s brother Jake (Kevin Costner) who is waiting death by hanging in the jail for killing a man in self-defense, with some help of Mal (Danny Glover) a black cowboy suffering racism from the sheriff Langston (John Cleese). The story bends and take new turns on freeing Silverado from the hands of corrupt officials and local businessman, and re-building its future by these four lonesome cowboys.

This humorous yet somber cowboy film is my ‘Movie of the Day’.