Argo

It’s rare that a movie based on actual events thrills you to the extent that ‘Argo’ does, based on actual events during 1979-80, when American Embassy in Iran was taken hostage by Iranian public and Government, ‘Argo’ is a movie about a secret operation that Canadian Government and CIA carried out to rescue six members of American Embassy. Although the movie takes a lot of cinematic liberties and diverts from actual events, but the end product is enjoyable.

When Shah of Iran (someone who has ruled and terrorized Iran for decades is overthrown by public) takes shelter in USA. Iranian people becomes furious because they want to bring Shah to justice, but as USA declines to send back Shah, the people of Iran retaliates by taking over the American Embassy in Tehran (Capital of Iran), and take’s hostage everybody inside, however unknown to them six Embassy staff members have left the building and went into hiding in Canadian Ambassadors house. CIA starts preparing a rescue operations, but they are out of clue how to pull this off, its then when Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) comes up with a seemingly crazy plan to rescue these 6 people, the plan is to go to Iran on pretense of shooting a Sci-fi movie, and returning with the 6 people by calling them members of the shooting staff.  As idiotic it may sound on paper this actually happened.

What follows is the execution of the plan by CIA with cooperation with Canadian Government. However the narration and execution of the movie keeps your heart beat at a high speed; even I could barely sit during the last 20 minutes of the movie. The director has done an excellent job.

The movie may look tense from outside, but is shot in a way of a thriller. Ben Affleck, who is the lead artist and director as well, delivers a balanced performance, supporting cast has done a good job as well, and you may be amazed by the resemblance of star cast with the actual people who were part of the operation.

The movie makes a good watch, it’s an intelligent movie, watch it and enjoy it.

Rating ****.

Django Unchained

The latest movie from Quentin Tarantino starts with beautiful music, just the kind of music you hear in western movies, but wait a second, it itself is a western movie!

At least the kind of western movie one would expect Tarantino to make.

The movie is set in that era of American history which is not much talked about, an era of slavery, an era where it was common as well as legal to have slaves and to treat them in any way the master considered fit. However this movie is neither melodramatic nor an issue based movie. It’s just a Tarantino movie where cars have been replaced by horses, mafia & bad guys replaced by rich people trading in slaves, and bombs & machineguns replaced by old fashioned cowboys guns, but believe me the fun remains the same, its classic Tarantino stuff.

                                                                                                                  
The movie catches you from the very first scene, unpredictable characters, erratic situations, amusing dialogues makes you glue on the seat. When any scene starts you won’t be in a position to deduce, how it will end. There are some sequences which may make you laugh so much that you may start feeling your guts in your mouth, my favorite being when dozens of men go out on horses wearing masks to kill Djano and his friend.  

In the main cast Christoph Waltz delivers another amazing performance, he is a gifted actor, ditto for Samuel L Jackson for a fantastic performance, although Jamie Foxx plays the lead, and Leonardo DiCaprio is the main villain, they don’t come near the characterization or performance of above mentioned actors.

Action scenes are beautifully shot; there is one time in the movie when you may think the film will end without the kind of climax Tarantino is known for, and you start feeling cheated, when suddenly the scene changes and bullets start firing from everywhere. The director makes a cameo appearance again like many of his preceding movies.

All in all a must watch for any Tarantion fan.

Rating ****.