Heeramandi- the diamond bazar/ 

As SLB’s productions go, #HeeraMandi has all the drama, intrigue, touch of history, emotion and vendetta that have marked his previous outings. The storyline is dominated by #ManishaKoirala as MallikaJaan, the big boss and the reigning Queen of one of the central pleasure houses of Lahore’s HeeraMandi, with a daughter Bibbojaan ( #AditiRaoHyadri) a singer and a dancer, who secretly leads the life of an active revolutionary in the war against the oppressive British rule.  There is another daughter Alamzeb, (#SharminSegal) who doesn’t want to be a courtesan but aspires to be a poet instead. MallikaJaan has a gory past regarding her sister whose spitting image of a daughter, Fareedan (#SonakshiSinha), soon stages her arrival in Lahore; coming replete with a plan to avenge the various wrongs committed against her by Mallika Jaan, to dethrone her and claim her legacy as the undisputed lady boss of Shahi Mahal. But Fareedan’s game is as much about power and control as about revenge.

Interspersed with the unfolding of MallikaJaan’s culpability is the love story of Alamzeb and Tajdaar, ( #TahaShah) the Oxford educated scion of one of the several Nawab families in Lahore. They wine and dine with the imperialist power and pay fealty to them, notwithstanding the British cruelty, ruthlessness and brutal subjugation of people, their infamous corruption and the unleashing of a reign of terror in the war of independence waging outside the fantasy world of Shahi Mahal. How the issues will resolve is what holds the interest together but the disjointed glueing of various sub-plots, along with failed performances by some key actors, is the cause why the webseries falls short of expectations.

So far as the craft of film making  is concerned it has the right ingredients that have architected SLB’s success as a film maker in the past; It has grandeur, it has opulence, it has great set designs, it has elaborate period costumes and enchanting jewellery.. The set design, play of colour, light and sound, the art direction are all scintillating and manage to elevate the series. After all, SLB’s craft always excels

But is a good production only about the format? What about the content, the soul? It has a good story line, set in pre Independence India in Lahore. Manisha Koirala takes your breath away with her elegance and flawed beauty; her wrinkles and lines and scars all contribute to the devious character that she assays with aplomb. She acts and looks the part. Sonakshi Sinha also turns out a convincing portrayal of the wronged and vengeful niece, an evil force. So does Sanjeeda Sheikh as Waheeda, another sister of MallikaJaan’s, who holds many a secret close to her chest. Farida Jalal remains cherubic and loveable as the Grandmother of the love- interest of Alamzeb. So far as #RichaChaddha is concerned, I was left wondering that there must be a reason, not related to the storyline,  for her to make such an early exit from the series. 

Sharmin Sehgal had the strongest role in the webseries, but turns out the #weakest #performance. Her entire repertoire of acting is limited to giving trance-like, vacant looks at some imaginary, diagonal spot on the set, with a permanently frozen and expressionless face. Believe me there were enough opportunities for her to show off her talent and realise her potential  but she just couldn’t emote! Shekhar Suman is alright but his son Adhyan Suman and Fardeen Khan who returns to screen after nearly two decades, have bite sized roles in the great smorgasboard of characters and they add virtually nothing to the overall impact of the drama. Some of the other male characters who play the debauched nawabs and their handsome sons leave some impression eg Taha Shah  and his father.

But the subject matter itself ie the life and times of #Tawaifs ( courtesans) their rivalries,  broken hearts, suicides, murders, their larger than life influence on the Nawabi era, their wealth, their power structure- everything  is so disconnected with reality that one wonders! . One has read that It was a life of drudgery, exploitation,even poverty and misery that the Tawaifs led, not of such resplendence and grandeur. But one can dismiss the thought as being Bhansali’s imagination and his poetic licence to interpret society as he wishes. However, how does he play out the story so close to #1947 and have a whole sub plot of revolutionaries trying to create disturbances, yet not say a word about the #MuslimLeague and the demand for  #Partition? That is really  baffling.

The series falls short of expectations but there’s something about Bhansali and his treatment of women. As in his other films he provides some dignity and grace to women who are not paragons of virtue and who may have led questionable lives. His delineation of their characters is non moralistic and non judgemental. For that reason alone, and for the craft of film making, the series can be watched. But what to say except Yeh DiL Mange More from SLB!

Laapata Ladies

  Returning to blogger after a long long time. Still sticking to Film reviews and here’s the latest: 

#LAAPATAA LADIES: 

If there’s ever been a biting satire on the status and identity of women in a contemporary and relatable patriarchal society, it is this! #KiranRao has delivered a very well crafted social satire, juxtaposing an intriguing tale of lost brides, with the issue of complete negation of women’s identity in rural India. As the tale unfolds one wonders which is the metaphor and which the reality! 

Phool and Pushpa, unknown to each other and very dissimilar too, are brides and co-travellers in a passenger train along with their newly married husbands Deepak and Pradeep. They sit quietly, covered from head to toe in identical bridal attire- red sari, red veil, the works, indistinguishable and undefinable, except as brides. As the chaotic train compartment with several dulha-dulhan jodis finally slumbers, Deepak grabs his veiled  wife Phool and hurriedly disembarks from the train on reaching his destination. A comedy of errors has begun! It’s only when the welcome party in the village emerges that truth dawns on them-there’s been a huge mix-up and the bride is not Phool but an unknown entity who calls herself Pushpa! 

Deepak faces derision from his family and community at being such a loser.  However, the film is not about Deepak but about the lost bride, Phool, who is now stranded at a non descript train station and after many an anxious moment, finds shelter and work with an older,  single, independent woman called Manju Mai, (Chhaya Kadam).  

As Deepak mounts his search for the missing Phool there emerges the SHO of the local police station, the paan-chewing,  sleazy, slothful Shyam Manohar played by the very versatile #RaviKishen. What follows is an interesting tale of Pushpa whose motives for not lamenting at being “lost” or surreptitiously using her #Nokia phone in the middle of the night, remain shrouded in mystery and add several layers of socially relevant issues. 

Have women no identity of their own? Are they really and metaphorically lost behind a veil and expected to toe the line set by their husbands, howsoever undeserving or for that matter, even deserving they may be? Must they only have two relevant addresses in life- father’s and husband’s? Must they always be viewed through a relationship prism? Is there another aspiration that they can have, even though they may appear to be  too distant and difficult? 

Or is the situation so irredeemable that they can neither call their husbands by their names nor eat the food of their choice? Are their desires, talents, capabilities and aspirations forever subservient to their husband’s or can women assist each other through mutual support, camaraderie and solidarity and in the process redraft their destinies? Will men continue to command a premium in the form of dowry and obedience from wives or is there another role they can play? The film has a very pronounced feminist accent but luckily, it is not in-your-face.

There are many questions and some answers. While attempting to answer some, many beautiful #symbolisms emerge and the one that particularly caught my attention was the Keonchha ( a small bundle of rice, turmeric, coins and in some places jaggery)  given to Phool when she leaves her parents’ home, as a blessing for prosperity; but as demonstrated by Manju Mai, the true gift a mother can give to her daughter should be to recognise her talent and endow her with the ability to earn her own living and go on her own journey. And the Keonchha can literally be shelved as a sweet but redundant custom. Similarly the names in the movie eg Phool and Pushpa symbolise the innocence of young brides; going to a village called Surajmukhi, and you wonder will this village move like the flower whose name it bears and allow the girls to chase their own path under the Sun?  You worry about Pushpa as the sly and sleazy Inspector probes her activities, but hey his name is Shyam Manohar, the Saviour Incarnate himself!  . 

Kiran Rao has excelled in every aspect of the film. It has a great cast and each actor brings the character alive. Ravi Kishen is the leader of the pack with a very young and talented cast. He’s brilliant as he goes about trying to solve the Pushpa mystery but he is par-excellence in the denouement, as is Pushpa. Will the mystery be solved, will the lost brides be “found” or will they chart their own paths? For answers to that, this beautiful film needs to be watched.

 Kiran Rao has chosen  a simple narrative based on simple village life; tackling and highlighting apparently  minor socio-cultural issues and handling them delicately, without  heavy-handedness  and without any chest-thumping, shrill lecturing on women’s empowerment, equality and right to choice etc. With lots of wry humour and jibes at patriarchy the film entertains and grips you at an emotional level. Yet the impact of a story told so simply is profound . The message appears to come straight and clear - handle the simple things first, the complex will sort out on their own.

Neel Kamal Darbari

Tribhanga AND The last Color

 Watched two female centric films on two different OTT platforms over the weekend. One was the predominantly modern tale of three generations of women, called TRIBHANGA and the other was a story caught in a medieval time warp, ie The Last Color. No two films could appear at the same time, have women centric themes yet be so diametrically opposite each other. 

TRIBHANGA is about the troubled relationship between a mother Nayantara  (Tanvi Azmi) and her daughter Anu (Kajol). Nayan is a writer with two children, who divorces and marries again, leaving her daughter Anuradha Apte vulnerable and exposed to exploitation, while pushing the son into the world of asceticism. The angst between Nayan and Anu arises from the perception that in her own pursuit of happiness through a mixed bag of suitors and professional commitments, Nayan doesn’t provide any choices to Anu and she is doomed to tread on a path pre-demarcated by her mother’s choices. She builds what she considers a stable and loving relationship with her own daughter, Masha, played by a cherubic Mithila Palkar, but realises how Masha herself holds grudges against her as she feels victimised by lack of choices provided by Anu. Her angst arises from her exposure to taunts and innuendos at school because of the mother’s life choices. It’s almost a complete 360 degree turnaround for Anu, who harboured serious hatred for her mother, only to face a similar, though contained, reaction from her own daughter.

Kajol, as Anu, is the TRIBHANGA from the Odissi dance form analogy, that is twisted, angular and crazy, while Masha is the Sambhaga to Nayan’s Abhanga. The story is told artistically through Nayan’s biographer Kunal Roy Kapoor’s lense, who records her emotions and experiences before she has a stroke and is confined to a hospital bed. Kajol is her usual shouting, screaming, over-the-top, venom spewing, abusive and hysterical woman who doesn’t understand the meaning of nuanced acting, almost till the very end, by which time its too late!Tanvi is certainly the hero of the film who leaves you wondering why we don’t see more of her on screen. Mithila Palkar’s character is not developed properly and you kind of feel cheated as to how the story could have traversed the more complex folds of human psyche. But with all its flaws, its a watchable movie.

The Lost Color is quite another story, filmed on the ghats of Varanasi looking at a homeless young kid Chhoti ( Aqsa Siddiqui) who befriends a widow, Noor ( Neena Gupta) confined to a life of solitude in the Vidhwa Ashram. There is almost instant warmth between the widow and the kid, who is unable to grasp why there’s no colour in the life of Noor. There is the regressive and omni-present police on the ghats of Varanasi who indulge in untold manner of exploitation of women- transgenders, wives, widows and kids. What emerges is a strong conviction on the part of the little girl that she will bring colour back into the life of Noor- a promise she keeps in more ways than one, when as a grown up she is instrumental in reversing the archaic practice of the ban on playing Holi by the widows.

The movie is a mixed bag. On the one hand it is aesthetically shot on the picturesque Ghats of Varanasi, on the other it delves  into the bond between Noor and  Chhoti, which beyond a point is static and stagnant, almost abrupt, unlike the flowing Ganga, never quite gathering momentum. The movie has a warm tone to it and the intent to capture the social mores, with all their warts and ugliness is clear. But due to the sub-standard editing it feels loose-ended and jumbled up. Somewhere you end up feeling that it merely rustles past your heart without quite stirring it, as it had the potential to. 

Neena Gupta as Noor is impressive and she lights up the screen from the moment she appears on the screen, despite her white sari and lack of colour, both literally and metaphorically. But Aqsa Siddiqui as Chhoti is the real show-stealer, with her power-house performance as a marginalised and untouchable tight-rope walker. 

Kudos to first time hindi film directors #RenukaShahne  ( @TRIBHANGA) and Michelin Star chef #VikasKhanna (Thelastcolorfilm) for their well attempted and sincere debuts, one touching upon the lives of 3 generations of modern women, the other juxtaposing those through women caught in orthodox, patriarchal and archaic societies. Hoping for better stuff from these two in times to come.

 OTT:

Haven’t been active on the blog simply due to COVID induced inertia, nothing else.  Nothing seems interesting, such pall and gloom pervades all around. But today a chance chat with a friend reminded me that I have a blog too where I used to love writing about my interpretation of Hindi films. But in the last 9 months since Lockdown and closure of multiplexes and theatres, one has migrated to the various streaming channels that are called OTTs. Some offer great content, some trash, but they invariably succeed in catching eyeballs. 

What bothers me about these series on OTT platforms is the unnecessary and over-reliance on mindless brutality and gutter level abusive language, not to miss the use of sex as a tool to characterisation. Be it the Sacred Games or Paatal Lok or Mirzapur, they all give this sinking feeling that the society has gone to the irredeemably lowest nadir, courtesy all the negative, diabolical characters and their dark noir plots. While they cant be faulted on their direction and art of story telling, butteresed with some brilliant acting, the appeal is lost when you realise you cant sit through such frightening darkness. Of course there were some realistic ones too, like Panchayat, which tickled your funny bone and you heaved a sigh of relief that thuggery and thieving may not be so evil after all and could be normal features in an evolving society.

It’s on account of this that I fear the appeal of OTT Platforms may not last beyond the regular opening up of Cinemas across the country

 #ShakuntalaDevi: 

The biopic premiered on Amazon Prime yesterday and I thought watching it was such a hassle free exercise:  no tickets to book, no traffic to manoeuvre, no pricy popcorns to waste money ( and calories) on ... pure & unadulterated movie watching! 

@VidyaBalan plays Shakuntala Devi, the human computer who really needs no introduction. Everyone knows the mathematical genius that she was, but not much is known of her personal life.  So facets of her childhood, unschooled brilliance, the pots of money she earned, how she shot  a spineless boyfriend in the 1950s or had another Spanish boyfriend, “Javier with a silent-J” in London, came as interesting revelations, as did some of her personality traits. But the movie is really about overt feminism, because of which even the maths was interesting -although, I would have liked more insights into  “how” she did it rather than the “what”! 

Other than celebrating Shakuntala Devi, the maths-wizard, the movie is also a drama about three generations of mother-daughter relationships, and how the men in their lives continue to loosen the grip on their lives till they are rendered almost irrelevant and relegated to the margins! I don’t recall a movie from the Hindi cinema stable in recent times which is so hugely dominated by women characters,  even if they are in minuscule roles like the Guest House lady in London. 

The movie traces the rise and rise of Shakuntala Devi- from being a poverty-stricken genius, whose family couldn’t afford the medical expenses of treating an invalid elder child to buying swanky properties in London to marrying and divorcing an IAS Officer ( YES!), Paritosh (Jisshu Sengupta). While she diversifies her talents into politics, writing and astrology, she never loses sight of her responsibilities as a mother. But maybe she overdoes that bit, for the daughter Anu, played by Sanya Malhotra, soon enters a hell of her own choosing! It’s the daughter’s mother-in-law who drills some sense into her about ‘perfect mothering’ but it is left to the mother to be crafty to smoothen out the rough edges of their relationship and in the process create the critical elements of drama. 

Vidya Balan holds the film together as no one else can or does. She metamorphoses brilliantly during different phases of her life and it is not just in a physical sense. Her nuanced acting as a rebellious young lady, never toeing any line drawn for her, her yearning to return to the world of maths-shows after tasting matrimony and motherhood, and her craving to hold onto her daughter are all enacted effortlessly, as is her own catharsis vis-a-vi’s her mother. In fact, but for her acting, the film has some nagging flaws eg; in terms of the script’s inability to ably depict the various transitions in her life. It’s too fast paced and you almost miss the points of progression, but its Vidya’s confidence and conviction in her portrayal of Shakuntala Devi that keeps the plot glued together as a credible whole. At times you sense the  self-obsessed, egotistic and almost megalomaniac, but humorous, character of Shakuntala Devi. At others you are driven to tears by the mother in her. Such a range of emotions and such versatility to deal with them! Sanya Malhotra also impresses you with her acting skills (minus the hideous wig in London!) and the intense Amit Sadh shines n sparkles as an almost irrelevant husband to a feisty wife. 

An immensely watchable film with Vidya Balan in a role that only Dirty Picture can match. Go for it guys.#ShakuntalaDevi: 

The biopic premiered on Amazon Prime yesterday and I thought watching it was such a hassle free exercise:  no tickets to book, no traffic to manoeuvre, no pricy popcorns to waste money ( and calories) on ... pure & unadulterated movie watching! 

@VidyaBalan plays Shakuntala Devi, the human computer who really needs no introduction. Everyone knows the mathematical genius that she was, but not much is known of her personal life.  So facets of her childhood, her unschooled brilliance, the pots of money she earned, the shooting episode with a spineless boyfriend in the 1950s or the other  Spanish boyfriend- “Javier with a silent J”- in London, came as interesting revelations, as did some of her personality traits. But the movie is really about overt feminism, because of which even the maths was interesting -although, I would have liked more insights into  “how” she did it rather than the “what”! 

Other than celebrating Shakuntala Devi, the maths-wizard, the movie is also a drama about three generations of mother-daughter relationships, and how the men in their lives continue to loosen the grip on their lives till they are rendered almost irrelevant and relegated to the margins! I don’t recall a movie from the Hindi cinema stable in recent times which is so hugely dominated by women characters,  even if they are in minuscule roles like the Guest House lady in London. 

The movie traces the rise and rise of Shakuntala Devi- from being a poverty-stricken genius, whose family couldn’t afford the medical expenses of treating an invalid elder child to buying swanky properties in London to marrying and divorcing an IAS Officer ( YES!), Paritosh (Jisshu Sengupta). While she diversifies her talents into politics, writing and astrology, she never loses sight of her responsibilities as a mother. But maybe she overdoes that bit, for the daughter Anu, played by Sanya Malhotra, soon enters a hell of her own choosing! It’s the daughter’s mother-in-law who drills some sense into her about ‘perfect mothering’ but it is left to the mother to be crafty to smoothen out the rough edges of their relationship and in the process create the critical elements of drama. 

Vidya Balan holds the film together as no one else can or does. She metamorphoses brilliantly during different phases of her life and it is not just in a physical sense. Her nuanced acting as a rebellious young lady, never toeing any line drawn for her, her yearning to return to the world of maths-shows after tasting matrimony and motherhood, and her craving to hold onto her daughter are all enacted effortlessly, as is her own catharsis vis-a-vi’s her mother. In fact, but for her acting, the film has some nagging flaws eg; in terms of the script’s inability to ably depict the various transitions in her life. It’s too fast paced and you almost miss the points of progression, but its Vidya’s confidence and conviction in her portrayal of Shakuntala Devi that keeps the plot glued together as a credible whole. At times you sense the  self-obsessed, egotistic and almost megalomaniac, but humorous, character of Shakuntala Devi. At others you are driven to tears by the mother in her. Such a range of emotions and such versatility to deal with them! Sanya Malhotra also impresses you with her acting skills (minus the hideous wig in London!) and the intense Amit Sadh shines n sparkles as an almost irrelevant husband to a feisty wife. 

An immensely watchable film with Vidya Balan in a role that only Dirty Picture can match. Go for it guys.

 GULABO-SITABO: After months of feeding on old repeats on TV or binge-watching a few web-series ranging from the good, bad or ugly to mediocre, I was looking forward to an authentic experience of a new release from Bollywood. I Waited almost with bated breath for Shujit Sarkar’s “GULABO SITABO”, which premiered Friday on AmazonPrime.

it is a story woven around a very dilapidated old Haveli in the heart of modern day Lucknow, whose owners are also equally deprived and decrepit. Mirza ( Amitabh Bacchan), the 78 year old co-owner of the haveli, hunched over and looking at least 10 years older, hobbles around on arched legs, wearing tattered kurta-pyjamas and a head scarf, trying to maintain his balance and often failing to do so, but somehow managing his 5 tenants and periodically stripping the haveli of its artefacts to make ends meet. His Begum is 15/17 years his senior, living in her own world of isolation, who cant remember whether she eloped with him or with a former lover/husband, and everyone is simply waiting for her demise so that the Haveli could pass on to Mirza to do as he pleases.

One of the tenants is Bankey Rastogi played by Ayushmann Khurana, who runs an Atta Chakki and looks after his 3 sassy sisters and widowed mother. Tenants for 70 years, his family finds all kinds of excuses not to pay the rent and the equally wily Mirza finds his own ways to extract whatever he can from the family, including thieving and selling away their light-bulbs. In fact Mirza’s frustration in being unable to either evict the squatters or get them to raise the rent manifests itself in some interesting moments in the film.

Enter Archaeology Research Centre’s Gyanesh Shukla (Vijay Raaz) who thinks the 100 year old Haveli has the makings of an archeological site and should be sealed. At the same time, builders’ mafia in collusion with a lawyer Christopher Clark ( Brijendra Kala) plans to grab the property and convert it into a heritage resort. What follows is a low-key battle of wits between Mirza, Rastogi, Shukla and Clark with a feisty Guddo, the oldest of Bankey’s 3 sisters, with some interesting forays into Nawabi establishments.

Amitabh Bachhan as always fits the role to a T, and turns out a sterling performance, and so does Ayushmann, but alas  its all in vain. What could have been a witty situational comedy, wobbles around and peters out. it never picks up the pace and the plot never seems to come cogently together. A comedy needs pace, events unfolding quickly but this one suffers from inertia, is laid back and largely uneventful. However, the movie authentically captures the ordinariness of poverty-stricken people, holed up in squalor, trying to bargain with life itself for a better deal. It has great characterisation too. Amitabh Bachhan as Mirza is unapologetically selfish, petty, greedy and unscrupulous but he is real! As is his love for the haveli! Ayushmann as Bankey is a typical loser but a fighter! He can think on his feet and connive & manipulate, but of course loses the game constantly. Despite all the great depth of character and competent portrayal, the movie falters primarily because of the poor screen play.; the problem in the story-telling, thinly woven and dispersed, never allows the fullness of the movie to emerge. 

Sad, but this one didn’t work for me. Still I would recommend you watch it for the love of Amitabh Bachhan and Ayushmann and the clever but subtle message of communal harmony.

 Parasite:

 I think twice before watching a foreign film with subtitles as somehow the translation never captures the true essence of original dialogue. But if it’s the first foreign language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and for Best International Feature Film then it had to be seen, if only to decipher how the Academy could break free of its strong American/Hollywood/Caucasian biases. Parasite also took the awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director, for Bong Joon-ho, so I knew there was something unusual going on and I must watch it!

Parasite is a South Korean film by their acclaimed Director Bong Joon Ho. As a genre one would find it difficult to classify it, but it has elements of a dark comedy, thriller and social commentary rolled into one. It’s a story of class-conflict, the typical haves vs have nots and how the two lead their separate existences, with never a chance of stepping on to each other’s well demarcated turfs. But that is precisely what happens.

A family of four -Kims- lives in relative poverty & squalor, with grown up kids dropping-out of college and parents only barely employed, making Pizza boxes and struggling to obtain full wages from the quality control freaks. They steal wifi time from unsuspecting neighbours, till password barriers are drawn. On the other side of the class divide is the Park family ( also 4 members) who live in a resplendent house in a very up-market area, with housekeepers and chauffeurs! Very quickly the family of Kim cons its way, one by one, into the household of the Parks through one act of referral deceit and subterfuge over another, even as the Parks remain oblivious to the fact that their new retinue of helps and tutors are in fact related to each other. Up unto this moment the parasites create comedy and humour, but soon it turns out to be a thriller, with the emergence of two more parasites! If I reveal more of the plot, the incentive to watch the movie will disappear.

Suffice it to say that the plot takes several twists and turns and a series of events happen that bring you to the edge of your seat, causing uneasiness as you hold your breath in bewilderment, not quite understanding what the sequence is going to lead to but apprehensive that nothing good can come out of this. The night of the flood spells and extenuates the socio-economic contradictions in the lives of the two families, where the Kims’ house is flooded with gooey sewerage and they have to wade through horrible, stinking sludge to find shelter in a community relief camp while the Parks rejoice in the beautiful rain, unmindful of and apathetic towards the difficulties faced by those less fortunate than themselves.

While the film is set in modern day South Korea, it is almost universal in its treatment of socio-economic disparities between the privileged and working classes. Infact the flood scene might very well have been from Mumbai or Delhi, with similar developments and class responses. One of my favourite scenes in the movie is when the son asks the father: papa whats your plan? Papa replies, very stoically, “the plan is that I have no plan! If I have a plan and it fails, then I have a setback but if I have no plan, then I suffer no setbacks!” Perhaps that’s how one should be……… and of course you are left wondering exactly who is the parasite here or is there more than one parasite? Is everyone a Parasite? In the end it’s  brilliant story telling, with the craftiness of theatre, replete with sound, light, morse codes, stairs going up and down, ghosts, red-indians and all other ingredients that call for a thrilling experience. I would call it one of the best movies I have ever seen, despite some lose ends. Go watch it while its on! Dont wait for Netflix or Amazon Prime!