The Prestige

I've been tempted to write my 2 cents on the movie after reading a short review by J. Ramanand titled - Prestige I Suppose reviewing film. Its definitely a great watch having both Hugh Jackman & Christian Bale in a movie directed by Christopher Nolan (director of Batman Begins to Dark Knight Rises series).

The movie Prestige - which is also the term used to describe the successful end of a magic trick -

Opening line by Micheal Caine "Every great magic trick has a third act, the most difficult act, the prestige". 

You make a subject disappear and you manage to successfully validate that the subject has indeed disappeared. The conclusion to illusion is to make the subject re-appear flawlessly establishing the prestige for the magic trick. 

The movie has a thrilling revelation at the end which causes you to think - Is this a book turned into a movie script ?  Well yes its a book by Christopher Priest of the same name - "The Prestige".

Need to check out The Illusionist ... yet another !

Reference :
1. Prestige I Suppose reviewing film
2. IMDB : The Prestige
3. Movie Review : The Prestige
4. Poem inspired by The Prestige

Credits : Image Courtesy earlyshen from Flickr.

Spy Game

Seen the movie Spy Game for the first time about 10 years ago. The plot and the dialogues become more clear after watching a few times. Its a cat & mouse chase with a lot of linkages to the past and discussion about the present events.

If you enjoy a spy thriller, you would love to watch both Brad Pitt and Robert Redford playing CIA operatives in a brutal game of espionage. Loved watching it last night after about a year. The movie is directed by Tony Scott.

Its almost like listening to a piece of music at a particular time of the day when you can enjoy it the most. The movie came at time when I really needed to watch some clever dialogues and smooth style. Not the bond style mind you, but the ones which appear close to the real thing.

Ridley Scott's movie The Body of Lies is also another worthy watch, but has a different style to the direction & story.

Credits : The movie poster has been re-used from IMDB filmography for SpyGame.

Colombiano

Fast-paced revenge action thriller. Female version of Jason Bourne. Uses Parkour martial arts.

Was thrilled watching the chase on foot and jumping across the building sequences similar to Daniel Craig's Quantum of Solace action shots.

There is something different about parkour martial arts and its continuous use of jumps & stretches.
The movie does have a lot of spy thriller style execution.

Inception

Dream within a dream within a dream ... Is that possible. Yes , you need a powerful sedative !

They come for more, the dream becomes their reality. They go to sleep to wake up !!
Need to watch it atleast 2 times to realize that you may be dreaming at the end.

The Usual Suspects (English)

film description
Neatly constructed Screenplay. Loved the ensemble cast.
The story line is about an imaginary Gangster Kaiser Soze.

The flashback begins from a Police Line up consisting of a bunch of misfits. This is where you see some humour in the movie. El Benecio and Baldwin are too good here. Keep you laughing for a few minutes. El Benecio is supposed to be a Black-Chinese-Jew or something.

Kevin Spacy who is the narrator and the mastermind, turns out is ?? ... should see the movie. Its a movie about good criminals versus bad cops. The usual suspects is an unusual paradox !

Green Zone (English)

film description
Had to recommend this movie after discussing Syriana. Green Zone is a similar movie of control. The US have urged the world to attack Iraq and eliminate WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) which is but an illusion.

There is no WMD in Iraq. Parallely the US are restoring democracy by introducing a puppet as the President. Matt Daemon is the Chief Warrant Officer who is tasked with finding the locations of the WMDs. Every site that he is ordered to investigate turns out to be a dead-end. why is he given the wrong intel on every mission ?

The truth is slowly revealed of how there are no WMDs in Iraq. The real reason has been to setup a puppet government for Iraq using WMDs as camouflage.

The truth well told !

Syriana (English)

film description
You get to learn how the CIA is the puppet master of the middle east. In the words of one of the characters, Prince Nasir "The US does not want Iran to become democratic. They want to control the oil." The Prince can potentially become the Emir of Iran and then sell oil to China instead of US. He is a target to be killed.

The plot of the movie is to show the cause and effect of the Merger of 2 big Oil companies. The merger itself is not the issue. The main problem is once this US merged company gets oil from Iran, does the economy of Iran benefit. Not until the puppet master controls them. Iran is not allowed to prosper as long as they milked for Oil.

The CIA gets cheap Oil for US by controlling the Emir. The next Emir is neatly positioned by the agency using the strife between the princes and royalty of Iran.

The story is the star here. The heavy casting are a neatly woven ensemble that makes great story telling. Had to see it with subtitles to understand the big picture.