2021: Endgame

Now that the year will be coming to an end in another week, 'tis time to continue the saga of movie opinions. I'm laying down my summarized views of 2021 movies I saw between Aug-Dec 2021 (My take on 2001 Jan-Jul movies HERE).

Shershaah (Hindi, Amazon Prime) As a film, this biopic comes off all too formulaic and pat, with the shallow feel of an overlong army recruitment promo rather than the emotionally involving saga of a brave warrior.

#Home (Malayalam, Amazon Prime) Shallow as an ad-film for a retirement finance plan, yet stretching to a vegetative 160 min, this one wallows in blandness. Too many characters introduced without giving them enough to do. The actors are almost uniformly solid (Indrans shines as the mild mannered indulgent father), but the script foundations are too weak and shaky for this #home to stand up. Site review HERE

Bell Bottom (Hindi, Amazon Prime) While the bulk of Bell Bottom suffers from Akshaykumarism and all that the syndrome implies, it's actually less of a wince-fest than the other movies he has done in recent past. There are occasional sequences where the film springs to life, holding true to its 70's Bollywood hailing spirit. With an actor who has less of an off-screen agenda this could have been a significantly more entertaining movie.

Aarkkariyam (Malayalam, Amazon Prime) Aarkkariyam may be described as a moral mystery with a warm humanist streak. The film errs on the side of rambling, but it is avoids unnecessary dramatics or that dreadful habit of superfluous twists that destabilize the narrative. Beautiful writing and performances make it worth recommending at least as a once-watch. Site review HERE

Shang-Chi (English, Hotstar) Up to about halfways, Shang-Chi and the Something Something was fakking boring. Even after that it never achieves greatness but Ben Kingsley has fun and the climax (with its nods to Return of the Jedi's father-son lighsaber duel) generates sufficient enthusiasm to meet the threshold for a boilerplate marvel feature.

A Ghost Waits (English) While the movie (which mixes elements of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir with Beetlejuice) was pleasant, it was never more than that. There is a sweetness to the romance element, but I felt the makers should have put more bite into the scare and humor segments and not have them be so timid / perfunctory as to be nondescript. Decent as a one-time watch (I saw it on the Arrow blu-ray).

Jai Bhim (Tamil, Amazon Prime) This is reminiscent of 90's Indian movies that mixed scenes of gruesome torture / violence with mainstream masala sentiment. The victims have little personality other than being innocent oppressed folks, and the bad guys are cardboard evil. For a film that so obviously fictionalizes many elements of its story, they could have tried to come up with more interesting writing.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (English) Notable as my first post-lockdown cinema trip. This was a decent fun experience. It succeeds in keeping the fan service at a tolerable level and concentrating on giving likable characters (played by wonderfully cast young actors). It also, succeeds, without banging too hard on cheap references, to generate the sense of adventure Hollywood PG-13 movies had in the late 70's and 80's.

Still need to see (and would love to get more recommendations from y'all):

Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam, Churuli