Taken
Directed By: Pierre Morel (District 13)
Rating: 3.25/5
Pierre Morel is the protege of French movie genius Luc Besson, and this movie totally reeks everything about Luc Besson , it remind you of movies like Leon the Professional, Taxi series and the Transporter trilogy.
The movie started nice and slow, we had a background about Liam Nesson character background, an ex-police spy who works as a preventer, preventing accidents to happen when you see him subduing an attacker from hurting a Miley Cyrus kinda character. Due to his work he also had a strained relationship with his ex-wife and the love of his life, his only daughter.
And once her daughter got kidnapped the movie keep moving non stop and might be the fastest 93 mins movie i even seen. I like this old school kinda action movie, but the movie don't seems to have any sense of logic. In superhero movies, even Spiderman and Batman get injured, but this guy seems to be even more of a superhuman and seems to know more things then God, the longer you watch on the more you think the movie is bullshitting. This guy is like Jason Bourne, James Bond , Jet Li and Albert Einstein combined in 1.
But I think the director managed to do the best he can with the medicore storyline, but the action sequences seems to be reptitive and the other supporting performances are really weak and stereotyping of other characters. I would also recommend another movie Man On Fire by Tony Scott starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, which had a similar movie plot but i think the storyline is much better. Nevertheless it will be a good flick to spend your 93 mins if you had nothing better to do then watching the stupid flicks like Confessional of a Shopaholics or 17 Again.
Revolutionary Road
Directed By: Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition)
Rating: 3.25/5
This is not a film for everyone. If you are just looking to be entertained and have a good time seeing a film, I don't think I would recommend this. It's shows the stark brutal reality of an unhappy suburban couple, and it makes the current glooming economy even more dull. The feeling is like after losing your girlfriend you realise you lost your handphone.
The reason everybody should watch this movie is because the acting is amazing because it's simple and not overdone by the lead actors. Many things are not even said and just played with a flick of emotion across the face. You feel the anguish of the couple, of their boring life, you feel like you are one of them. And when the audience feel what the actors feel, I think the performance deserves to be applaud, especially for Kate Winslet. I think her performance here is even better then her Oscar winning performance in The Reader.
The Chaser
Directed By: Na Hong-Jin (debut)
Rating: 3.5/5
This story is really unbelievable in the first place, but after realising it is based on a true event, it shows how dumb Koreans are. The movie definely will be compared to other Korean psycho-thriller movie like Oldboy and Memories of Murder by the way it is shot,the way the story slowly unfolds and the gritty look of the whole movie, but this movie is not as good as compared because you cannot believe how stupid the Korean police can be.
The plot line is quite straightforward. A fallen-cop-turned-pimp, suspecting that two of his disappeared "girls" were actually sold by a weird client Jee(the psychopath), sends to him Mi-jin, his favourite prostitute and also a mother of an 8-year-old daughter, as bait. In the midst of torturing Mi-jin, Jee encounters unexpected intrusion, kills and flees. By sheer coincidence he bumps into the pimp who discovers his identity through his cell phone number. And all this happened in just the first half hour of the movie.
Importantly there is a lot of dark humour. The main character is incredibly dry-witted, and is a release valve for the tension in the film. As he carries the film, the acting is important, and both he and the serial killer are exceptionally good. I had never been so tense in a movie for awhile.
But no doubt this movie is one of the better Asian movies I had seen awhile, and no doubt the Korean movie industry is overshadowing the rest of the Asian countries, even Japan.
Gran Torino
Directed By: Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby)
Rating: 3.75/5
This show is reportely the last movie he will appeared in, and this flick show us how much we will miss him in the future cause he is one hell of an actor. Me personally is biased for Clint Eastwood who appeared and directed some on my favourite movies like Good, Bad and the Ugly, Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby and the list goes on and on. Cumon, even Gorillaz wrote a song about him!
Firstly the only flaw and the greatest flaw of the show is, none of the actors inside could act except except Clint Eastwood, even the American supporting cast, and the priest was particularly awful. The Asian acting skills are the worst, being real amateurish and bad stereotyping of Asian people.
This movie had lots of memorable and powerful moments where you go completely stoned, and somehow the ending the feelings was very similar to the ones I had when watching Million Dollar Baby.
But Clint, at aged 78, is still looking pretty strong and still reminding us of his Dirty Harry days, he is one of the few people who still carry a movie byself and with his on screen presence. This was a very heart-warming film in my mind throughout. The ending of the film is probably more of an ending to Eastwood's career as an actor rather than that of the movie itself. And he definely end his acting career on a high note.
Boy In The Striped Pajamus
Directed By: Mark Herman (Hope Springs)
Rating: 3.5/5
Review coming soon...
Other movies I watched on DVDs
Red Cliff 2 - 4/5
Step Up 2 - 2/5
Money Not Enough 2 - 1/5
House Bunny - 2/5
Nick & Norah: The Infinite Playlist - 3.25/5 (Kat Dennings was really cute, I'm so in love with her right now)
