Category: Hollywood

The Meg : Statham vs Huge Shark .

When Jason Statham jumps off a boat after a friend who is being pulled into the depths of the ocean by a giant prehistoric shark, another character screams not in fear but in excitement, almost echoing the emotions of any average viewer out looking for some plain old fun on a lazy weekend at the local IMAX screen. Yes, when it’s about a giant shark you have to have a giant enough screen too. If it’s in 3D, all the more better. But this is no Jaws mind you, The Meg is more Deep Blue Sea than any other shark film from our collective memory as viewers. It’s exactly how a monster film would look like if AI was asked to make one, without the discriminatory algorithms of course. People are at risk of being eaten by the shark irrespective of barriers like gender and race. Still if you do have to watch it, do that at a cinema with the best screening facilities.

There’s absolutely nothing novel about the plot simply because with such film formats you as a maker either choose between jaw dropping CGI or a moving storyline and there are no prizes for guessing what’s on sale here or you could ask Marvel to make a shark movie. Rich investor, good scientist, reluctant hero, jump scares, the movie has it all and more. It’s basically Jurassic Park set in the sea only this shark isn’t cloned. Within the limitations of the genre, The Meg tries earnestly to deliver a fun 113 minutes for the audience and much banks on the broad shoulders of Statham and his on screen persona as the tough guy with a sense of humor.The makers have tried every trick in the monster  movie handbook to keep the proceedings on screen interesting. They do get most of it right unless of course you’re at the movies with National Geographic or Science journals on your mind. Not much on screen time is wasted here. The shark doesn’t wait around much and is quick to attack and kill. Statham and his co stars too are quick with the acts of saving lives, the mandatory self sacrifices and the dumb moves which are integral to the genre.

Two of the last surviving  action heroes of our times who aren’t part of the Marvel or DC Universes , Statham and Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock have had curiously similar cinematic turns recently I’d say. Rock recently took on a giant Gorilla ,a giant crocodile and a giant wolf in Rampage. Then he saved his family from a fire in a Hong Kong skyscraper in the eponymous film. Here Statham battles a giant shark to save his Chinese friends and a whole crowded Chinese beach towards the end. Trump wouldn’t be too pleased I think but then he isn’t the one funding the films. Or he could simply ask Marvel to take a pause and let the likes of Rock and Statham to do what they do best, save the day that is, but exclusively in the USA.

 

 

Mission Impossible – Fallout : Tom Cruise Falls Out, Gets Knocked Down, But He Gets Up Again. And Again. And Again.

Wake up in Belfast. Lose Plutonium in Berlin. Get grilled in Rammstein. Do a HALO jump in Paris. Crash a party, literally. Kill a bad guy. Catch up with an old flame. Ride a motorcylcle fast. Kidnap an old foe. Cool your heels in London. Chase a bad guy on rooftops. Fly to Kashmir. Chase a helicopter in another helicopter. Hang from a cliff. Defuse a couple of bombs. Save the world. Brood and have nightmares when you are not doing any of the above. In an alternate cinematic universe, it would take a bunch of superheroes in capes and latex to do all that in a single movie. Doctor Strange couldn’t get around like that. It’s impossible you’d say but that’s precisely why Ethan Hunt, aka Tom Cruise exists. James Bond ain’t got shit on him. Sorry, no not even Daniel Craig. Tom Cruise pushes the limit like only he can in the sixth Mission Impossible film and he takes us on a ride again. He says it’s impossible but you know it’s not but you still let him do that to you, tell you it’s impossible for the sixth time I mean. This is where I stop bickering, and ask you to go, sit back and enjoy the action.

Tom Cruise teams up with Christopher McQuarrie again and you can see why he trusts the writer-director. If you want to know what I am talking about watch the first Jack Reacher movie and then the second, the difference shows. McQuarrie knows his action movies. He is the John McTiernan of our times, I’d say. In the follow up to his fifth MI film, Mcquarrie starts from where he left off in Rogue Nation but reaches back even farther from the series for whatever drama he can manage to squeeze in between the brilliant action sequences. In this movie Tom Cruise does a bit of everything he has done in the past MI films, call it homage. The bike stunts are reminiscent of the John Woo MI, so were the cliff hanging scenes.Rogue Nation had a great bike chase too. Jumping out of planes are almost a regular fixture in all the MI films I guess. The car chase in the vintage BMW reminded me of Ronin for some reason, which is touted as the best car chase movie since Bullit. The movie takes a leaf out of the Marvel handbook and tries a hand at self depreceating humor just so the MI series props doesn’t get too old on the viewers. There’s more than one reference to men in rubber masks and the bad guys teases Hunt time and again with the MI disclaimer , “should you choose to accept it” . Cruise on the other hand has a new line, “I’ll figure it out.”

In addition to Cruise, Ving Rhames is the longest surviving actor of the series and is joined by Simon Pegg again as the ever loyal tech-support team to Hunt’s stunts. Alec Baldwin has turned believer from his Rogue Nation days in Fallout and has handed the responsibility of giving a hard time to Hunt on behalf of the very system he works for, over to Angela Basset. That’s where Henry Cavill comes in. Hammer he is you’d agree to Cruise’s scalpel as Basset puts it, considering the stuff he gets to break. Rebecca Ferguson reprises her role as the MI6 agent. Jeremy Renner had date clashes. Michelle Monaghan returns again as mostly memories and a bit more. The movie hints that when choosing life partners, people should look within their own professions, just for practical purposes entirely, like a day where you have to defuse bombs and strangle people too. All of these does not matter really because all you are going to remember are the action sequences. They are special because Tom Cruise has taken the pain to deliver them himself. The helicopter chase and the rooftop jump are my top picks but I loved the car and bike chases too. This might not be the greatest action movie ever but it’s indeed one of the best ones in the series though for some reason the first one remains my favorite or is it the second.Or the fifth maybe? Yes, I can’t make up my mind. How about you?

Straight Outta Compton to Unsolved : Coincidences In The Age of Machine Learning and A Brief History Of Rap Music.

In these times when you search for something online and an ad for the very same thing that you searched for pops up on your Facebook Timeline the next day, it’s hard to believe in coincidences.So I had my suspicions when Unsolved debuted on Netflix a few days after I had watched Straight Outta Compton, but I shook them off ultimately as within my humanly possible powers of deduction I could not find any logical links between the two events and I made peace with the possibility that I had indeed been a benefeciary of a genuine coincidence.Straight Outta Compton told the tale of the rise of hip-hop as we know it and how it changed the lives of a couple of youngsters and the music industry altogether.Unsolved was about the untimely and tragic demise of two of the most influential proponents of the genre, Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., whose lives , art and deaths were intertwined for eternity.

Ice Cube,Eazy E and Dr. Dre who joined ranks to form N.W.A were pioneers in the genre who spoke to the world through their music.These were angry young men who used art to hit back at the oppressive system, especially the policing.In terms of the politics it represented, ‘Gangsta Rap’ was the new rock music. F.Gary Gray traces their initial days, fallouts and the eventual disbanding in Straight Outta Comtpon.It also gives us a glimpse of the business of hip hop music. Ice Cube, portrayed by his real life son comes across as the one with a business acumen that’s second only to Dr.Dre’s in the group.He bails out of N.W.A early on, over financial differences with the rest of the members.Eazy E is a tragic figure who trusted the wrong person and later succumbs to a terminal disease, on the verge of a reunion. Dr.Dre who went on to mentor many big names in the business today is the most ambitious of the lot. N.W.A ran into trouble with the police on a regular basis for the politics their music blared.They were banned by radios but they had already captured the imagination of a generation of music listeners which reflected in their records sales and their ultimate success. Music was a way out for these boys and they believed in themselves and their art when most of the world refused to address them as artists.True to the politics of the artists it portrayed, Straight Outta Compton was also in the news for being snubbed by most major award ceremonies including the Oscars.

Unsolved deals with the lives and deaths of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace aka Notorious B.I.G. Wallace and Tupac were contermporaries in work and by a strange twist of fate ended up on the wrong sides of the East Coast- West Coast rivalry. They had contrasting approaches to music too. Tupac was again heavily political in his lyrics. Biggie on the other hand was known as a storyteller.Both of them were close to their  mothers who were strong influences in their lives.Tupac was gunned down in a drive by shooting in 1996 and the next year Biggie was killed in a similar shooting.Unsolved traces the attempts of the law enforcement personnel involved to solve these murders.To date, the murders remain unsolved and the show has dual narratives, one from the time of the murders and the other from the investigation launched by a Federal Task Force in response to a lawsuit filed by Wallace’s mother against the LAPD.The show tells us how the events affected the lives of the people who investigated the murders too.The task force follows every lead and also try to gather informaiton from the investigations by the troibled cop, Russel Poole who ended up an outcast amongst his colleagues for the stands he took.

Suge Knight, the record producer is one looming figure who appears in both Straight Outta Compton and Unsolved. An extremely influential player in the business at the peak of his career, Knight has a presence in all the theories that are in circulation, related to the deaths of Tupac and Biggie.He was also charged for allegedly threating F. Gary Gray, the director of Straight Outta Comptoon because he was unhappy with the way he was portrayed in the film.Knight was riding alongside Tupac on that fateful night and still there are conspiracy theories afloat that implicate him in both murders.There are also people who believe that the investigating agencies were worried more about saving their own faces rather than solving the murders as it turned out that some of the cops were on the payroll of the music moguls, when they moonlighted as secuirty for the artists. Tupac was 25 and Biggie was 24 when they were slain in the streets.The fame, success and influence they garnered across the globe in their short lives is only surpassed by the mystery that shrouds their deaths.

Black Panther: A Cynic Goes To The Movies.

For the longest time, i was divided about Black Panther and hence this outdated post.In this age where we desperately seek political correctness in every gesture of ours in the public sphere, more out of a need to avoid scrutiny and instant blacklash-thanks to the keypad-happy social media hawks- rather than out of actual commitment to a cause, the cynic in me of course sat up with cocked ears when the cash registers at Marvel started to ring again thanks to T’Challa and his solo outing.DC did cash in on feminism to save their sinking ship a while back.Now, its unfair to compare Marvel’s dream run with DC’s sputtering starts and stops but just dont tell me that the executives at Marvel never considered the moolah a movie like Black Panther could rake in, for obvious reasons.Yeah it’s true that  Black Panther’s been around for a while and cinematically as well as  socially this is the best of times for Panther to hit the screens, too.In the same breath, when a movie like Detroit sinks without trace and when Get Out wins best screenplay at the Oscars over Three Billboards at Ebbing, Missouri, to me at least it’s a bit like Trump restoring American economy by asking Apple to shut its plants in China.Enough with allegories and bushes to beat around,let’s get down to brass tacks.

Black Panther has it’s moments but to me personally, as a superhero movie, more specifically an MCU movie it ranks behind many other movies that came before it in terms of sheer entertainment value.You can’t deny the fact that it is the most talked about Marvel movie ever because of the theme and the politics it brings to the screen and ultimately to the minds and hearts of the audience.It showcases African culture with an elegance and a level of sophistication never seen before in Hollywood.Wakanda, the hidden kingdom is the African Utopia and analogy to what Africa could have been if not for the Scramble for Africa by the colonial powers.One would be tempted to call it an exaggeration but might want to reconsider given the fact Birr, the currency of Ethiopia ,an African country that was never colonised by the imperial powers trades  at 27 odd US Dollars in forex.Black Panther by design was destined for box office success as a Marvel movie with its predominantly black cast and an African American director and if i may, the targeted audience.Tell me that never came up in a boardroom discussion.That’s again the cynic in me i guess and my intention is not to undermine the efforts  the writers and the director here.The only other movie that comes to my mind  where I had a hard time choosing whom to root for between the hero and villain was Infernal Affairs which was later remade into The Departed.Michael B.Jordan elevates his character to immortality when he chooses death over bondage like his ancestors and Chadwick Boseman can only look on, literally.

What worked for me more than what i saw on the screen is what i heard,Kendrick’ Lamar’s All The Stars with SZA to be specific.The song has a video that’s as much a visual treat as the movie.The soundtrack of the film is outstanding and has an all star lineup, pun unintended.I wouldntve written what i did if it wasn’t for the music.No Marvel movie experience is fulfilling unless you sit throuh the end titles patiently for the post credits scene.Here you are in for a suprise of sorts when you see Bucky Barnes walking out of a Wakandan huts amidst calls of White Wolf by a bunch of Wakandan Kids.Honestly i dont expect Marvel to come up with another Black Panther solo film for many reasons and if it does happen and generates the kind of rave this one does, I just might admit that the world has changed for good.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri : The Review.

A movie like Three Billbaords Outside Ebbing, Missouri happens once in a lifetime for not just the actors in it and the people behind the camera, but also the audience.This is cinema in its purest of forms and it reiterates the fact that cinema is a universal language and that the human condition is the same everywhere, irrespective of color,creed or race.A British-Irish filmmaker has made a film with a prominent American cast about a story set in the American midwest that resonates with a global audience, inspired by some real life billboards that he came across during his journeys in the American south.How’s that for a reality check in the age of fake news,post truths and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.DC doesn’t make the cut even in such passing references, sorry.

I’m not sure who my favorite character is, that’s to say actor, in this film.Frances McDormand of course owns every scene shes’s in and almost steals the show from her peers here.She plays a grieving mother to a murdered daughter and her anger knows no limits.She’s at war with the whole world to a point that you are tempted to stop rooting for the character despite her predicament midway, but then she wins you back again with a display of emotions that reminds you that you would feel no different if you were in her shoes.She is spiteful to the core in one scene and the most vulnerable in the next and when you read that the role was written with McDormand in mind, you are the least surprised, considering the results.

Woody Harrelson plays a character whose strength and vulnerability tears you apart and you are forced to empathize with him even in his weakest moments.Harrelson excels in this role and brings a warmth to the character who emotionally anchors the film not just for the viewers but for the other characters too, in this story about ordinary people driven to despair by situations they have absolutely no control over.

Giving Harrelson and McDormand a run for their money is Sam Rockwell who makes it impossible for you to hate the angry cop character that he plays,even in his meanest of turns.In a scene where the director and the cinematographer show off their skills with a long take, Rockwell lets his body do the acting.In another scene he’s seen performing with a totally bandaged face.He gets to face off with McDormand more than once and those scenes are the stuff of cinematic legends I’d say.

Martin McDonagh is angry and one cant but help feel that there’s a bit of him in the three leading characters of the film.His writing demanded the most talented of actors to deliver total justice to it on screen and he couldn’t have asked for a better line up than the current cast to do that for him.I can almost imagine the sheer joy he must’ve experienced watching his vision of the film come to life through these stellar performers.From Peter Dinklage to Abbie Cornish to Caleb Landry to John Hawkes to Lucas Hedges,everyone leaves their mark on the screen for whatever little time they’re on.The fact that billboards with a direct reference to the ones in this movie have been used in more than one protest across the globe since its release is testimony enough to the kind of impact this magnificent piece of cinema has had on its audience.The charachters and the story stays with you and haunts you long after you leave the hall.

The 15:17 to Paris: The Review

There are documentaries, there are docu-dramas and then there’s The 15:17 to Paris.Clint Eastwood has based his latest on the foiled terrorist attack on board a Paris bound train back in 2015.The epitome of American heroism that Eastwood has been in the prime of his career and still is, his compulsion to search for and make movies about the real life American heroes is understandable  and he succeeded in that in American Sniper and Scully  but the way he has gone about it here leaves me a deer caught in headlights as a viewer.You could call it an expirement, but Ram Gopal Varma has been expirementing too, for over a decade, allow me to remind you.

The movie is essentially a re-enactment of the whole incident and the three Americans who saved the day and averted tragedy play themselves.There is no plot here.There’s no drama.There’s no real purpose either you start thinking midway but then, I am not an American.Eastwood takes the longest time to introduce the main protagonists, featuring incidents right from their childhoods to the events leading up to the backpacking trip across Europe.Nothing really happens here.It’s just about as mundane as the days in the lives of any of us in fact, if that’s any consoloation.It also serves as a travelogue of sorts for people intending to take a trip across Europe.Amsterdam is not a place to be missed, Eastwoos asserts.The intention of the film is not to explore the horrific reality that terrorism is and Eastwood shields the viewer from being emotionally affected by the incident to an extent that even the BGM has little impact on you in the closing moments.You’re comfortably numb, if i may.

The message that Eastwood has tried to deliver here is that every individual has an obligation to respond, in a situation of crisis.In that sense the two passengers who took on the armed gunman initially, one of them getting shot in the process, are no lesser heroes but that tale is not being told here.Eastwood is so done with drama here that he actually uses original footage of Hollande’s speech felicitiating the three Amercians towards the end.The tragedy of my viewing experience is that after sitting through the excruciatingly dull proceedings in the build up to the  final confrontation with the terrorist, my phone rang and i had to walk out of the hall and by the time i got back the action was almost over.The movie is based on a book co-authored by the three Americans and if i had the time and patience i would find it and read it, which i don’t anymore, just to check if Eastwood and his scriptwriter are to be blamed here.

Den of Thieves : The Review

To say that Den of Thieves is an extended tribute by Christian Gudegast to Michael Mann’s Heat would be an understatement.Except for the heist elements that reminded me of Logan Lucky and the bits of  humor, its almost an uncredited remake of the Mann classic.From sweeping shots of night time LA to armed robbers to gunfights to the personal lives of the cops and thieves to the climactic on-foot-chase, the film has Heat written all over it, but of course Gerard Butler is no Pacino and Pablo Schrieber is no De Niro.That’s not taking anything away from these talented actors either.Butler and Schrieber bring a menacing physicality to their roles too, which works well with the director’s vision of present day crime and criminals in LA, that this movie is.

Gudegast who has graduated from writer to director with Den of Thieves has subtly tried to make a political statement too i felt, with the stress on subtly.The criminals are military veterans and Gerard Butler’s cop character at one point looks a picture of Schrieber’s Merrimen from his days in the Marine Corps and asks rhetorically, What happened to you? It’s an obvious reference to the PTSD crisis that the American war machine has spawned on the homefront  and the writer here has used it in the background to justify the acts of the men on the wrong side of the law here, to an extent.Its also one  reason why the cops treat them a different animal from the other criminals in the bank robbery capital of the world, to quote the movie itself.Michael Mann’s bank robber in contrast was a suave professional who stuck to his code and earned his antagonist’s respect for just that.

The criminals here too are not without honor and would choose to go down fighting rather than pay for their crimes behind bars.They show restraint when provoked, especially in the company of women and family.They lookout for eachother and even turn up in a gang at one instance just to intimidate the boy who’s taking one of their pal’s daughter out.In a casting coup of sorts, you get to see 50-Cent play a doting father and a hard as nails robber and he manages to smile on screen more than once.The cops on the other hand seen are cheating, getting divorced and, shopping for cheap jackets which is less of an intended testimony of their honesty and more of a justification for the expensive “looking” wardrobe they possess in the movie, i felt. In fact maybe its a bit of both.

This film might not connect with the audience on levels like Heat did or the characters might not stay with them for long but still makes for a decent action thriller to watch on a lazy weekend thanks to Butler and Schrieber.

 

 

 

The Commuter : Being Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson’s career took an unprecedented turn with Taken when he turned into an  unlikely action star overnight, thanks to Luc Besson and Pierre Morel. Taken spawned a slew of films with Neeson beating unbeatable odds, which included two unimpressive Taken sequels. Jaume Collet-Serra picked up from where Besson and Co. left off to deliver the better  movies of this lot of Neeson actioners. Serra reminds me of a kid who just got his hands on his favorite action figure and can’t stop playing with it, only here its a live action figure of an actor in his sixties. The director has put Neeson in the middle of every difficult situation imaginable and has forced him to kick and kill his way out like only Neeson can.

Neeson was forced to give up his identity along with his wife in Unknown. Then he had to  find a killer on board a flight and save the flight and the passengers on it while he was at it in Non-Stop. Serra then asked Neeson to Run All Night to save his son from the Mob. He wasn’t done I guess, now that he has put Neeson on a commuter train in a race against to time to find a mysterious passenger with his family held at gunpoint. The next Serra-Neeson film in all likelihood would be set on a ship, and the one after that in outer space. Ive always been a sucker for arithmetic progressions.

The Commuter has nothing new to offer in terms of plot and felt like an ensemble of homages to thrillers and action movies ranging from Strangers on a Train to Nick of Time to Unstoppable to name a few, atleast to me. Its one of those movies where an ordinary guy is pushed into an extraordinary situation by the bad guys and he tries to figure his way out,only in this case its not just any ordinary guy, its Liam Neeson and he has a “very particular set of skills” at his disposal, conveniently , being an ex-cop. Though ridden with cliches, The Commuter still makes for an entertaining watch and the credit goes to the director and the writer here. Liam Neeson can still throw a hard one. Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson and Sam Neil appear in roles that little more than cameos. And I should add that i watched the movie in 4D and I admit that I enjoyed it to the core, the train crash scene was a bone crunching experience, almost.

Thor : Ragnarok – The Review.

Thor goes to battle with Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song in the background not once but twice in this latest piece of the Marvel Cinematic Universe up for grabs and just those scenes are your money’s worth, in fact every scene of this movie is, and how often do you get to say that about a movie these days?I am not familiar with the work of Taika Waititi and i must say i regret that already.For a movie that’s just a wee bit over two hours in running time, to keep the fun factor intact without losing charm throughout is no mean feat, its a superhuman feat in fact and when i tell you that the likes of Matt Damon and Sam Neil do cameos here, you know I’m not pulling a fast one on you.

I feel for DC here though, right when they’re about to try and salvage some pride with their version of the fiercely competitive space that comic book alternate reality universe is , Marvel goes ahead again and beats them to it at the box office.I know I’m being unfair and mean when i say this but Zack Snyder, even if he’s being helped out by Joss Whedon himself this time around,is going to have a hard time going up against Thor and Co.This is one race where the hare is beating the tortoise hands down, I’ve a feeling .Superman and Batman just might end up sweating a bit more than they would like trying to unseat Thor and Hulk at the box office in the weeks to come.And when was the last time Batman or Superman cracked a joke on screen, yeah now you know what i am talking about.This Marvel movie is significant also because it doesn’t rely on the abundantly talented Robert Downey Jr. in the wisecracks department.But a Tony Stark reference is not entirely without either.

If the tales of the Gods in Asgard have confused and put you off in the past, don’t let that cloud your judgment this time around.This movie is nothing like any of the other Marvel movies you’ve watched.Remember how genuinely refreshing the first Iron Man movie was, if you do, thats how good this movie is.It might remind you of Guardians of Galaxies but thats only because its as much fun and you have as many ships flying around battling each other furiously.Cate Blanchett gets to play a Queen again, albeit a mean one and you realize why Shekar Kapoor cast in the first place, the lady’s got class, loads of it.Chris Hemworth and Mark Ruffalo are the men of the hour here with ample support from Tom Hiddleston and Tessa Thompson who i must say, has been a revelation, at least to me.Anthony Hopkins has to be the only actor on the planet who could sleepwalk through the role of Odin, Thor’s father and the King of Asgard.Idris Elba returns here again and is the only Asgardian who doesn’t have a funny bone in his body.Jeff Goldblum plays a quirky baddie here and Benedict Cumberbatch reprises his role as Doctor Strange in another cameo.Thor Ragnarok restored my dwindling faith in the superhero genre and the credit i must say belongs to Waititi entirely.Got a nice ring to it too, can’t stop repeating that name in my head for some reason, Taika Waititi…

The Foreigner : The Review

When Martin Campbell who helmed the debut movies of the two Bonds of our generation -well okay relax millennial- my generation, teamed up with one of those Bond actors and the “pint sized dynamo” from Hong Kong, I knew I wouldn’t be in for a disappointment.Though its an unlikely combination of talents and one thats even more unlikely to happen again, the timing of the release of this film based on a novel over two decades old, one has to say couldn’t have been more coincidental with the theme it dealt with, considering the mindless violence that was unleashed on unsuspecting, innocent people purportedly by a crazed individual a few days apart.The Las Vegas shooting reminded us that terror doesn’t have a religion or a cause to drive its rage.A deranged mind is all it takes, all the time.
The true intent of terror is the fear that it creates in the mind of the individual who leaves his home and steps out into the streets.In these times of crowd sourced mass violence you can’t but help worry about the safety of your loved ones every time they are out in a public place.This fear and helplessness is the central theme that the makers have explored in The Foreigner.Jackie Chan plays an ex-special forces man who takes on the system in ways he knows best when he seeks the answers behind a bombing that kills his daughter.Pierce Brosnan is at the wrong end of Jackie’s fist as the militant turned politician, who reminds you of the faces you have seen on the news couple of decades back in the wake of the IRA ceasefire which involved the Sinn Fein and the British government apart from other organizations in the region.

Jackie Chan gets to emote apart from doing what he does best, kicking ass that is.Brosnan is at home in his role as the politically driven ex-IRA man.The movie is as much about politics as its about action and it feeds on the latent anger in the viewer who sees himself in the actions of Jackie Chan’s character.Martin Campbell has made a film that might find more acceptance in the east not just because it has one of the biggest stars from Asia rather because of the unsavory past of homegrown terror and violence in one of the leading nations of the West, it reminds the audiences there of