Star Trek Into Darkness - Boldly going where we've been before

Movie - Star Trek Into Darkness
Year - 2013
Director - J. J. Abrams
Starring - Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Anton Yelchin (Chekov), Karl Urban (McCoy), Simon Pegg (Scott), John Cho (Sulu), Benedict Cumberlatch

I am an American, albeit a disillusioned one.  My immigration and acculturation ended decades ago, when I learned the hard way about the values of honesty, integrity and loyalty that once made this country operate.  And, putting it all into perspective, making it practical, was the original Star Trek series.

Only 78 episodes were made, but they institutionalized and popularized the American ideal as envisioned by Gene Roddenberry.  His America was not one of social engineering, oligopoly and global warfare.  Rather, it was rooted in the ideas that Americanism could take the lead in a global partnership, one in which values, not products, spread the cause of democracy.  Such a cause, Roddenberry believed, would pave the way to space exploration and perhaps, a galaxy-wide partnership, the United Federation of Planets.

In a post 9/11 world of war and social engineering, such an America seems like a pipe dream.  But, I could still observe it in the conversations of imaginative young men who continued to mimic their heroes as they walked out of the theater, lost in thought about the romance and adventure that were brought to their heart and mind in Star Trek Into Darkness.

The sequel to the reboot is an expansion to the previous film and a proper homage to the original series.  The characters are now given room to come to their full potential, fulfilling the wish of die-hard trekkies that the original series, despite all its faults, could continue as The Flagship for what the Star Trek Universe is all about.

Just like the old series, the flaws are found as much in the characters as in the over the top sets.  Kirk is still a chauvinistic womanizer, Spock a supercilious schizophrenic, McCoy a cynical homespun philosopher and Scotty a swaggering sailor.  But, it is in their inevitable human foible that the once clear message of Americanism is brought to fore.  Humanity can boldly progress and challenge itself without losing the basic sense of what it means to be simply human - American "joes" - applying homespun American pragmatism to address the complex issues of the Universe. Into Darkness offers tears, humor and thrills in a setting that is all too familiar to those of us who grew up on the series.  It is action-packed adventure that is sure to make children hop with excitement and expat adults wonder at the future of technology.

And somewhere, a disillusioned American or two will offer a prayer of hope.

Mohan's Measure - * * * *

Main Krishna Hoon - Flaunting the Flautist

Movie - Main Krishna Hoon
Year - 2013
Director - Rajiv S. Rula
Starring - Juhi Chawla, Paresh Ganatra, Namit Shah...and The Charming Butter Thief


Movie - Main Krishna Hoon
Year - 2013
Director - Rajiv S. Rula
Starring - Juhi Chawla, Paresh Ganatra, Namit Shah...and The Charming Butter Thief

Suburban expats, take your children out of the room.  I am about to use the "f" word.  Everyone ready? Faith!  That's right; faith.  It's one of those American words that you've had to grow accustomed to for the sake of alleviating the concerns of your religious boss.  The word means something about believing in a Higher Being Who is kind and merciful. Believing in him make people do such "horrible" things as being kind to each other.  It puts warped ideas into our heads like how evil is not natural to the human condition, bad guys ultimately lose to good; and the most horrifying of all - that teaching your kids love is better than enrolling them in Tae Kwon Do.

Disturbing though the movie will be for assimilating parents, Main Hoon Krishna is a movie for kids by kids about kids starring someone who loves kids.  The former Miss India, Juhi Chawla, trades in her once glamorous self to play a cute and perky spinster running a foster care center out of her home.  Among her host of mite-sized residents is a boy named Krishna, who is found as a lost baby in the flooding streets of an utopian Gujarati city.  The likeness to his Divine Namesake is alluded to on several occasions; and so the orphan invokes Him in cheaply produced, computer-generated form.  Through their combined misadventures, the earthly Krishna goes from sickly abandoned child to overnight superstar, worthy of the company of a surprisingly conservative Katrina Kaif (would you like it if your child called her "didi"?), as well as Hrithik Roshan (the Almighty is also his fan) in a business suit.

The movie plays out like the Home Alone series - stupid bad guys are outsmarted by kids too smart for their age and are beaten up without bloodshed.  It is humorous, charmingly over the top and worth every minute of squirming in your seats, holding back your cynicism

Mohan's Measure - * * *

Moondru Per Moondru Kaadhal - love is a battlefield

Movie - Moondru Per Moondru Kaadhal

Year - 2013

Director - S. M. Vasanth

Starring - Lasini and Vimal, Surveen Chawla and Cheran, Arjun and Muktha Bhanu

Take three B rated actresses; pair them up with three middle aged also-ran actors; throw in lots of over the top of sentiment, and garnish in tragedy.  You have the recipe for schmaltz. 

Director Vasanth, who brought us non-traditional films as Rhythm and Satham Podathey maintains this style in MPMK, mixing known actors with first timers.  His use of a non-linear time line to weave together a love story in the future is very impressive.  But, it goes to excess.  Since the actresses are first timers, we soon find ourselves stuck on who is love with whom and when; what to speak of why??  

And, there are the stories themselves, in which love is seen as leading to inevitable tragedy and painful sacrifice. It feels like the director is trying to justify his own arranged marriage, or wanting to pontificate to his kids about the evils of "love marriage".  

But, it is really not love he shows, but nihilism; an almost masochistic desire to let things collapse, to destroy what could have been a could thing in so that one can prove love to the other in self-sacrificing acts and pity parties rivaling Charlie Brown.

It is a good thing that Cheran and Arjun are a continuing losing streak.  Even if this had been a B-grade Telugu film, no self-respecting hero would have dared take it on.

Take my well-intended advice, however, and skip this movie, even if there is a Telugu dubbing.

Mohan's Measure - *

The Thriller - without the "moonwalk"

Movie - The Thriller
Year - 2010
Director - B. Unnikrishnan
Starring - Prithviraj, Catherine Tresa Alexandar, Siddique, Lalu Alex, Sampath Raj

So, let's see...we have a tough, no-nonsense cop fighting the system; a femme fatale; a damsel in distress, the mafiosa, blah, blah, blah...

Sounds like the makings of an average Telugu film.  It's not;  The Thriller is a Malayalam film, with people speaking every other major language in India but Telugu.  Picture Dookudu or Pokiri without the hip hop, foreign  countries, lavish sets and the comedy relief.  What makes the story stand out above the rest, however, is that everything that happens in it is true to life.

Based on the controversial killing of a Kerala business man, The Thriller uses actual police investigative procedures to piece together and take apart a complex storyline.  Twists and turns lie everywhere, as the investigation mixes up with local street gangs, Bombay dons, and the Hawala Cartel, who have links to Al-Qaeda.

The story becomes so complex, you begin to feel as if Kevin Spacey is narrating it.  But, as tightly as it winds, it unravels very fast, to reveal just how corrupt India is, and just how tough it is to be an honest guy in its viciously amoral system.

As for the acting, Prithviraj had probably used this movie to prepare for his role in Ravanan.  And the senior staff just aren't as convincing as Nasser, Sarath Kumar, or Prakash Raj.  But watch for Tamil actor Sampath Raj in a small but pivotal as a Tamil Dubai mobster representing the Cartel.

Mohan's Measure - * * * * *

Moondru Mudichu - Gordian Knots

Movie - Moondru Mudichu
Year - 1977
Director -  K Balachander
Starring - Rajnikanth, Sridevi, Kamal Hasan, Calcutta Viswanathan, Y Vijaya


I was invited to have coffee with a suburban expat the other day.  I reluctantly met with him in a coffee shop located in my largely ethnic, multicultural neighborhood, and found myself caught in a philosophical discussion on morality.  Frankly, I do not know what happened to Madras when it became Chennai.  But, what I can tell you is that the expat settlers of the burbs have come to the consensus that teaching your kids Thirukkural can and should be easily traded in for driving them - in a larger than necessary SUV - to Tae Kwon Do.

K. Balachander's masterpiece, Moondru Mudichu is stark reminder of what we have forgotten; that what you do, what you are is a far greater measure of success than what you earn.   Staying ahead of your conscience is far more important than keeping up with the IPhone.

Call it your conscience, call it God, or call it what careworn American men simply call the Code.  Whatever it is, it will catch you, to eke punishment for not listening; punishment which ranges anywhere from humiliation to death.

For Prasad, the ending proves far too kind for his horrific crimes.  Rajnikanth portrays him with so much conviction, I actually found myself hating my hero, and chuckling with delight as he is slowly tortured by his beautiful nemesis.

The nemesis is Selvi, played by Sridevi, who at first comes across so much like the teenage girl that she was at the time, she actually looks plain-jane.  She is awkward, dorky, the kind of girl you'd have a crush on in junior high school but wouldn't admit to because your friends would laugh at you.

This is exactly what Prasad does when he sees his "thAyru sAdam" roommate, Balaji, played to skinny imperfection by Kamal Hasan, attempting to romance her.   It is hard to believe the pompous movie icon was once just an emaciated, cheesy-mustached, sexually insecure Brahmin boy like the rest of us.  The relationship between he and Sridevi is more non-verbal flirtation than physical desire, and we can only feel refreshed by the innocence of it.  But it is that innocence, that look of prey, which brings out the truth about what every suburban parent thinks is a perfect son.  With Hitchcockian precision, we see Prasad tracking her with his eyes, smoking cigarettes in frustration, circling her, waiting for just the right moment.  And in the hunt, there is always room for some collateral damage.

But a girl can only stay a girl for so long. Selvi finds both strength and true love in making decisions that would bring her beauty and dignity in newly discovered woman-hood; and along with it, the perfect setting for revenge.  While all the while, Conscience laughs...

Mohan's Measure - * * * * *

Iron Man 3 - three's a crowd

Movie - Iron Man 3
Year - 2013
Director - Shane Black
Starring - Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Ben Kingsley


Man creates his own demons; forged by his desire, tempered by his experience.  But, rather than dealing with them, together, we build cocoons; cocoons built by misguided passions - money, power, techy toys, alcohol, whatever it is that makes us hide from ourselves.

In what is the last, and what I believe is the best of the trilogy, Iron Man 3 pits Tony Stark against his most dreaded enemy...himself.  Shell-shocked by the wormhole attacks from The Avengers, Mr. Stark spends long, sleepless nights tinkering with his increasing collection of Iron Man suits.  We are presented with a man who has seemingly forgotten how to be human.  Obsessed with his world of artificial intelligence, he creates a wall between himself and his beautiful girlfriend, the only person in the world who can bring out that humanity he so desperately needs.
But enemies await, those we are painfully aware of but stubbornly refuse to acknowledge.  Mr. Stark makes the same mistake, to the point that everything he built, everything he amassed, everything associated with his false identity, and those who can help him find his real self, come crashing to the ground in one fell swoop.
To win them back, he must learn to survive without them.  In doing so, he discovers what is worth fignting for, and what he must discard. It is a coming of age story, about a man who refused to grow up, and discovering only too late, that he had to.

The movie theater is sure to be filled with wide-eyed kids squealing with excitement at the special effects and explosions.  Still others will enjoy the usual cynical, supercilious humor that we have come to understand as being a significant part of a superhero's image.  But, I hope some will read between the lines, read into director's mind, and be inspired by a vision of life as it should be.

Mohan's Measure - * * * *

Dhund - fog, twead and murder

Movie - Dhund
Year - 1973
Director - B R Chopra
Starring - Sanjay Khan, Zeenat Aman, Naveen Nischol

As is with much of film noir, Dhund is through and through a director's film. It's not so much about the acting, but how, when and where to bring in and exit actors. It is an arch-tectonic style perfected by the Maestro, and very much copied by the noted B R Chopra to make this tense and tightly woven thriller.

Based on Agatha Christie's The Unexpected Visitor, Dhund tells the tale of a stranger who happens along just seconds after a wheel-chair bound man has been murdered, with his wife holding the gun. Not to let the opportunity to offer aid to a beautiful and seemingly lomely woman, the stranger decides to help her out by restaging the murder such that it looks like a robbery/accidental shooting. I doing so, he becomes a pivotal witness to a complex investigation that includes a search into the victim's sadism, the lonely and strikingly beautiful woman who becomes his pawn, and a lover who desperately wants to rescue her. What I've just said, however, has nothing to do with what actually happened.

Among the actors, I was most impressed with Ms. Aman's performance. She is the ideal femme fatale, a lonely victim to a sadistic man at one moment, a conniving conspirator the next. All along she maintains an air of mystery and etherealness which is almost ghostly, much like the fog that makes a constant presence in the story.

Foggy to me, however, was how a synthesized version of the theme from Shaft made up the background. The police inspector was more Claude Rains than Richard Roundtree. But, this slight cultural conflict is easily made up for by brilliant direction and well thought out, wonderfully understated acting.

Mohan's Measure -  * * * * *