Tricky tricky traitor !
The recent spate of spy movies was getting a little repetitive if you ask me. So I decided to watch Traitor expecting that it will be another round of hideouts, terrorists and corrupt intelligence officials. My apprehension was that the plot will be clichéd, and the characters will be copies of the standard stereotypes.
However once in a while we come across a genre rejuvenating movie. Traitor takes the theme of a spy and his affiliations to a new level. Don Cheadle as the Traitor is one of the best and honest depictions of a spy I have ever seen. The movie is not about the black or the white. Its about the gray area in the middle.
The reason for the word honest (above) are many. For once we get to see the childhood of a traitor (albeit briefly). We also see the day to day mental torment which a spy has to suffer to reach his goals. The villains are not really the “bad guys” – they are a shade darker than the good guys. In fact one of the “bad guys” actually turns out to be an ironic hero in the end. There is a sort of dark realistic satire in this movie. As if the scriptwriter/director wanted to tell you something more than just the story.
The cinematography is stark and real – no frills but the straight scenes with a little bit of the excellent camera placement. The settings are well depicted – especially the ones in the open dessert prison. The characters are filmed with stabilized shoulder mounted cameras. So there’s a feel of you actually being there in the scene along with the other characters !
The sound track is a little techno sometimes – but pleasantly so. Inter spaced with this is a little bit of the old world Arabic, Egyptian and African riffs. A very pleasant sort of throbbing music that never distracts from the scene but manages to set the pace of the movie all the while.
Don Cheadle turns out a performance of a lifetime. A Muslim spy who is by his nationality (US) forced to side with the Americans. He is torn between his allegiance to his country and the sympathy he feels for the “terrorists”. A true believer in Islam – he depicts the picture of a man with a conscience, who knows what his actions amount to and is willing to take the responsibility arising of it.
Guy Pearce ( from Memento) plays the tenacious but suave FBI agent. He knows his job and in typical American style wants to do things Now ! Throughout the movie their characters follow parallel paths, crossing each other only thrice – and in very brief but telling fashion.
The other notable character is the good “bad guy” (played by Said Taghmaoui) with whom Don Cheadle has to hang around. This character (as with all the characters…) is excellently defined – showing the heart of a terrorist who has an inkling that his path is not about true Islam. To be honest the audience might feel like sympathising with him in the end ( if they are not careful …) .
Alyy Khan (oh yes ! There are two Indian actors here ! Maybe more – but I could identify two ..) is exceptionally believable as the suave plotter who his determined to cause a dent to the American psyche. He portrays a devious man who has got a logical mind with an evil heart.
And finally the plot. Its got a dose of the twists and turns ( which is not at all unusual for a spy movie). But the this time the plot follows the characters and their different trysts rather than the hard facts. Quite the opposite of a documentary … the director concentrates on the soul rather than the “truth”. As i said before – the movie and the plot is about the gray area between black and white. The plot is nonetheless riveting – never bogged down with any overtly emotional scenes.
Overall a commendable movie from Jeffrey Nachmanoff ( who also does the screenplay and script – well almost the guy who is trying to talk to the audience through this movie !). Ashok Amritraj also has his finger in this pie. Somehow I like the movies that have his name in the credit roll at the end. The only downside I could find were the two dimensional depictions of the terrorist “bombers”.
I suggest not wasting this movie with your beer soaked buddies. Head out to the theater with some contemplative company and enjoy this very immaculate depiction of a spy and his exciting but miserable life …
Liam Neeson takes it ALL
There are a few people in this world who can get pissed off and then cause a carnage single handedly. Liam Neeson in “Taken” is one of them.
The story begins slowly with scenes of an estranged father trying to come to terms with this alienation from his daughter. Liam Neeson is an ex-CIA agent whose specialty was “prevention”. While “preventing” he lost his family to some rich bloke who pays more attention and money to his ex-wife and daughter. Having established the relationships, the audience is shown some absurd trip that his daughter has planned and which he squarely objects to. As our luck would have it – the daughter takes the trip, and we get to see an awesome trip of gore and bloodshed.
The movie has an absurd quality at times – scenes like some stalker attacking a singer back stage is quite a cliché. Also the bad guys seem to have all the guns but no shooting skills. They miss Liam all the time ! Famke as the high profile mother does her bit but is barely convincing – not because of her acting which is okay, but because the script fails to give a solid feel to her character. For most of the movie she looks like an extra. Also the image of the “crooked arab sheikh wanting to fornicate with kidnapped white girls” is a bit over used already to give any extra fillip to the storyline.
The best part about the movie is Liam – and he does a good job of showing a concerned father who will go to any lengths to get his daughter back. He doesn’t look like he is “acting” at all. Its some times so real that you feel sorry for the guy when he gets knocked down once. Liam also has this very earthy quality about him – a raw screen presence that does not need glamorous settings to grip your attention. For his age he does the action sequences exceptionally well !
About the action sequences – they were a revelation really. Jason Bourne could take a few tips from Liam. The pace is fast and the action is filmed in constricted places. All manner of props are used to take down the bad guys. It almost feels like you are in the same room and the next piece of furniture is gonna hit you square on the jaw. Liam shows off his reflexes and presence of mind – and makes it quite believable at that.
Maggie Grace as the bird-brained daughter (its not surprising that she wants to be a singer !) is average at best. She shows fright well on her face but the other emotions seem pasted on. Also her character in the movie is like that of her screen mother – extra. Somehow I wished they had shown a more gritty daughter given the fact that the father shows such presence of mind – perhaps a lesson in genetics might do the script -writer some good. Or maybe she got it all from her mom – who knows !
The movie shows a multitude of decrepit rooms filled with drugged (American ?) teenagers waiting to get auctioned off. In reality I guess any criminal activity of such proportions would get the attention of George Bush who would order a “nucalear” strike ! The sheikh at the end is a little comical – holding a knife to ward off a guy who just beat the s**t out of twenty or more hardcore thugs with UZIs. The cinematography is great – no rolling hills and valleys – but well placed cameras and good editing. The script is a little shallow to begin with but is a non-issue towards the end. Paris is not shown as the land of art – but rather full of refugees waiting to kidnap and sell single nubile women from the US of A. The music is non-intrusive and complements the action well.
To sum up – a great action flick to watch from the unlikliest of actors – Liam Neeson ( yeah the same guy from Schindlers List !). The story never bores you and in the end you do feel that his daughter’s freedom is hard won. If you can excuse the american arrogance of treating all non-americans as vile insects, and the lack of satire or irony (except a small interrogation scene) – you will fully enjoy watching the “baap” of Jason Bourne !
Conflicts of Interest
Its a fact of life. As long as there is more than one man there has to be a conflict of interest. But what is this interest and where does the conflict come from ?
To determine interest is really not an easy task . What is ones interest in “living” ? – is a very broad question with subjective answers. It has to be broken down further to small answerable questions. One such question is what do I have to do to be alive today ? Another could be – how to I prepare for a medical emergency ? And so on …
Since we cannot really answer things like “What the hell we are doing here anyway ? ” , lets not waste time on such questions.
Well believe it or not, most people I have met think that way and with good reason also. For them not all answers have to be found to make sense of their lives. And they are very comfortable because of that. And while they are “comfortable” they choose to have the smaller questions like “How am I going to have forty people working for me ?” And that is in essence the origin of interest.
An interest is a trivial pastime engaged in to prevent boredom arising out of ignoring the main issue of our lives – which is … why are we here anyway ?
Some people actually dwell on the main issue and come up with mind “opening” answers. These people, who got enlightened, have often thought on this question for years in forests and other “meditative settings”. They are the spiritual leaders of their times. Their mind after staying in “altered” states for long, looses the ability to get irritated or angry. There is pure bliss.
But what about the average guy ? He is not spending his mental mojo looking for these answers. So this wonderful instrument called the brain has to be used in some other direction. So we pick up an “interest”. Its mostly an arbitrary want/need/desire which we think is very valid to have – mostly because at some point in the recursive thinking process of questioning its validity – our mind gives up and says “well I am like that !” or “the world is like that”.
Conflict of Interest
Every body does that, at some point or the other. How far we go recursively depends on how much IQ we have. However – no one can “go all the way” – cause no one knows where is the end of “all the way”. However people who question their needs/wants are better of slightly – they can atleast start seeing the truth. And the truth is we can pick any need we like. It doesn’t really matter what we choose because the larger question of life is anyway quite un-answered.
So certain enlightened people choose an interest based on what they are comfortable doing day to day. The not so enlightened choose an interest dictated by circumstances. It could be a parent, a friend or maybe a professor from college. Any sort of circumstance can have an impact based on how “receptive” the subject is. So most interests get chosen for non-intuitive reasons – trust playing a huge role (you trust the guys who tell you what you should be interested in ….).
Initially a group of similarly “interested” people may find perfect harmony – but since for most the interest was arbitrary anyway – they change over time. And then we have a conflict of Interest. A logical questions here is – what about the enlightened few – do they have conflicts of interest ? Well of course they do – the difference being – they have chosen their interest in an intuitive manner and hence are more constant about it. Over time these people also learn to alter their immediate interest to something that is available easily – and keep a higher moral “interest” in a trunk in their mind.This helps to keep the conflicts to a minimum.
Now that we have gained some insight into the reasons for a conflict of Interest, we can start thinking about some remedial procedures. One way is correlation. If we can correlate more points with another’s life then its likely that the change of interest will have a similar pattern and time line. Another way is a partial lobotomy to remove the “interested” centers of the brain ! A third way would be engage in an activity so much that the non-interested people either become interested or leave.
There could be a million other ways – and finding such remedies could be an “interest” for many. But since the interests are arbitrary so are the conflicts and therefore the remedies are infinitely varying. In fact a large number of people make use of this knowledge to earn money – they are called lawyers !
The reason for such questions is simple. I often find some fools arguing about something and I start wondering. Are these fools tracked to see if their interest remains the same after a year ? If I put these fools together again after a year will they start arguing again ? The main question then – Is the conflict the main interest for all things living ? If tomorrow we did not have to strive at all – will we all attain nirvana or will we all be dead ?
Can anyone tell me ?
A quantum of soul-less …
Theres one thing that Austin Powers should realize … he aint nothing without James Bond.
However this fact has apparently escaped the most unexpected of people – the makers of the latest Bond flick. No doubt its very real and you can almost feel the shrapnel in your face, but some of the unreal magic is lost in the process. Its like a very real story waiting for the bit of the magic that usually came packaged with the previous line of movies.
- Bond Movie Digested !!
Casino Royale still remains a high point in the franchise. And for good reason also. Firstly there was the new Bond. So we got to see the “new” grimace of pain. We saw the “new” passion to follow people in the French style of parkour. We saw a “new” love story involving our man and a very “modern” depiction of a Bond woman. But apart from the “newness” there was a sense of realism in the movie. A subtle moving away from the gadgets to the raw sex-appeal of sweat, blood and devious espionage.
Quantum of Solace moves on the same trajectory but the story is not as tight and the music is a little frayed. Although we see a return to some “advanced” gadgetry, the effort to retain the isolation of Bond from technical excesses is evident in the movie. We usually see Bond in the thick of things with just a high-tech cellphone. While most of the funky stuff remains in M’s office.
It begins a little too fast and stays that way for most of the movie. Alicia Keys is a letdown with the opening song – trying to pull out octaves like Sheryl Crow or Shirley Bassey, but only managing a weak croak in the end. And the opening car chase (although filmed in great realism) is just too arduous to begin with. Well we all know that espionage is hard work – but we like to see our Bond using a bit of his noodle to get things done. Realism doesn’t have to mean bone-headedness.
The rest of the story is a little “unexplained” but still bearable. The famous Bond Villain is also more real – like our hero. He doesn’t have a facial tick or a funky island with lasers all around. He is an everyday weasel who made it big by selling his friends on the way. Well so much for that ultimate villain we keep waiting to see every time.
The movie saver is Olga as the new Bond girl … no wait … the she-Bond. She is not a sex kitten or some lethal arm candy for the Bond Villain. Shes just a woman who wants to get some personal joy in killing a parallel character in the movie. I say parallel because the character of the General (wanting to become the Ruler) is exactly like that. I cannot really understand why he was very important in the scheme of things and I presume the director also felt the same way. That is probably the reason why he put in a two dimentional character to complement the main villain.
To come back to the character of Olga – it is at the least very refreshing to see a Bond girl having an obsession other than Bond. And she does justice to the role as well, painting the nuanced picture of a determined woman who doesn’t mind being vulnerable. For his part, Craig also has immense screen presence and those beady expressive eyes. He is more like a reluctant hero, carrying out the dirty work in spite of his personal loss. And as usual he is good at the “physicals” – running and jumping around so much that I was having difficulty imagining how he “could not sleep” in that bar room scene with another parallel character. This guy gets murdered in the end, but not before giving a good “the last words before dying” routine. The audience is shown a soft Bond who hugs a close friend (wasn’t he responsible for his love’s death in the previous flick ?) as he is dying on a deserted city street. Aint that sweet ?
All in all an average Bond movie. Not because Craig is unbelievable. Or Olga in the new she-Bond avatar. But because the action set pieces seem to have been added only for effect and the music fails to impress. A realistic story which like reality seems quite boring in the end.
Lets applaud Craig and Olga and throw out the script writer. Also the crew needs to do some magic to get Bond’s mojo back into him. Alicia Keys singing symbolises the movie – tried hard but failed to impress !
