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Showing results for tags 'bollywood'.
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I came across Gunday (Outlaws) after reading an article about on FiveThirtyEight explaining why it is (currently) the lowest rated film on IMDb. (See article here: http://fivethirtyeig...-movie-on-imdb/) Right now, the movie sits at a rating of 1.7. The next lowest is Birdemic: Shock & Terror at 1.8. Basically, the film angered a very vocal group that felt the film misrepresented India's role in Bangladesh Liberation War (BLW). Through the magic of the Internet 40,000+ gave the film a "1" score on IMDb (and appear to have done a similar thing on Netflix where it's also rated "1-star"). I don't know much about the BLW or if the movie's representation of it is false or accurate, but judging the movie on it's own terms it is fantastic. The movie itself has little to do the with the BLW, as it it used mostly to introduce us to the two main characters: two spunky orphans who turn to crime to survive. After a murder, the boys hop a train to Calcutta and the real story begins. Cut ahead fourteen years and they've become the biggest, baddest, handsomest, shirtlessiest outlaws in Calcutta. Wanted by the law, loved by the public. Eventually, the "best cop in Calcutta" (play by Irfan Khan, one of the most famous Indian actors) is put on the case and is determined to bring the duo down. To add to the chaos, the two men fall in love with the same girl!! Will they get caught? Who will win the love of the beautiful cabaret dancer? To be fair, the story is pretty dumb, but for two and a half hours (yeah, it's a bit too long) feelings and shirts are thrown about and, in the end, lives are changed and lessons are learned. This movie has nearly every element a movie can have: crime, rags-to-riches, comedy, revenge, romance, action, melodrama and big, ridiculous musical numbers that Bollywood is known for. If it'd only had a ghost or a creature from some darkly-colored lagoon it'd truly have everything and would have been a ten-quadrant film. Gunday is great in much that same ways as Fast & Furious 5 & 6: they throw every thing in the film, race at 100-mph and take it completely seriously. Just like in those film it works wonderfully! Oh, and there's slow-mo running. So much slow-mo running! This movie is great!
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What if I told you that there was a blockbusting film series that was 10 times more incoherent than The Fast and the Furious, with underwater jetskis, international cat burglars who work as clowns during the day, police who fire indiscriminately into traffic from helicopter rope-ladders, and a lead actor who reportedly wore a bowler hat for a *year* before shooting in order to get into character? And it only took a couple weeks for it to become the highest grossing Indian movie of all time (domestically and abroad)...but you've probably never heard of it. This is Dhoom 3. I saw Dhoom 2 back in 2008 and it instantly became one of my favorite films. They both have high production value and good actors, but every 30 seconds something utterly insane occurs. It begins with a man skydiving onto Queen Elizabeth's train in the middle of the desert (?!) badly disguised himself as her, stealing the British crown and escaping via a sand-snowboard. That is actually a thing that happens within the first 5 minutes of a movie. The next 2 hours are a blur of stupid disguises, incoherent objectives, jetski battles, the former Miss India training to be a ninja-thief, people firing guns while flying through the air, local Mumbai policemen traveling to foreign countries to track down criminals...plus some song and dance numbers. It is insane. Dhoom 3, which came out in December, is even insaner and is actually set in *Chicago*โwhere it is clear that large sections of the city must have been shut down in order to film it. It features a villain who boasts about the fact that he is a clown by profession, endless crazy motorcycle chases, another character who is always described as "retarded" despite having absolutely no discernible mental disability other than shyness, action scenes clearly filmed in some of the same locations as the Dark Knight, someone *literally* being tied to railroad tracks, and no fewer than one baffling line of dialogue every 30 seconds. Oh, and everyone in Chicago speaks Hindi. It is nothing less than a full assault on your brain. These are the perfect HDTGM films: they are SO enjoyable while being completely baffling and ridiculous at every turn. Do this movie! Dhoom 2 is avalable on google play, netflix (dvd), and by, cough, searching for streaming links of it. There are so many clips on YouTube as well. Dhoom 3 is even crazier, but it probably won't be gettable for another month or two. But dear god, it's so worth it. Here is a clip of the greatest helicopter/rollerblade chase in movie history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ZiW3mCuE4