Monday 22 July 2013

Miami Vice (2006)


Miami Vice is really one of those movies that I really looked forward to watching for a long time. I bought the DVD but I kept stalling and stalling. But I forced myself to watch it today, which was....a mistake *sigh*. Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell, Miami, drug busts, and flashy sports cars. What could go wrong? Well, my hopes for a great movie crash landed and burned so badly that I could feel the heat in my insides. It ruined my day, yes it was that bad. The plot tells us the story of two Miami police detectives who go undercover as drug smugglers in order to combat drug trafficking. What sounds like a potentially good plot is in fact killed by some horrible acting, bad camerawork, and an awful romantic sub-plot.

I never watched the series from the 80's, but I'm not here to compare. Now, was this movie shot with a camcorder bought form amazon.com? Or a mobile camera, hmmm. It sure felt like it. Although they were using a Digital Movie Camera, which captures movies as digital images, it just failed badly in my opinion.Why didn't they just use a normal movie camera, that would've worked. The camerawork is so bad. It doesn't even feel like a proper motion picture, I honestly felt like I was watching an undercover drug bust documentary on The National Geographic Channel, seriously. Miami Vice had a budget of over 100 million Dollars, and they didn't have the decency to employ a proper cameraman?

Gong Li, the lady that portrayed Isabella, just pissed me off so badly. She was horrendous. She projects no emotion when talking. She was like a robot, just reciting what she read in the script, no emotion, no change of tone, just the same rhythm throughout the movie. It doesn't feel natural, it feels like its been recorded and she was just lip syncing. The romantic sub-plot with her and Sonny (Colin Farrell) was catastrophic. There was barely any chemistry between the two characters.

Nope, It just didn't work.

There are a few good points about the movie though. For instance the chemistry between Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell was actually pretty decent. And I really enjoyed the bittersweet ending, because I didn't see that coming. I always thought that it would be a happy ending. But seriously, Don't watch the movie. Unless you're REALLY bored. Its totally not worth wasting your time on. I was shocked, I never expected it to be that bad.

"I'm a disco guy"
Ahmed 

Sunday 21 July 2013

Disordered (Short Film Review)

Disordered is a short 10 minute film that was featured in a competition amongst two other films in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The films were shown in the largest cinema in the country (I'm talking huge here), in which they were judged by a panel of three theater experts. The story is about a gangster who's wife was murdered, in his quest to find the killer, he starts to question reality from fantasy, hence the title: "Disordered".

I actually just got the chance to watch Disordered now, Its been like five minutes since I finished watching it. Just to get this out of the way, although my cousin is the main actor in this film, I am not letting this fact influence my opinion on the movie. Now that that's clear, let's get this show on the road shall we?

Ok so the movie starts out and I immediately get the impression that something bad is gonna happen, which is good because anticipation induces suspense, I liked that. I'll be honest, I clapped when my cousin said his first lines. It's definitely not lacking intensity, I mean throughout the 10 minutes, I actually was kinda biting my nails. The music, although a bit too loud, complemented the movie really well. The acting was convincing. The last scene in the movie was intense, and overall it was not that bad a movie actually. For a short film, the character development for the main character, Al Bash (Hassan Ahmed), wasn't detailed, but it was satisfying.

Now we move on to the negative points. I didn't like the dialogue in the movie, I felt like it was something that they just read and recited, it didn't feel natural, there wasn't much emotion. The ending, although containing a twist, disappointed me; it was very abrupt, and not in a good way. Moreover, the film did have some acting "errors" if I may say so. Like the smile in the final scene, although I would've just overlooked it, but you never know when mistakes can be repeated.

But let's not forget, this is a first time effort, and I'm impressed. The directing and editing were fantastic. I'm really happy with the outcome, I just wanna say to the team that made the movie, Bravo. I mean you did a good job. It's not easy to make a movie, trust me it's not a walk in the park. So I hope you take my points to heart, because without criticism, you can never learn.  Good luck in any future projects.

"Ain't nothing, but a thang"
Ahmed 

Monday 15 July 2013

Training Day (2001)



I honestly lost count of how many times I watched this movie, it's actually pretty ridiculous because every time I watch it I feel like it's my first time seeing it. It's one of those movies that you just can't get enough of. After watching this film, my respect and admiration for both Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington reached sky high. The story is basically about a man named Jake (Ethan Hawke) being evaluated by a respected narcotics detective Alonso Harris (Denzel Washington) throughout a 24 hour period. as the story unfolds, we find out that in order to be a narcotics officer, you need to bend some rules, and we also discover a dark secret about Alonso.

What I admired about this move is that, unlike many other films, it depicts L.A  in a way that's I felt was always hidden in films. It shows the real L.A that people know, not the one that's mostly depicted in films, and I respected that very much. I think there is no doubt that the real star in this movie is most definitely Denzel Washington. That guy impressed the hell out of me, his acting was right on point and he made it look so natural and smooth, you'd think that he'd actually been a narcotics officer before. Everything from his body language, his style of talking, all the way up to the way he dresses. In fact he nailed the part so well that he got an Academy Award for Best Actor, you can't argue with that. What I also liked about his character was the fact that you never know if he was good or bad until the end, you can never tell, and to be honest not many people can pull that off as convincingly as he did in my opinion.

Ethan Hawke also did a fantastic job portraying Jake, in fact he did such a brilliant job that he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The soundtrack was pretty awesome, the setting was on point, the story was intriguing, and the cast was fantastic. I definitely recommend this movie because it's one of those movie that you just have to watch without any excuse. Trust me you won't be disappointed.

"Do you wanna go home or do you wanna go to jail?"
Ahmed