Firewall Compromised

Film: Firewall
Cast: Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen
Director: Richard Loncraine

If you are 63, but still have enough charisma to pull audiences to the cinemas and your name is not Arnold Schwarzenegger, then your fans are not going to expect you to beat up guys a third of your age. Why doesn’t Harrison Ford think so?

For three-quarters of the length of Firewall you are happy to be there. It is an intelligent thriller. (Okay, as intelligent as Matrix was philosophical.) But still it doesn’t tire you, even though it expects you to believe that elaborate bank security systems can be fooled with the hard drive of an I-pod and a few pieces of your neighbourhood fax machine. Then Ford gets physical and you want your money back.

Jack Stanfield (Ford) is a digital security chief at a bank who finds his family held hostage by an unscrupulous “businessman” Paul Cox (Bettany). Cox wants Jack to use his hi-tech skills to rob his bank and transfer the money to overseas accounts. How can Jack with the help of his secretary Janet (Mary Lynn Rajskub) outwit the bad guys and at the same time ensure the safety of his family?

Harrison Ford is efficient as always. So, for most part Jack Stanfield is a very believable character. Paul Bettany is very good. Thank goodness he loses his cool a few times, otherwise people would have rooted for him in the end. So cool is he. The rest of the characters just make up the background.

Joe Forte’s screenplay is good enough to keep you riveted for most of the time. The music is peppy and the tempo is too fast to last. Director Richard Loncraine tries valiantly to give you a good time until studio demands hamper him. Why can’t they let smart films remain smart?

My advice: The moment Jack gets the upper hand get out of the theatre. You would have gotten enough value for your money, especially if you haven’t seen the trailer before.

Until Death Does Them All Apart, Again

Film: Final Destination 3
Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman
Director: James Wong

All of us have cheated at some point or other of our lives. It is just the severity that varies. But how about the ultimate cheat? No, I’m not talking about putting one over Bill Gates. How about cheating death? This rather unique (or hilarious, depending on your point of view) scenario was the saddle on which Final Destination and its sequel piggybacked to cult success. And since horror is the in thing nowadays, FD 3 has landed.

One of the reasons for the success of the FD movies was that they refused to take them too seriously. Blood is there, as is gore, and a few jumps, but overriding all this is a sly sense of humour, black humour if you will. Bodies keep pilling up but it is the ways in which the victims die that catch our eyes. It is almost as if the writers are thinking in terms of ‘How much more outrageous can I make the killings’ rather than ‘How much scarier can I make them’. And they get away with it.

Our heroine Wendy (Winstead) and her friend Kevin (Merriman) follow a set of clues in the shape of photographs at an amusement park to find out where Mr Death was going to strike next. Of course, just when they reach there the victim is gruesomely taken away. So, do they finally cheat death?

Since the actors are all relatively unknown, we are not distracted from the main narrative. Both Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ryan Merriman are easy on the eye and not terrible actors. What more do you need? James Wong, the director of FD 1 returns and with Glen Morgan has written the screenplay. They have not let the fans down. The special effects are pretty good, considering this is not a big budget spectacular. Snappy editing will keep you on your toes.

If you are the kind who enjoyed FD 1 and FD 2 then FD 3 is unlikely to disappoint. Others, take it with a large pinch of salt and a few jumps. FD 3 does not take your intellect too seriously. Then there is no reason why you should take the film so. Now that mutual lack of respect is understood, who knows, you might even find it funny.

Fast, Furious, Forgettable

Film: The Fast and The Furious- Tokyo Drift
Cast: Lucas Black, Nathalie Kellie
Director: Justin Lin

Like most things American the craze for cars, too, has permeated the globe. The difference being few other countries can afford such a fascination. So they make do with second hand experiences like watching the Fast and the Furious movies.

Few gave it a chance when the original Fast and the Furious came out with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. But apparently it and the sequel made enough money to warrant a third in the franchise.

Sean Boswell (Black) is still in school but has a serious driving problem. After demolishing a construction site, he gets an ultimatum: Leave the country or go to jail. He lands up in Tokyo to set up shack with his estranged father. Within a day at his new school he gets the eye of the pretty Neela (Kellie), the buddyhood of Twinkie (Bow Wow), the ire of DK (Brian Tee), and the trust of Han (Sung Kang). Let the madness begin.

Lucas Black has a nice smile. Period. Nathalie Kellie looks more Indian than Preity Zinta. The only Indian connection she may have is with the Peruvian Indians. No one in the movie has bothered going to acting classes, just like their predecessors. Japanese legend Sonny Chiba (last seen in Kill Bill) deigned to show his presence here. We will never know why.

The only thing fresh in Tokyo Drift is the location. Keeping with the global audience getting out of the States was a smart move. Otherwise, scantily clad girls, the flashy cars, the mad races and the awful crashes are still there. If you like all these, you might enjoy the movie. I don’t, so I didn’t.

A Stone Not Worth Romancing

Film: The Family Stone
Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Claire Danes, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Thomas Bezucha

Isn’t it strange that all three English movies released this weekend haven something to do with ‘stone’? This one is Family Stone, Basic Instinct 2 has Sharon Stone and Zathura means Stone in Swahili. (Just kidding!) And at least the first two have all the feelings we associate with a stone: cold, impersonal, uninteresting. Is this the season for boredom or what?

The Family Stone follows the fortunes of a family, rather predictably, over a three-day period culminating in Christmas Day. Everett (Mulroney), the eldest of the Stone children is bringing his girlfriend Meredith (Parker) to meet his folks. The cultured Meredith does not go well with the happy-go-lucky family. Kelly (Craig T Nelson) tries to be a bit civil, but he is overpowered by his wife, Sybil (Keaton), and daughter, Amy (Rachel), who want to sink in their claws into Meredith from the word go. While elder sister Susan (Elizabeth Reaser) and deaf and gay younger brother Thad (Tyrone Giordano), tolerate her, it is left to Ben (Wilson) to make her feel a little less out of place.

The beleaguered Meredith calls for reinforcements in the form of her sister Julie (Danes). Add in Brad (Paul Schneider) who had a cherry business with Amy a long time ago, and you have a Christmas which is spelt the same way disaster is.
The basic problem with Family Stone is it straddles genres. Any movie which does that has to be extremely good to succeed. Family Stone is not. Beginning as a nice family drama, it suddenly decides to change tracks to become a screwball comedy. In between it has doses of abstract dialogue that will go above the heads of its designated audience. Director Thomas Bezucha’s script tries to be funny, sad, poignant and half a dozen other things and ends up being nothing.

It is unfortunate that a film such as this should have such a well-known cast. Sarah Jessica Parker does not have to try too hard to be the annoying Meredith. Neither does Claire Danes, but she hardly has any screen time. Dermot Mulroney and Luke Wilson act cute and that’s about it. Veterans Diane Keaton and Craig T Nelson are efficient as always. The very-much-in-the-news Rachel McAdams has the best role and she is a delight.

Family Stone would have been a decent feel-good Christmas film if it wanted to. Or it could have been an all-out screwball romp. Too bad it tries to be everything. This is stale fare. As cold and uninteresting as a stone.