Review: Vijay Krishna Acharya's "Dhoom : 3" is the reason why you should spend Christmas sleeping.

Once in a while, we really ought to let the oldies enjoy the privilege of a vacation. Like how Shah Rukh Khan takes a vacation with piffle like Chennai Express or Salman Khan - whoops, if that notion is to be believed, Salman has practically been taking a vacation for the past six years. Anyway, Aamir Khan decided one day to join the bandwagon and that he wants to be a part of the Dhoom franchise, a newscast which made me cough in my coffee. But I'll cut him some slack. I mean, look at the guy! He's been working on good projects, both as producer and actor, for a decade now. He ought to have some fun.  Ah, but not the Yash Raj kind of fun. No, not that, please. Because the production house once sold us dreck like Neal 'n' Nikki as amusement, and my ears still hurt from the blitz. But Khan was intent on doing a Dhoom movie, so I okayed his pep.

But I'm appalled that we were sold an atrocious lie as a publicity shtick. You might've been hearing all those rumors that Khan was sold to the script, which is why he took up this incredulous step. Whoa, whoa, let me digress for a jiffy - what script?  The franchise isn't popular for its script, but for its bikes, beauties and baddies on bikes who get the beauties. We know that, but the question is - do they? I think they do, because I was looking high and low for a plot of some kind so that I know I haven't blown up a couple of hundred bucks just to watch the three supporting non-actors trying hard to display their fictitious acting chops. But I was sorry to find out I was a sore loser to have done so.

About the movie, well, not all of it sticks. What do I expect from the guy who last made Tashan? I mean, taking that into account, I wasn't expecting a great movie. I just wanted a film that could indemnify the torment that Tashan was. To be fair, Dhoom : 3 is not as bad as Tashan. 

To be nasty, Dhoom : 3 is a masterwork in comparison. Acharya still hasn't done away his habit of thinking that his overtly cheesy lines will earn him wolf-whistles. And it's sad because the gloriously untalented Uday Chopra gets to say them, which makes me dislike him even more. Abhishek Bachchan doesn't exactly complete a dream-team with him, does he? 

We start off with a withering magician trying to pull off a class act that can save his circus from being gobbled up by a greedy bank because of an unpaid debt. And, in the blink of a eye, we're in downtown Chicago, breathtakingly shot by cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee. A bank has been robbed - yes, that's how we start a heist film in this country - and the thief whizzes past the dumbfounded police on a bike, which is an old cliche that the police are simply twits who can't pull themselves together. As we protrude the many lows and scant highs of Dhoom : 3, we find that there isn't much to like. Except, of course, Aamir Khan who manages to kind of salvage a shockingly amateurish movie.

You might've guessed from the trailer that there isn't anything more than Aamir Khan in this twaddle. The trailer was like,"There's Aamir! Look! Look, he can ride a bike! Look, he can twirl a hat! Look, he can mouth a dialogue!", and yeah, there isn't anything more to it. Saddens me to say that, really. Because I actually believed for a moment that there was a script he liked and Acharya wrote it. 

Coming back to the preposterous plot, I won't delve much into it. Because there isn't one to delve in in the first place. We have a seriously pissed-off protagonist, who wants to avenge his father's humiliation. By the time the chase sequences, which had the a few of the most abused slow-mo cuts I've ever seen, were done and dusted with, I was cringing in my seat trying to let the schmaltz waft over me. It was like being chained to the wall and made to listen to a sickly fairytale which you've already listened to a few hundred times. That's not a pretty picture, no. Nolanesque fans with ears as sharp as a dwarf's might've already picked up the big twist. I won't reveal it here, but if you don't know about it, like this woman who sat behind me in the theater who let out a loud gasp, you might feel differently after the sly revelation.

I don't know why they made this one, I really don't. I liked the first Dhoom, which was enjoyable and vexing but a damned good time. I loathed the second Dhoom : 2, loathed it with all my heart. Because, firstly I don't like Hrithik Roshan, I don't like Aishwarya Rai, I don't want to see them together and I still saw them together at the end of it. 

Aamir Khan makes Dhoom : 3 better than I thought it would be because, well, he is a terrific actor. There isn't a single lapse in his marvelously controlled performance. The other three are squandered though. What, you want to listen to how I felt about their performances? I'm stultified enough to even think about it now. 

I was never hog-wild about the franchise but don't you go wagging your crooked finger at me and accusing me of disliking this film because of that. Acharya is better off writing movies, I feel, if this is the kind of baloney he keeps coming up with. This one is a Christmas dampener.

Reminiscence: Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver" : The Choice Puts Me In A Pickle.

In 1973, a year after Francis Ford Coppola changed the game for gangster movies by making Brando place the head of Khartoum on Jack Woltz's kingsize bed, Scorsese was gearing up for his would-be breakthrough film. Mean Streets was certainly iconic in its perusal of street crime and its attempts to mould a gangster movie with words and not guns. Scorsese knew crime, you see; he was brought up in Little Italy, a place in New York City where, as he disclosed in the making of the film, a whole bar would tussle over nothing at all. Maybe if you said something in jest or you didn't get a drink on time, tempers flared up and every single guy in the bar would brawl until one capitulated. He fashioned these observations into Mean Streets, which starred a young Harvey Keitel and an even younger Robert De Niro.

Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets.

I watched Mean Streets a couple of years ago when I was sixteen or maybe seventeen. It remained incised in my mind ever since because I couldn't believe a modernistic movie like that was made in a time when family films were walking away with the Oscars. 'Course, Mean Streets was spurned at the Oscars because it was too small a movie, too low-budgeted. I mean, you won't want a layman winning an Oscar, would you? Well, as they found out in the next four decades, Scorsese wasn't just another filmmaker. Anyway, I loved the movie. The coarsish script was talky, layered with dense jargon and the execution was masterful. That was pretty unexpected since I was under the daffy impression that we were dealing with a supposed amateur here. Keitel nailed his role, kept the urgency at the apex with his terse exchanges with De Niro and walked away with a coolheaded performance. Skookum!

But De Niro was the revelation here. He was. Even in his salad days, he could put together a textured performance that showed sparks of promise of a future luminary. His was a more controlled performance, a character that he was seemingly familiar with and he played him accordingly. In his four decades as an actor, I'd probably single this one out as the most neglected. Second comes the one in Ronin.

So, I was watching Taxi Driver the other day on television, a rare instance when the channel operators choose a movie sagaciously and another one of my most cherished movies, I wondered why was Mean Streets the movie with the shit end of the stick. Yes, Taxi Driver was a landmark film for obvious reasons, maybe the most audacious of all movies, but it came four years after the ravishing Mean Streets which ushered in the heavily eye-browed master filmmaker in the first place. Taxi Driver was a gorgeous piece of cinema, I won't dispute that, but it couldn't match Mean Streets in terms of style. Mean Streets was a ballad, an ode to the movies that young Scorsese saw as a boy. The soundtrack, a stockpile of old American classics, complemented the images smoothly. And it did what it did with such finesse that you're captivated from the moment it begins. 

Conversely, Taxi Driver was more of a character study. A demented man falters in his romantic life and he avenges this humiliation on the world that he sees as merciless. He meets loonies like him who fuel the rage inside him. And, in the end, it all comes forth. He goes bananas all over New York City. Scorsese isn't new to characters who work like a ticking bomb about to go off. He strayed in those waters later with Raging Bull, Cape Fear and even Goodfellas up to a certain point. But Taxi Driver was his most fearless coup, a 'man against the world' story that gave an insight into the mind of a wacko. In those times, movies like that were hard to come by. No wonder legendary film critic Roger Ebert instantly affirmed it as one of the greatest he had ever seen. Hell, here I am, all of twenty, four decades later and it's one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver.

But when it comes to judging between the two, I'm iffy. Sure, go on, point your stubby little finger at Taxi Driver and chide me for not seeing the obvious choice. But when I think about it, and I mean really think about it, I ask myself - what would Scorsese have done if he had got a healthier budget on Mean Streets? What would that movie have been like? Hey, to all you twits who doubt it, remember - Scorsese made Goodfellas on a bigger budget so I wouldn't necessarily maul the idea. He can work both ways, you know. He made After Hours on a scant one and The Departed two decades later on a pricey one.

So, I'm trying to gauge what I want to say. It's a known fact that Scorsese has made a landmark movie in every decade he has worked in, like Jack Nicholson who is the other bigwig of the honor. But a lot of folks believe that Taxi Driver should walk away with the glory. I'm going for Mean Streets. I treasure those films that can whip up a ravishing experience on modest production and Mean Streets fits the bill perfectly. It gave us a gangster movie with minimal violence and a lot of smarts. A generation later, on a better production, crime movies don't match the panache of it.

Mean Streets is as close as you'll ever come to knowing a gangster in New York City and still be aware that it's just a movie. That's genius, you know.

Review: Thomas Vinterberg's "The Hunt" is the best movie of the year. Or the last five years.

The best movies out there twiddle with something you don't see coming and then, just when you buy that thought, they come right at you like the typhoon who wants to wreck your life apart. Thomas Vinterberg's too clever a man to make that so easy for you, you know. Because he's the shady guy behind the movie about shady guys, and which is perhaps the best movie I've seen in a long, long time. The best part of it is that I didn't even know that until it ended. The Danish-language drama The Hunt is in contention for the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film this year, and I don't know any other movie I've seen lately that's meriting of the prestige. Because for a little over two hours, Vinterberg made sure I wasn't likely to forget the stakes, and he made a movie like the agony a dog feels when he's stuck in the poky wheels of a kid's bike, a movie that howls and howls and yet feels so quiet, so smothered. 

To aid that beguiling brute of a movie is Mads Mikkelsen, whom you might remember as the suave antagonist who poisoned Bond and broke his balls (probably not in the way Joe Pesci and the wise guys meant it in Goodfellas) in Casino Royale. I never knew much about Mikkelsen's acting chops, because he's never really had a role he could bite into. He's been playing the urbane bad guy for the Western audiences for too long now and finally he's been fed a role that's intricate in its construction and a cinch in its portrayal. And Mikkelsen hands in a towering performance that the Academy will be too foolhardy to ignore, that that terrific script is worthy of. The best acting piece of the year? Yes, yes, yes. Don't buy it? Don't buy it. Screw yourself.

Believe you me, I'll be goddamned if you find me a better script in the recent spew of films that uses its characters so well. Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a divorced dweeb who's living a rather insipid life. He isn't getting much done except walk his best friend's daughter to school and back everyday. He's the kind of guy you empathize with in a jiffy. And Vinterberg touts that thought for the rest of the movie in a manner so nifty that's bound to provoke you, to terrify you and to unsettle you.

Lucas has a job at a local kindergarten. He capers with the kids for most of the day, initiates a romance with his co-worker. Hell, he even has his teenage son back in contact with him. So far, so good for ol' Lucas. Then comes the guillotine. 

One day, right out of the blue, he's accused of being a pedophile. There. No one wants to tell him why. He wants to ask questions but no one wants to answer them. He's looked upon as a rapacious soul, even by those who would've sworn that he was anything like that. Soon enough, the whole town's believing it. There begins his ordeal.

Don't you let the strikingly simple plot deceive you. It's all peekaboo until the second half of the movie kicks in and you begin to fathom how the movie's going to turn out. Spoiler! Spoiler! : You actually don't, haha! It's unpredictable, it's hellish and it needs to be watched, mulled over, analyzed. Why? Because it doesn't give you the luxury of choice. That's not negotiable, no, no. It's a supremely well-told tale of how a man's life is torn apart by an innocent lie and how that one lie becomes the truth when it travels from whisper to whisper, from mind to mind. Try looking away.

Vinterberg keeps it brief. He doesn't want to ask questions, he doesn't give you any answers. What he does instead is suck you hard into the life he builds for his protagonist and see things from his perspective. He wants you to observe, that's it. That's all he does. He doesn't hesitate to sporadically pull cuffs and take shots at morality and social injustice, at us as human beings. That's a pretty ballsy brouhaha, eh? The script he has jotted down with Tobias Lindholm is a piece of writing of rare craft. Intuitive, observant, unflinching and sympathetic, it doesn't shy away from being candid in the truest sense of the word, even if it means slipping on the sloppy marsh into the sharp pebbles to deliver the impact it envisages. It gives us an affable protagonist and an abhorrent little antagonist but you can't fault either of 'em for the babel. That's how I figured out how good it really is. You will, too.

If I don't see the thousands of Academy heads nodding in one unified, swift motion when the Best Actor nominations pool in, I'd say Mikkelsen was robbed. He's so good, in fact, that the rest of the cast ought to not exist at all. He'll do the work alone. But, yeah, it's a terrific ensemble that captures the wrath that unfolds with just their eyes doing most of the talking. Rare, rare.

The Hunt is a great movie, an intelligent film that has depth and honesty in handfuls. It's also intrepid and gritty but in a quiet way, capturing the emotional turmoil on celluloid like no other movie this year. It leaves you a lot wiser, a little more aware.

Essay: We take pride in being chauvinists, even in the movies. Why, really?

A few days back, I happened to chance upon an extract of Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic's interview at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, an extract which made a very interesting reading. Like thousands, including me, Tanovic was obviously pretty upset that The Lunchbox wasn't the Indian submission to the Best Foreign-Language Film category this year. One quick perusal and you can tell that Tanovic skipped over many of the cusses that he was raring to spit out and, in his stalwart defense, I do agree to most of his views.

There's one line from the excerpt that stuck in my mind because it abridged the problem that's been nagging the Hindi film industry for a while now :

"It's not a question of a good film. It's about whether you really want to win an Oscar, or do you want to send a film which you think is great."  

(source : NDTV)

In essence, his views are correct. Why, why, why did we send The Good Road? It's like we had reached out for the gold and now we find our palms clamped around a dubious handful of hope. Oh, we knew, we knew we stood a chance with The Lunchbox. I mean, it won an award at Cannes, it got an overwhelming critical and commercial reception and those bozos pick out a small movie because, well, because it showcases a different side of India, in their own inane vindication. And if rumors are juicy enough for me to believe in 'em, The Good Road isn't half as good as The Lunchbox. I surmised as much, you know. I did.

But no, we won't hear any of it, no sir. I mean, come on, look at the bright side - has the Film Federation Of India ever had the slightest perception of what kind of movies should be sent there, to compete with the other heavyweights from around the world? Has it? If you think I'm jabbering, believe you me, when I run you down the list of the Should Have and Shouldn't Have, you're in for a wild ride. We won't send movies that are daubed with the stuff Oscar-winning movies are usually made of. You want to know why? Because we are too aware of what the world thinks about us. We'll send the optimistic movies, like Barfi!, which made you cry a river. Of course, it made me cry too, because I couldn't believe I had invested my time into something so no-plot. We won't send the fiery movies, like Paan Singh Tomar, because earthy, moving and meaningful movies never win an Oscar, according to our conception of the whole damn thing. We strive to entertain. Pity, the other half of the world pisses on that very word. 

Then came the opinions of the industry personnels, which I often go back to for some comic relief if I'm stuck in a rut and need something to resuscitate me. Someone said,"We don't need the Oscars to prove that we churn out quality cinema." Fine, you two-faced twit. If you win - and believe me, I really hope you do just for this - be sure not to go there to collect the prize. Another dork said,"What's the big deal with the awards, man?" The big deal, man, is that you, in that cocky little life of yours, believe that you live in a country where you don't need to prove that the movies made here are of great merit but there are some who need evidence to buy that idea. Get it?

I don't want to assume that I'll have to wait a whole decade to see a movie that's worthy of competing for the gold. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that we make great movies only once in a while but we need to change the way we choose which film to forward for the competition. But missing out on the gold now does hound. Like Tanovic grouched,"We blew it."

We did. And it's going to cost us. 

Essay: The Indian "24" : A landmark? Yes. Great? No.

Last week, the Indian adaptation of 24 hit the screens, eliciting loud groans from the grandmas of the Indian households, who are used to watching saccharine-soaked family-dramas, and making them go bonkers over the violence and the impudence of the show. And it's also no secret that this wily adaptation is, by far, one of the best things to happen to Indian television. The last time I enjoyed a show on Indian television was Kaun Banega Crorepati, a spin-off of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, back in 2000 when it was actually good. Now it's just filling in for the family-dramas since it's got almost the same amount of tears and melodrama albeit Amitabh Bachchan is a magnificent host as always.

Now, I was also one of those who caught the first segment of 24 as it went on air, bumming around on the couch because the promos looked really promising. A suave Anil Kapoor went bang-bang in a manner so sly that I'm sure half of this insanely populous country would've tuned in just to see that again. Like I did. I've got to be honest, I was hooked on 24 the minute it began. Slowly, gradually, it gripped you, owing to Abhinay Deo's skillful direction and some marvelously brisk editing. What didn't impress was the dialogue, which touched a new corny high, by the way. There's a few "I didn't want to hurt you" or "My country is more important now". Try "I thought I could trust you when I couldn't trust anybody". In any case, they sounded like lines, the characters are characters but there's something that makes it fascinating. Anupam Kher's cameo was terrific, the cinematography is unusually killer for the Indian television standards and the series is intrepid in its storytelling.

24 is obviously created by a bunch of tenacious chauvinists. They've rebelled, to my delight, against the tyrannical Ministry Of Information & Broadcasting, which passes content for television. There's a brief shot of a thumb of a dead guy getting hacked off in the second segment, something that would've been hindered to be shown otherwise. So, I wouldn't really lambaste it as being just another action series because this one's different. This one's significant.

Now, you may wonder why I'm mouthing off when just six episodes are done with. I beg to inform you that 24 is down with the Indian Television syndrome, which is slang for kicked in the nuts. The action has been flushed away, the vile feeling of melodrama has creeped in and there's no way out of it. There's a hint of an odd romance too, which makes me nauseous, and the script, which promised a great deal, like I said, is bitten by the hackneyed bug. The bad thing is that we already know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. So, if the writers are thinking of making a revelation later on about this, you can pass. The plot of the assassination of the Prime Minister is compelling enough on paper but the sequences which illustrate the situation at the Prime Minister's hotel room are mercilessly boring. That's boring in big, bold letters. And the series, which was supposed to be exhilarating and zippy, is so goddamn slow. If you miss one segment, don't sweat it, really. You'll find out that you haven't missed much and you can still pick up from where you left off.

What infuriated me above all is the unprofessionalism when it came to publicizing the content. And I blame the channel and the team that heads it. If you see the promos, you'll find out that they give away the plot-twists beforehand, without the slightest bit of shame. Why on earth are they doing the hunches for us? Are we pea-brained? Are our heads made of fluff? When you see the heading Next Week, you better close your eyes. Because those bozos are going to tell you, whether you like it or not, what's about to happen. Oh, it's easy-peasy to guess, which is what they've misconceived 'cause they think we'll want to tune in to watch what we already know is going to happen. Those fools!

24 is a landmark surely but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's great. It's cliched, it's predictable and it's a work of craft that's rare. I enjoy watching it because this is something that I haven't seen on Indian television but it did let me down and kicked me in the teeth with its incredibly tacky writing. Still, I'd suggest you watch it because I don't know who'll be the next one to stand up to the customs we have here. Better enjoy it while it lasts, eh? 

Review: Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity" : Bingo, Houston!

You might have been hearing murmurs that Mexican virtuoso Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity begs to be watched on the IMAX 3D screen, which, incidentally, is also a place where no one can hear you scream. Or gasp. And I'd regret this to the day I'll be on my way to the grave that I missed watching it there, screaming and gasping, like the folks who did do well to go there.

I'll divulge a little secret of mine : I had already read the plot way before the movie even hit the Indian screens. And if you haven't done something this asinine already, don't do it. Because Cuaron ever so cheekily steamrolls your puny imagination and crafts an experience that will be talked about for years. Because I sat there, those fat 3D glasses resting on my crooked nasal bridge, tub of popcorn lay forgotten, iced soft-drink gone runny, and I watched the beauty of quixotic cinema that we seldom get to see.

How irrelevant it seemed to be buying a tub of popcorn when the lady behind the counter paid me a look like I was nuts. And she was right. Gravity doesn't much value your popcorn. But you're in for one hell of a ride when Cuaron explores the vast tract of space with an eye out for detail. Gravity is scary because it's believable and brilliant because it's scary. It's the sort of thing that 3D was invented for in the first place. You get periodic mind-baffling visuals, mystical imagery used sparsely and dialogue that's rigged with tension.

Gravity opens with one of the most beautiful long-takes I've ever seen. A fifteen-minute sequence set against a backdrop of Earth as seen from space, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's fluid camera captures the beauty and terror of being up there with no human contact and many miles above the solid ground with effective urgency. And then, after the three astronauts are informed about a catastrophe yet to befall them, they're hit from the oncoming shards of debris. Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her maiden voyage, gets entangled and bullets out into the dark space.

Her only hope is Matt Kowalski, a veteran astronaut who comes with a swagger and is also the second survivor of the calamity. As the two stranded astronauts are left howling in space and left to improvise a way out with zilch contact with anyone except each other, you, sitting in that goddamn seat in a theater with a soothing drink by your side, realize like a bolt of lightening that you are about to be taken for one hell of a jaunt.

I'll be honest with you. I rarely watch space movies because they are all bonbon for the eyes, not so much for the intellect. My favorite space movie is Ron Howard's trivialized Apollo 13, which is Gravity minus the hypnotic visuals. While Apollo 13 was too crowded, Gravity is too deserted. Dr. Stone is the only character we get to see, the only character who should be seen, yeah. That tickles the tension and creates a sense of hysteria. Cuaron, who last worked on the stunning dystopian-thriller Children Of Men in 2006, assembles a yet another tightly-wound movie with Gravity. Nothing's added for effect, there's nothing here that's extraneous to the plot. It's a desolate place up there and, as Cuaron shows, there's nothing we can do other than panic.

Gravity delights in its scrupulous detailing. There's a million-dollar shot of a screw lodging out and spinning towards us, which an alert Kowalski grabs. The details are so carefully daubed that they're impossible to notice. Yet they are there in all their glory. Keep your eyes open. They'll be anyway, I guarantee you.

I have only one thing to say about the cinematography, which is easily the best feature of the film : please don't spurn Lubezki at the Academy Awards this year. In one scene, the camera slowly pans in on Stone's face, penetrates her helmet to get her POV of the view and then pops out again. All in one fucking take. Can you believe that? I had to blink to believe what I just saw, if it wasn't an act of some dark sorcery, I don't know what it was. All I could do is mouth a soft, "Wow!" and try to remember it the next time I'd see this movie. I won't forget that, that's not a niggle.

Sandra Bullock, who has been a kind of a nagging presence in most of her movies, is all Oscar stuff. She's utterly believable in a role, which is her meatiest yet, and I was awed to see her carry the whole film so deftly all the way. Dr. Stone is a character easy to empathize with and yet also gallant and inspiring.

George Clooney is terrific in a surprisingly minor role of Matt Kowalski. Clooney, I thought, would be the one riding the mantle but he's reduced to a supporting role. It was strangely wonderful to see him passing on the reins to Bullock, knowing full well what's the movie about and who should be stealing the limelight. It's the most significant sacrifice in a movie that's as much about survival as it is about sacrifice.

Since Gravity is a space movie, there will be comparisons between it and Stanley Kubrick's mystifying 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001: A Space Odyssey milked an existential-realism theme whereas Cuaron's is more of a survival thriller. I don't think one should necessarily be the better of the two, since they have a crack at two very different theories but Gravity should be proudly placed beside it.

The best movies out there are the ones that make you go, "Whoa, that's something I'm not capable of creating." That thought hassled me for over two hours when I watched Gravity. Those of you who peed their pants watching Avatar in a 3D theatre and went bonkers over it should check it out sometime. Avatar looks wimpish beside it. Gravity is an astounding cinematic achievement that smashes every 3D movie to hit the screens to a bloody pulp.

Review: Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" : These Dogs Bark More Than They Bite.

Back in 1992, before Pulp Fiction created the furor it created, Quentin was digging a crime movie, which is a given considering he's Quentin, about a bunch of guys who have divided views on tipping and Like A Virgin, the song by Madonna. And then, they're put through a diamond heist which goes horribly wrong, which leaves one of them with a lesion, one of them trying to save him, one of them doubting all the things that he can doubt and one of them cutting off the ear of a cop who happened to be a spectator.

Reservoir Dogs had acquired a cult status of the height independent filmmakers can only dream of acquiring. A talky film about a botched heist, we're being thrown into a whirlwind of details about the heist, the people involved and what happened. Here's the thing : we don't actually see it happening. So, we've got to take their word for it. What I don't get is how Quentin arranged the financing needed for this. Made at only a million and a half, the budget may look exiguous but this is a unique film that's an amalgam of an experiment and a commercial project. You may enjoy the incredibly funny discussion on tipping early on in the film, the crackling one-liners but the schizophrenic violence may pose as a problem for you folks. I mean, you really won't savor watching some poor sod's ear being chopped off using a straight razor while having your lunch, would you? Thought so.

So, the shocked men go apeshit after returning to their rendezvous point, an abandoned warehouse. Mr. Pink, the cocky one who doubts stuff, he's the one scared shitless. He's trying to figure out without any luck what just happened. Mr. White, the expert, is trying to save his friend, Mr. Orange, who's been shot in the belly. Mr. Orange's about to die, he's lost a lot of blood and he's losing more every minute. Mr. Pink's all over the place, he's getting on everyone's nerves. Both he and Mr. White degrade the suave Mr. Blonde, who landed them in the soup in the first place. Mr. Blonde was the one who started shooting people and nearly shot them both in an attempt to ward off the cops that were swarming the place.

The script, penned by Tarantino, takes its own time to build the characters and supervise the setup. There's a liberal amount of profanity the coarse jargon is laced with. That's not to say the dialogue is not amusing. Tarantino, the master of great dialogue, delivers a substantial amount of quotable quotes beside the witty one-liners. But he falters when he creates his characters, whom we're supposed to sympathize with, as unfeeling and austere. Which makes it difficult to invest in them, hence the story which runs purely on its characters. Steve Buscemi's Mr. Pink is one evolved character whom I enjoyed watching going nuts on-screen but I'm afraid I can't say the same about Harvey Keitel's or Michael Madsen's characters.

Michael Madsen's Mr. Blonde is a mirthless loony who shoots innocent civilians and captures a cop, Marvin Nash. Later on, before Joe and Eddie, the father-son bad guys who hired the Loony Toons, arrive, he proudly shows off his catch to Mr. Pink and Mr. White, who proceed to coax out some information to a pressing problem they might have : is there an undercover cop in the unit? Mr. Pink suspects there might be, Mr. White agrees and Mr. Blonde just wants to have fun. He's not as interested in finding out as he is in torturing the poor fiend. He cuts off the ear of Nash before being shot.

Here's where I stop with the plot because here's where it gets real interesting. We have a bunch of dorks trying to figure out what happened, trying to keep things cordial but are still suspicious of one another. They drool on each other, commiserate but they would not hesitate to pull the trigger if need be.

I liked Reservoir Dogs. I liked the dialogue, I liked the idea, I liked the ritzy approach. But, what I found really surprising was, I didn't love the movie. Yeah, if you ask me if I enjoyed it, I'd probably say yes. If you ask me if I'd want to watch it again, I'd probably say no. Two contrasting thoughts in essence but they make sense to me.

Look, I liked how it started off. The opening sequence establishes the characters with wonderful finesse, allowing us a glimpse into their thoughts, their way of things. I loved how it was structured, you know. Editor Sally Menke was arguably one of the finest, most influential film editors of her time. But it's harrowing when you find out at some point of time that the director isn't very sold to the idea of making the movie about its characters. He's got a plot he wants to work with. Some of the characters are unevolved, under-written but their thoughts aren't. When we want to know more about the character, we're being told of what he makes of the things that transpired. Sad, sad.

But I'll cut Tarantino some slack. Maybe it's because I'm sitting in my living room in 2013, watching it on television so I have no idea how it was like to sit in a theatre in 1992, watching the hoodlums go cuckoo on the big screen. Time blunts the impact, yeah.

Reservoir Dogs may be the greatest independent film of all-time, because it's a marvelous product to achieve from such a scant budget. But, in terms of storytelling, it promises a lot but not a lot of it sticks. Still, it can be worth your time if you enjoy a piece of cinema that's unique and ornate in its construction.