Mystic River (2003)

Sean: So Jimmy, when was the last time you saw Dave?
Jimmy: Dave Boyle...
Sean: Yeah Jimmy, Dave Boyle.
Jimmy: That was twenty-five years ago, going up this street, in the back of that car.
.....
Sean: Sometimes I think all three of us got in that car......Reality is we're just 11-year old boys still locked in that car imagining what life would have been if we'd escaped.
Jimmy: Maybe you're right. Who the fuck knows?

Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) is the dead man walking and he has never explained to anyone what happened to him in the cell when he was captured by two guys who were posing as cops. He comes back home, but he is just "damaged goods" and things are going to be very different. 25 years later, when Katie (Emmy Rossum) turns up dead in the woods, the three lost boys - Dave, Sean and Jimmy - are reunited again in very different circumstances that'd not make them call each other "friends" anymore. Jimmy (Sean Penn) is the father of the victim, Sean (Kevin Bacon) is the detective investigating the case and Dave is one of the guys who saw Katie last in a bar, and hence a suspect.

When Jimmy's thug friends start an investigation by themselves, even they sense something's not quite right about Dave. Who better to turn out as a pedophile or the killer of a 19-year old girl than a guy who has himself been a victim of child abuse and has so many secrets that his "mind doesn't work right anymore". Even though Sean can see it too, he doesn't want to believe it could be Dave and seems bent on redirecting the investigation towards Brendan (Tom Guiry), Katie's boyfriend. Somewhere in the mind of Sean lies the guilt of what he thinks he could have probably stopped from happening 25 years back. If only....

Clint Eastwood's Mystic River is as much a crime thriller as it is a drama centered on the lives of three kids from the same neighborhood brooding over lost innocence. While Dave relates to the werewolves and the vampires that he watches on TV to find meaning for what stirs inside him, we only get to know in the end what exactly he was trying to say all the time and never found anyone who'd understand. If only....

Rating: 8/10

Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)

Carl [to Hachi]: Look, you don't have to wait anymore. He's not coming back.

Long time back when I was a kid, I had read a story in  the Around The World section of Times of India about a dog who never moved from the place where his master had left him even after 8 years. I immediately thought if this was the story. However, the incident on which this story is based actually happened in the late 1920s.

Parker Wilson (Richard Gere) is a Music professor who finds an abandoned puppy at the station when he is on his way back home. As there are no takers and he doesn't feel comfortable leaving him all alone, Parker takes him home temporarily until the rightful owners reach out to him. As days pass, no one comes to take Hachi back. As Parker's wife, Cate (Joan Allen), seems hesitant in adopting the dog, she also realizes the bond formed between her husband and Hachi  is unbreakable and she doesn't want to play spoilsport. As Hachi grows older, he follows Parker to work and then keeps waiting at the same place at the Bedridge Station to take him back home. Until one day when tragedy strikes.....

Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, Hachi is a heartbreaking story of a dog's devotion towards his master. It's a must-watch for all dog-lovers, and also for the ones who seem to prefer the company of cats. 'Cause the latter would never be able to come up with such a true story. It's a beautiful tribute to undying love and friendship. Be sure to have a few tissues around while you watch this.

Rating: 8/10

Caché (2005)

Georges: Know what, you're sick. You're sick like your father. I don't know what dumb obsessions he fed you. But I can tell you this...you'll never give me a bad conscience because your father's life was sad or a failure. I'm not to blame. Do you get that? If you ever try to hurt me or my family, you'll regret it. I can guarantee that.
Majid's son: Ah, yes. Threats...you're very good at those.
Georges: Do you expect me to apologize?
Majid's son: To whom? Me?
Georges: So what more do you want?
Majid's son: Nothing anymore. I wondered how it feels, a man's life on your conscience. That's all. Now I know.

Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) is a TV book show host who has a successful and a happily married life. Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche) is his equally successful wife and they have a teenager kid, Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). What could be the story of the perfect family is interrupted after the couple start receiving video tapes to let them know they are being watched. As we move further and the plot thickens, we see those are not just surveillance tapes but they are also linked to Georges' childhood.

When Georges takes a trip back to his childhood days, he feels haunted by the thoughts of how he had wronged Majid, the adopted son of his parents. Having initially kept that part of his childhood from his wife, Georges is confronted by Anne when another tape arrives that has recorded the conversation between him and Majid (Maurice Benichou). Even though Georges is convinced Majid is out to take revenge, a look at the tapes and the behavior of Majid suggests nothing along those lines. When Anne isn't so sure about Majid's involvement and feels that Georges must have done something to rob Majid of his childhood, cracks appear in their marriage and also in their relationship with their son.

The movie's ending is highly debatable and the million dollar question remains who sent those tapes. Although just viewing it as a story on domestic trouble wouldn't give one enough reasons to sing praises of it, there are quite a few interesting explanations that only the French would know in more detail. One such explanation being that it talks about the history of the French-Arab relations in the country and how the wrongs once committed by the French are now coming back to haunt the country. Chickens coming home to roost? Well, I'm not sure if the chicken scene is itself a form of symbolism, but this explanation definitely sounds plausible. And as explained by one comment, the last scene showing a crowd of people is symbolically asking the viewers to look through the "noise" and concentrate on the details. And when you do, you get the message - Trust no one. The last part being just my interpretation and I'd love to discuss/argue my point on this.

Depending on what actually was the intention of the director, Michael Haneke, this could be pure genius....or not.

Rating - 7.5/10

Barfly (1987)

Wanda: Don't you hate cops?
Chinaski: No, but I seem to feel better when they're not around....I just wanna thank you for your hospitality
Wanda: Just one thing - I don't wanna fall in love. I don't wanna go through that. I can't.
Chinaski: Hey, don't worry. Nobody has ever loved me, yet.

Henry Chinaski (Mickey Rourke) is an unemployed alcoholic who doesn't want to fit in and "be somebody". He drinks in the morning when he gets up and then he drinks a little more. And then he frequents the bar where he loves to piss off the bartender, Eddie. He gets into a fight with Eddie every night where all the people in the bar love watching him beaten to a pulp. And then he gets up and has one last drink before crashing at his place. That's one day in the life of Henry Chinaski.

Enter Wanda (Faye Dunaway). She's a drunk, but not someone who'd fall to the depths that Chinaski does. No one sits besides her in the bar because she's known to be "crazy". When Wanda knows Chinaski has no money, she invites him to her place. Although they bond well, Wanda warns Chinaski she would always leave him if another man offers her a drink. When a publisher by the name of Tully (Alice Krige), a woman from the wealthier side of the town, offers Chinaski a contract for his beautiful prose and beds with him, Chinaski has to choose between the two women.

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead"

Barfly is a comedy/drama, directed by Barbet Schroeder, based on the short stories of Charles Bukowski. The central character is an autobiographical account of the author himself and it amazes to know that such a character could actually exist. Somebody had commented on IMDB.com something like, "I can't explain how much I liked this movie". To which a few people had replied how they exactly understood the character and how it feels to be a drunk like him. A friend had suggested the author, Charles Bukowski and was sure I'd like his writings. And this movie was among the top contenders in a list of movies on self-destruction. Combining these three factors, I had to watch the movie. And now that I have, I can't say "I get it". Although I'd agree to a lot of his rants on society, people, conventions, etc., the character's walk and his speech style (mimicking the ways of the author himself), much to my annoyance, reminded me of a batch-mate during my undergrad days! Only if I didn't have to see that walk, I could have said good things about the movie. No doubt the conversations between Chinaski and Wanda are very amusing, and his convictions about society (specially the classic dialogue -"Sometimes I just get tired of thinking of all the things that I don't wanna do. All the things that I don't wanna be. Places I don't wanna go, like India, like getting my teeth cleaned. Save the whale, all that, I don't understand that.") would make you question your own assumptions on who we are. Chinaski is the champion of all those who the rest would call as "losers".

The moments of brilliance in regards to the dialogues are thrown around in a random fashion - just like the trajectory of a drunkard. I'm not sure if it was intentional. I guess Mickey Rourke did such a great job of enacting the character of Chinaski that I went down a road I didn't want to visit. Or may be not. I really wouldn't know.

Rating: 6.5/10

The Edge Of Heaven (2007)

Nejat: God wanted to put Ibrahim's faith to the test, so he ordered him to sacrifice his son. Ibrahim took his son, Ismail, to the sacrificial mount. But just as he was about to kill him, his knife went blunt. God was satisfied and sent a sheep in place of his son. 
Susanne: We have the same story.
Nejat: I asked my dad if he would have sacrificed me too. I was afraid of this story as a child.
Susanne: And what did he say?
Nejat: That he would even make an enemy of God to protect me.

Nejat Aksu (Baki Davrak) is a Turkish immigrant in Germany who teaches German literature at a university and stays with his father, Ali (Tunsel Kurtiz). While Nejat is a shy guy, Ali frequents the streets for prostitutes and falls for a Turkish prostitute, Yeter (Nursel Kose). Ali offers Yeter to live with him forever and promises he'd pay her whatever she makes in her profession in exchange for her loyalty. While Nejat doesn't really approve of the arrangement, he adjusts after meeting Yeter and acquiesces for his father's wishes. After a certain turn of events in the first part (which is called "Yeter's Death"), Yeter dies in an accident.

The second part of the movie is named "Lotte's death". Nejat pays a visit to Istanbul to search for Yeter's daughter, Ayten (Nurgul Yesilcay), to whom Yeter always sent money for her tuition. As none of Yeter's family members know about Ayten's whereabouts, they do not even have a recent picture of her. Meanwhile we see Ayten as a member of an activist group that violently protests against the regime in Turkey. As she narrowly escapes getting caught by the police, she moves to Germany to search for her mother. While she visits a university campus to look for the cheapest food available, she happens to meet Lotte Staub (Patrycia Ziolkowska), who is sympathetic to her cause and befriends Ayten while feeling she finally has a "purpose in life". Again after a dramatic turn of events, we witness Lotte's death in the strangest of circumstances.

The third part of the movie is called "Edge of Heaven". When Lotte's mother Susanne (Hannah Schygulla) visits Turkey to collect her daughter's body, she meets Nejat, in whose house Lotte was a short-term tenant. As Nejat and Susanne go over the events that brought them together, they both find a strange kind of inner peace instead of the anger that is so common when someone close is taken away in very unusual circumstances. The movie also depicts the longing for a place that one can call "home" while each of the characters is dealing with whatever life throws at him/her. The acting by the whole cast seems very natural while the friendship between Lotte and Ayten really stands out. This is the second movie of Faith Akin (director of Head-On) that I've watched and this again deals with people with divided identities in both Germany and Turkey, similar to that in Head-On.

Rating: 7/10

Another Earth (2011)

Rhoda: When early explorers first set out West across the Atlantic, most people thought the world was flat. Most people thought if you sailed far enough West, you would drop off a plane into nothing. Those vessels sailing out into the unknown, they weren't carrying noblemen or aristocrats, artists or merchants. They were crewed by people living on the edge of life: the madmen, orphans, ex-convicts, outcasts like myself. As a felon, I'm an unlikely candidate for most things. But perhaps not for this. Perhaps I am the most likely.

Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling) is a 17-year-old astrophysics student who has just been accepted into MIT and parties with friends to celebrate the occasion. As she drives back home drunk and stares at the sky, she gets involved in a tragic car accident in which she kills a pregnant woman and her son while leaving the woman's husband, John Borroughs (William Mapother) in a coma. After serving time, she returns back four years later and takes up a low-skilled job as a cleaner at a school - probably as a punishment unto herself and a reminder for what she had done.

In the meantime, a replica of our Earth has mysteriously appeared and it is believed that when both the Earths became visible to each other, the synchronicity of the lives of people on each planet broke. It was Earth 2 that Rhoda would have been staring at the time of her accident. Which means that what happened on our Earth might not have occurred on Earth 2. As she tries to make amends and goes up to the music professor John Borroughs to apologize, she doesn't find the strength anymore and concocts a story to enter his life. John Borroughs, having survived the tragedy, has turned into a bitter and a self-pitying person. As she enters his life, it leads to a heartening intimacy between the two. At the same time, when there's an essay contest for people to provide a reason as to why they should be provided an opportunity to travel to Earth 2, Rhoda writes a touching essay that wins her the escape she has been looking for ever since.

The movie is mostly a drama with a touch of science-fiction element in it. The ending of the story has various interpretations. The most obvious one seemed to me was when Rhoda gives up her privilege to allow John to make the trip where he could explore the possibility of being with his family again, she is assured by the visit of the other Rhoda from Earth 2 that everything was fine over there. The other Rhoda, as we see, has gone on the right path and has become more successful. There are quite a few other fascinating explanations out there and I feel even the director, Mike Cahill, has intentionally left the ending open to interpretations. The portrayal by both Brit Marling and William Mapother as damaged survivors of a tragedy  is excellent, and the story by Mike Cahill (and co-author Brit Marling herself) does well to keep the focus on the emotional drama than on the science-fiction. From what I feel, there isn't actually a science-fiction part to it, and Earth 2 is only a metaphor to refrain people from acts of despair when things don't go their way. Overall, a good one-time watch.

Rating: 7/10

Disconnect (2012)

Mike: Frye, do I look stupid to you? The way I look to Jason? Are you gonna tell me what you're doing in my office?
Frye: It was supposed to be a joke.
Mike: [to Jason] Now you shut up! [to Frye]: What did you say?
Frye: We were just trying to mess with him. It was supposed to be a joke. We didn't think he'd hurt himself.
Mike: What? Who were you messing with? Are you talking about that Boyd kid? You had something to do with that?
Jason: Yes
Mike: You wanna fuck with somebody, you do it to their face. You hear me tough guy?
Jason: Yeah, like you?
Mike: Like me? This is bad. You're in big trouble.
Jason: I'm sorry
Mike: You're sorry because I caught you or you're sorry because there's a father wondering if his son will ever wake up?

Ben (Jonah Bobo) is a school kid with no friends and he finds solace in his music until he is befriended by a Jessica Rhony, another lonely school kid with a similar taste in music and who seems to understand Ben. As Ben pours his heart out about his father, Rich Boyd (Jason Bateman), who thinks "music is a joke", Jessica starts to get intimate with Ben. There's just one catch. Everything happens online and Jessica is just a fake profile created by Jason (Colin Ford) and Frye (Aviard Bernstein).

Derek (Alexander Skarsgard) is a former marine who works in an office "just pushing papers" and is afraid he is becoming just a tool. As his marriage with Cindy (Paula Patton) starts to dissolve after the death of his son, Cindy starts an online relationship with a profile named "fearandloathing" who listens to her when Derek isn't around. As they start to feel the heavy burden of their mortgages, Derek starts gambling online to support the family. As their credit cards get maxed out, an investigator, Mike Dixon (Frank Gillo), suggests it could be the work of "fearandloathing".

 Kyle (Max Thieriot) is a young kid who works for a group that uses kids for online adult cam shows. When Nina (Andrea Riseborough) gets to know about Kyle, she feels she has a story for the news agency she works with. When Nina convinces Kyle to interview without leaking his identity, she is rewarded, but only to be contacted by the FBI to give her source or lose her job. As she gets suspended indefinitely, Nina tries to help Kyle but manages only to push him further and further away as Kyle's loyalty to the group is on the line.

The stories of all these characters are interwoven in a way to make you sympathize for some at one time and disgust later. If Jason is the kid who abuses Ben's trust, he is also the kid who has lost his mother and there's constant tension with his dad, Mike. If Mike is the guy who helps Derek to trace the guy who misused his credit card, he is also the guy who deletes all evidence from Frye's iPad that'd have the kids indicted in Ben's unfortunate incident. As we watch Ben's mother (Hope Davis) and his sister stricken with grief, Rich Boyd gets more and more unstable while trying to get justice for his son.

Disconnect doesn't try to draw a moral line between right and wrong by expecting teenagers to understand the repercussions of online bullying nor does it expect a father to turn in his own son to do the right thing for another man's son. It leaves you thinking for a long time after taking you down a dark road and showing you what could happen. Director Henry Alex Rubin manages to fit in the melodramatic scenes in a way to make it look like a thriller while the haunting background score reminds you of just what it is about. Thanks to the excellent acting by the whole cast, you'll never find a dull moment in the movie. Jason Bateman deserves a mention for his excellent portrayal of a father who wishes he could have seen things coming and while trying to fight the world, knows he is also to blame. Alexander Skarsgard is also someone to watch out for, as this is the second movie that I have seen him in and he doesn't fail to amaze.

Somebody had suggested this movie should be required viewing for teenagers and for anyone who is trying to do something stupid, just do what the title suggests. I couldn't agree more.

Rating: 7.5/10