Friday, January 27, 2012

Tower Heist, Moneyball, Point Blank & Drive

mooooooooooooovviiiiiieess!

retrenched staff got their revenge by robbing their ex-boss in ‘tower heist’. poor team versus rich team in the game of baseball in ‘moneyball’. non-stop action french movie about being on the run in ‘point blank’, and an excruciatingly slow movie disguising as an action movie about a heist gone wrong in ‘drive’. 

ready?

 

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think ‘fun with dick and jane’, and you kinda know what this movie is about. ‘fun with dick and jane’ starring jim carey and tea leoni (who is also in ‘tower heist’) is about normal everyday good guy forced into robbing people because of pressing money situation caused by his former boss. well, that’s what ‘tower heist’ is about too – a group of loyal, well-performing employees were forced into robbing their own boss for embezzling their pension money.

just like the movie poster tagline says – ‘ordinary guys. extraordinary robbery’.

it’s a power-house cast, with the awesomely funny otai eddie murphy, matthew broderick, casey affleck and helming the bunch is funnyman ben stiller whose movies have uniquely diverse storyline. expect a lot of jokes, and good acting. i didn’t know the exact line-up for this movie so i was pleasantly surprised to see oscar nominee gabourey sidibe in this, as the adorable safe-cracking expert.

there’s a commendable amount of action in this movie, a lot of heart too, and balls of laughter. the twist in the end is unpredictable, so that’s a real plus. a really enjoyable movie, recommended to those who miss wise-cracking eddie murphy in a role made for him. enjoy.

 

 

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first up, i don’t know baseball, so i wasn’t enjoying the movie as much as i wanted to. let me explain.

the movie is about the manager of a poor baseball team oakland a, brad pitt as real-life billy beane – they don’t have the money to get the best player who are so expensive. but then with the help of rookie peter brand (played brilliantly by jonah hill) they devise a computer-generated analysis to draft the players they need in order to win. this means, they can find out that they don’t necessarily NEED the best player, just a good player in the section that they need to work on.

tak paham? me neither. this is where the movie lost me. i just don’t understand the calculations that they do, and the baseball jargons they use to come up with the calculations. heck, i don’t even know how they win a baseball game to begin with!

so the only thing i can appreciate in this movie is the awesome chemistry between my beloved brad pitt (who is as sexy and handsome as ever in this movie, even though age is catching up and he looks so wrinkly in certain shots – and looking like robert redford too!) and jonah hill – they’re great together.

and of course, nobody will forget the daughter of brad pitt’s character – and the song she sang on guitar. beautiful. even brad pitt exclusively mentioned this on his interview with ellen degeneres.

the concept of this computer-generated analysis led to constant change of players all the time, so there’s no time for viewers to relate to the character of the players. as a result, their win or losses in the movie wasn’t so touching like watching ‘remember the titans’ or ‘coach carter’.

watch only if you’re a fan of baseball. and brad pitt.

 

 

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mr. khairul loves looking out for a good foreign-language movies, and he has found a number of gems which became his favorites; like the spanish ‘amores perros’, korean ‘the old boy’, german ‘the wave’, uae’s ‘city of life’ and hindi ‘my name is khan’.

he also found this non-stop action french movie called ‘point blank’. simple storyline, great execution of the action scenes. when i say this is a NON-STOP action movie, it’s not just a line in my review. it really IS non-stop.

at a hospital, a male nurse saved a thief – and now the thief’s bro, and the people who is after the thief kidnapped the male nurse’s pregnant wife and held her hostage, until the male nurse can help the thief escape hospital and the police – who are ALSO chasing after the thief and the male nurse, believing him to be an accomplice to this whole thing.

and so began a heart-stopping chase scenes across streets of paris, running, chasing, trying to find his pregnant wife, plus with a great twist to the story. like i mentioned before – simple storyline, but the chase-scenes and near-escapes will leave you at the edge of your seat, wishing and hoping it will all turn out alright for the male nurse and his pregnant wife.

highly recommended.

 

 

the french poster of the movie

 

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oh, don’t bother reading this. this is a BAD movie! habih citer. for a movie called ‘drive’, this movie is so LEMBAB!

still here? ok lah, read on. i don’t know WHY on earth this movie receives so much praises, and people are even questioning why wasn’t ryan gossling nominated for an oscar for this movie – what? nominated for looking very dazed and uttering every sentence as if he’s just recovered from a hangover? no thanks!

i mean, he’s so cute and all, but not enough. na-ah.

wanna know why this movie is called DRIVE? because that’s the ONLY time this movie actually seems alive, seems interesting – only when there’s some sort of driving involved. mind you, this is NOT an action movie. it’s simply a movie about a heist gone wrong, and then for some reason, a lot of lembabness – the pace is SO SLOW! accept for the driving – get it – hence, the name of the movie. i think the pace was made to be so slow to juxtapose it with the fast driving.

and oh, if you’re gonna watch the trailer i added below here, you’ve actually seen the entire movie. this trailer should have a ‘spoiler alert’ to it. really. if you wanna watch a sexy, handsome, smooth-talker ryan gossling, you’re better off watching the funny ‘crazy stupid love’. he is SO HOT in that!

 

 

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still A LOT of movies to cover. now where’s my snack?

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