Movie Review

Rockstar

Not quite rock steady

TSI Five-O : All soul but little substance

Gen-X heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor – intense, passionate and raring to take wings – makes a believable enough rocker. Sadly, the cinematic vehicle designed to launch him into the stratosphere lacks the pace and propulsion needed for a successful take-off.

Director Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, the love story of a gauche suburban Delhi boy, who aspires to musical immortality a la his idol Jim Morrison, starts on a lively note and then loses its way into labyrinths of its own making.

The male protagonist, Janardan Jakhar, JJ to his friends, is a man obsessed. Just a little prodding from a well-meaning adviser sends him on an awkward quest for love and heartbreak. True creativity, he is told, can be fuelled only by tragedy and pain.

JJ finds much more than what he’s bargained for – a wealthy, pretty and spunky Kashmiri lass, Heer (debutante Nargis Fakhri). She’s ready for a walk on the wild side: she has no qualms about indulging in unlady-like escapades, for her spinster days are about to end.

'Rockstar has a sustained textural sheen, thanks to Anil Mehta’s wonderful cinematography. The film’s soundtrack well and truly rocks. AR Rahman rustles up a remarkable range of sounds that embrace the Sufi and the Slavic, the peppy and the soulful, the earthy and the eclectic, in one magical sweep.

Director Ali, on his part, gives us a musical love story that eschews the conventional structure of a Bollywood genre film, and explores narrative terrains that have rarely been charted in the mainstream Hindi cinema space.

Yet, despite its generally commendable intentions, Rockstar careens out of control in the second half. It strings together a muddled montage featuring a renegade pursuing his now married sweetheart across two continents when he is not strumming his mean guitar or turning upon prying journalists. Rockstar has a lot of soul but not enough substance.                 

Saibal Chatterjee

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn

The Misadventures of Tintin in the world of motion capture

TSI Five-O: A great animation film, but it fails to reignite the glory of the comic books.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn is the first Hollywood production of the beloved character, which has been a part of many children's lives across the world. Even though the film has been directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, it has not completely portrayed the magic which Herge had cast with his ink. The film is a decent work of animation, but has failed to lift the film to the iconic status it deserves.

The main reason for the film to not be steeped in that wry humanity and neat satire, which all of the Tintin comics are known for, was the usage of performance capture; resulting in Tintin looking monotonous and bland compared to the heart-warming reporter on paper.

Even Thomson and Thompson disappointed. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, as the comic twins, failed to provide the bungling and slapstick comedy of the inept sleuths, though once again due to no fault of their own.

Only Andy Serkis, a motion capture veteran, gave us the closest peak into Herge's brilliance as his Captain Haddock was the only character who was full-blooded and breathed life into every scene.

The film's plot is not so bad as it is a mishmash of Secret of the Unicorn and The Crab With The Golden Claws, with dashes of Red Rackham’s Treasure and other Hergé works thrown in. As a fun and friendly, whole family adventure romp, it works great.

Steven Spielberg came to know about Tintin when a French critic called the first Indiana Jones film an obvious homage to it. Herge himself had said that if anyone was capable of bringing Tintin to the large screen it was Spielberg.
That might be true but this film isn't it. 

Ishan Raychaudhuri