Wednesday 1 October 2008

This aint a review...

Saw RocknRolla with the Zenmaster after a session at our favourite watering hole and I must say that it was extremely disappointing. Most directors these days, in my humble opinion, seem to start their careers with a bang and then...NOTHING.

Guy Ritchie's first two movies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch showed a lot of promise and could well be considered to have added a new dimension to the British gangster genre with the tongue-in-cheek humour that they contained and the complex and intricately constructed script with excellent characterisation. These two movies had relative new-comers in them other than Snatch which had Brad Pitt in a role which was small yet memorable. However, Guy Ritchie has not lived up to expectations which these films created, at least not to mine.

RocknRolla has a story that is paper thin. There are multiple story lines that converge just like his earlier ones but they only appear to be complex. The dialogues of the characters are very mediocre with obvious attempts at replicating the wit witnessed in Lock, Stock and Snatch. The worst part is none of the characters are memorable. I came out of the theatre feeling the way one feels after smoking a Marlboro made in China. IT'S JUST NOT THE SAME!

I am not trying to write a review here, but what I am trying to convey is that these days the experience of going for a movie, at least for one made in the UK or US, is just not fulfilling. None of the British or American movies that I have seen in the past one year, have really made an impact on me. I have not come out of the theatre going, "WOW! That was some flick..." Even the blockbusters seem extremely formulaic and even visually they do not stand out.

That is my biggest gripe with the films coming out of the West these days. I do not remember seeing an American or British film recently that has knocked me off my feet the way Pulp Fiction did and sadly Tarantino has also gone the Ritchie way. I think the problem here is that the directors these days are slaves of their images. So a Ram Gopal Verma (RGV) sticks to gangster and horror films which is the same with Tarantino and Ritchie. They do not seem to want to experiment with genres and styles, which is the one way they can keep their audience guessing. I doubt if RGV will ever make a musical like Rangeela. He is so wrapped up in the image of a director who makes realistic, gritty films 'exposing the underbelly' of life that a frothy, light musical from him seems as distant as a Pink Floyd reunion.

1 comments:

Meera Vijayann said...

you should really become a film critic yu geek.. really....