BackHollywood’s ‘The Founder’ stands out in a week with few options
Horror thriller 'The Bye Bye Man', directed by Stacy Title, is the other notable Hollywood release this week
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New Delhi: A wider release for Deepika Padukone’s Hollywood debut xXx: Return of Xander Cage and anticipation for the big clash between Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees and Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil next week have left viewers with few options at the movies this Friday.
Coffee with D, starring Sunil Grover, Zakir Husain, Dipannita Sharma and Anjana Sukhani, and directed by Vishal Mishra, is a brave satire on a dreaded don, but barely a successful one, says The Times Of India. It could have been a good film, but the undoing is its post-production. Let down by shoddy editing and a bad dubbing job where entire sentences are muted and out of sync, this is a story with potential that is ruined by poor execution that distracts you from the plot. Read more
Koimoi.com calls the film strictly avoidable, sure to disappoint the fans that Grover may have. Pulled down by a weak script and inane jokes, a lot of muted dialogues break the little flow the narrative has. Read more
For Hollywood fans, American biographical drama The Founder, starring Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch and directed by John Lee Hancock, comes to India this week. The Guardian calls it an absorbing and unexpectedly subtle movie about the genesis of the McDonald’s burger empire, its first act careful to show Kroc sympathetically and along the way, going into post-war entrepreneurial capitalism, innovation, corporate expansion and intellectual property rights. Keaton is never the cartoon bad guy, not even at the very end. His moonfaced openness makes him look like a giant, middle-aged baby, wide-eyed with optimism about the world. Read more
Hancock is not the ideal fit for the queasy mix of fascination, sympathy and discomfort that writer Robert Siegel brought to movies like The Wrestler and Big Fan, says A.V Club. The Founder is drier than either of those movies, which means it’s less funny but also has even less potential for sentiment. Hancock’s reputation suggests a polished straight shooter, perhaps a sort of Eastwood Lite, but here he doesn’t master the complexities of the material. The basic fundamentals of the movie are strong—the performances are solid, the story moves along—but Hancock never fully harnesses the visual and audio components to push the movie further. Read more
Horror thriller The Bye Bye Man, directed by Stacy Title and starring Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount and Cressida Bonas, is plenty generic, to the point where one could easily confuse its conceit for that of two dozen other one-weekend wonders, says A.V Club. But on top of the general hoariness, this is also an uncommonly, at times unbelievably, inept movie; from its acting to its script to most of its technical aspects, it feels barely fit for the big screen. The Bye Bye Man is so bad, in fact, that it retroactively improves the half-assed Hollywood horror that it’d be lucky to better resemble. Read more
The film is not a total disaster, admits The National. There are a couple of genuine jump-out-of-your-seat moments as the tension builds—unfortunately, they are punctuated by leaden dialogue and wooden performances all round. Title plays the whole thing with a straight face, which does the movie no favours, on top of a weak script, phoned-in performances, cheap effects and a poorly explained central mythology that leave viewers cold. Read more
In the south, Malayalam family drama Jomonte Suvisheshangal, directed by Sathyan Anthikkad and starring Dulquer Salmaan and Mukesh, is a delightful film rooted in reality with characters that cannot simply be classified as either black or white, says The Indian Express. Anthikad’s ability to extract convincing and charming performances from his actors is a major plus point. Read more
Firstpost is not as impressed, calling it a commonplace film that descends into predictability after an amusing first half. It is left to Dulquer Salmaan and Mukesh to rescue this overly thin film. The multiple award-winning director appears not to be resting on his laurels here, but on the safety net that is his lead cast. If you are not looking for great depth or originality, then this could perhaps be enough for you. Read more
Hindi film Majaz, starring Priyanshu Chatterjee and Rashmi Mishra and directed by Ravindra Singh, and Malayalam domestic drama Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol, directed by Jibu Jacob and starring Mohanlal and Meena, haven’t elicited any reviews yet.
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