Bad Boys II (2003)

Genre: Action/Crime/Comedy

Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jordi Molla, Gabrielle Union

Not in sequence with the previous movie, Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) are cops belonging to the Tactical Narcotics Team of the Miami Police Department. Drug lord Johnny Tapia (Molla) is transporting drugs from Cuba in dead bodies and coffins and the cop duo have to bust his racket. Only this time, Marcus' sister Syd (Union) turns out to be an undercover cop working for the DEA who is also on the tail of Johnny Tapia. The movie is filled with the same black humour, and seems to carry forward the same style and rhythm that prevailed in the earlier movie in spite of having an 8 year gap between them. There is more adrenaline rushing action this time, which seems to play a more important role, rather than having a sensible story line. Considering the amount of cars they've trashed, buildings blasted and people killed, they look more apt for the SWAT team rather than an anti-narcotic team. A definite improvement over the earlier movie, but still way past the mark.

Rating: 7.0/10

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Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien.... (1991)

Genre: Thriller/Comedy/Spoof

Starring(voice): James Riffel

Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D. That, is the entire screen name of the movie, and it also holds the record for the longest movie name ever. The sole reason to watch this movie is this factor only. The movie is a spoof of George Romero's 1968 classic horror Night of the Living Dead. The sound and dialogues have been removed and replaced with James Riffel's own voices. All characters in the movie have been voiced by him, including the police dogs. Quite obviously, the dialogues are stupid and nonsensical and don't add to the movie in any way. A group of people get trapped inside a house one night, when hordes of zombies are freely marching on land, threatening to eat up everyone. The movie is constantly interrupted by 'Profiles in History' which are short clips on pointless trivia about a historical person. Another interruption is some person holding a card apologising to George Romero for insulting his masterpiece. All criticisms aside, simply wiping out all dialgoues and replacing them with something insanely stupid, is a very tough job by itself. The movie is definitely not worth even a single watch, but if the title length still nags you to watch it, then please go ahead and don't say nobody warned you.

Rating: 4.8/10

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Bad Boys (1995)

Genre: Action/Crime/Comedy

Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Tea Leoni

Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) are police officers working in the narcotics division of the Miami Police Department. A load of confiscated heroin from the police quarters get stolen and Mike and Marcus are assigned the case to bring it back. Julie (Leoni) is a police witness who sees the thieves that stole the dope, murder her best friend. To save her life, she is put into protective custody with Marcus. A case of switched identity is the highlight of the entire movie and adds to the comical factor. The focus is little on crime and more about the stupid antics of the cop duo. There really isn't too much in the movie to watch out for. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence make a good pair, and their stupid black humour is probably the only to thing to watch in the movie. Tea Leoni though, looks gorgeous, and considering the fact that the movie is over fifteen years old, its not a big surprise.

Rating: 6.6/10

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Igor (2008)

Genre: Animation/Comedy/Fantasy/Science-fiction

Starring (voice): John Cusack, Jay Leno, John Cleese, Eddie Izzard

In the peaceful and prosperous town of Malaria, everything is well until a dramatic climate change alters citizens' life for over. King Malbert (Leno) announces an annual competition, where scientists can make evil inventions of mass destruction and the most destructive of all will be pronounced the winner. This was to be one of his ways of improving the economy. Any person who has some kind of deformity, is made to become an Igor. They are to be slaves and perceived as someone stupid and lacking intelligence. A certain Igor (Cusack) serving Dr. Glickenstein (Cleese) is quite smart, and when an experiment kills his master, he takes over his masters dream of making the most destructive monster. Being an animation movie, it is supposed to appeal to young kids. However, even my nine-year-old brother gave up just half way through. The movie doesn't incorporate any comical elements and becomes plain boring. Animation and special effects are up to the mark, but don't really help in making the movie any more appealing. Igor's sidekicks, Scamper, the immortal bunny and Brain, are the only characters that actually try to make you laugh.

Rating: 5.5/10

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Valkyrie (2008)

Genre: War/Crime/Drama

Starring: Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson

Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany aka The Third Reich, bringer of the second world war. He strived hard to give Germany something it had never had before. Nobody doubted his love for his country, what they doubted were the means he was using to achieve his vision. Valkyrie narrates the failed attempt at Hitlers life. Apart from just re-telling the assassination, it brings out the point that even within high-ranking officials within the Nazi Party, many would rather see him dead, not to bring power in their own hands, rather to rid Germany of Hitler altogether. Colonel Stauffenberg (Cruise) is said to have headed the 15th known attempted at Hitler's life along with General Olbricht (Nighy) and a host of other top-ranking Nazi generals and officers. The only focus throughout the movie is on the assassination, and there are no unwanted side-stories to fill in time. The only flaw in this movie that one can remove is the multi-national star cast, whose fluent English in strong American and British accents, do not give a 'German' feel to the movie. More use of the German language with a German star cast, playing lead roles would probably have helped the movie a lot.

Rating: 8.1/10

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Gulaal (2009)

Genre: Crime/Drama

Starring: Kay Kay Menon, Ayesha Mohan, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Aditya Srivastava, Jesse Randhawa

Dirty politics. Dirty, stinking politics. Dirty, stinking, rotten politics. Dileep (Chaudhary) an innocent young man, comes to Jodhpur to further his education. He gets ragged by Jadwal and his goons along with his lecturer Anuja (Randhawa). Dileep's roommate Ransa (Singh) makes him retaliate against them but of no avail. Dukey Bana (Menon) a powerful local figure and revolutionist, wants a free Rajputana and wants to go against the very idea of democracy. Dukey Bana intervenes the battle and offers Ransa to stand for the college General Secretary's post. Against Ransa, Kiran (Mohan) fights for the same seat. With Ransa appearing as the apparent winner, Karan (Srivastava) Kiran's brother and Ransa's illegitimate brother kills Ransa. Dileep is made to replace Ransa and becomes General Secretary. Dileep is still new to the idea of politics, and gets mislead along the way, causing him to take some unpopular decisions and tie alliances with people whom Dukey Bana doesn't approve of. The movie has an interesting soundtrack and the lyrics if closely listened to, offer a lot meaning and maybe even a laugh or two. The characters in the movie did justice to their roles which seems to come from within. The lack of any big star presence in the movie did not become its weak point. The movie rightfully portrays each and every persons own hunger and greed for money and power. Anurag Kashyap also does away with gory and bloody scenes, that his earlier movie Black Friday was criticised of. Perhaps if it wasn't for a few over-dramatised scenes, the movie would've been a more pleasant watch.

Rating: 7.7/10

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His Girl Friday (1940)

Genre: Drama/Comedy

Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

The movie portrays the environment prevailing in the journalism and newspaper industry during World War II. Newspaper editors would go to any length to create news and to keep it from falling in the hands of rivals. Walter Burns (Grant) is the editor of The Morning Post. Hildy (Russell) is an ex-journalist at The Morning Post and Walters ex-wife. One day when Hildy pays a visit to Walter to announce her wedding to Bruce (Bellamy) Walter smooth-talks Hildy to come back and interview a convict about to be hanged as one last task for the paper before she resigns for good. Hildy on the other, knows every trick in the book and knows exactly what is going on behind Walters mind. The convict however, manages to escape after the interview and causes a whole lot of confusion for the police, the mayor and the journalists. Cary Grant does a brilliant piece of acting, typical of a classic American actor. He is probably the only reason the movie dosen't feel like one big drag. The movie did create box office ripples when it was released, but unlike other classics, doesn't appeal to audiences of today. The movie has a lot of dialogues over lapping each other, characters talking fast-paced and before the other person finishes, giving a very life-like feel and journalist feel. Although the movie is classified as a comedy, it hardly makes you smile and the jokes would not actually make sense to people of today, as they are direct insults of the events happening during the war.

Rating: 5.0/10

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