Far And Away

Poor peasants of Ireland are living at the mercy of the noblemen. Joseph, (Tom Cruise), son of one of those peasants, is determined to avenge his father, who died at the hands of one of the rich. But the amateur who knows no tactics of arms and ammunitions gets caught trying to kill the noble, when his gun backfires to him, severly injuring him.

Shannon, (Nicole Kidman) daughter of that nobleman is determined to flee to the land of the West, the America, where they are distributing acres of land for free. She looks forward to reach the "Modernised" country with help of the freshly caught prisoner. She helps him flee and in turn flees to America (Boston) with him.

Both of them face adverseries and start saving enough money in order to be able to reach Oklahoma, where "they" are distributing free land. Joseph has started to earn his living (fast) by box fighting, but is thrown out, his belongings confiscated when he loses an important fight held by his employer. Joseph and Shannon are thrown out into snow. Both are hungry roaming on streets in bitter cold when one day Shannon is shot while they burgle a house in search of food. Joseph comes across Shannon's parents and leaves her there.

Joseph goes on to work on a railroad when one fine day, a bandwagon passing the railroad reminds him of his original goal of owning land of his own. He comes across Shannon once again, who is there with her parents and her lover, in search of her land. Old love is re-ignited, but Shannon's lover is not going to give her up easily.

Does Joseph and Shannon find the land of their dreams ? Does Shannon's lover let them live in peace ? Does the "modern" country provide them a new place to live ? Find out in far and away. The movie is a fast one, quite catching, but not gripping enough. One can always expect turn in the next scene!! The character of Nicole Kidman of that of a revolutionary, adventerous daughter of nobleman may draw attention.

Collateral

An ambitious common man who does overtime driving a cab to earn some extra bucks to get a limo cab for himself. One of his passangers during his duty is a lovely young lady, who is public prosecutor and is headed to the district attorney office (at midnight!!!) to prepare for the case she is to present the next day.

His night drives on and he runs into a contract killer (rather the killer runs into him). The movie runs on and on as if there is no end to the night, and then suddenly the movie becomes more and more gripping towards the end, of course there are a few dull and boring patches.

Tom Cruise, who looks cool and chilling in his looks as a contract killer. He is out on this night to kill 5 people during the night. He kills 4 of his 5 targets successfully (and the movie keeps you on the edge as the poilce catches up with them with every killing), by that time the cab driver, played by Jamie Foxx, who was following his instructions properly out of fear of his life, overcomes his fears and smashes his cab into a barricade (with himself and the killer inside the cab) not wanting to carry on being involved in the murders anymore. But both of them are still safe.

Then he sees the name of the last victim who is none other than the public prosecutor (played by Jada Smith) whom the driver met earlier. Determined to save her, he is ready to face the determined killer whom he was obeying so far.

Can he save the prosecutor from being the victim of the killer who has never left his job unfinished ? Can he last the cunningness of professional ?

Patch Adams

(Patch Adams when copied in Bollywood becomes Munnabhai MBBS - quite much)
This picture is based in a true story. Hunter Adams tries to commit suicide and is sent to mental hospital. There he confronts a few people who otherwise declared mental patients are perfectly well. He learns that the way to solve the problem is not to look at the problem as it seems but look beyond it - have a different look at the problem.

He helps people at the mental hospital successfully and then decides to become a doctor and serve the human kind in a different way. While he is studying he personally interacts with people, understanding their desires and needs while they are in the hospital beds. He touches the patients emotionally and improve their quality of life while they heal themselves or wait to die. And at the same time he acquires good grades in his academics to remain among the top students of the class.

Patch Adams opens a farm clinic, where anyone and everyone is allowed to come. Among the patients that come there, once a bad fellow turns up who is cynical and kills a fellow student of Adams, who he was in love with.

Patch Adams feels shattered and is about to give up his idea and cause, but the nature brings him back. But he was still to face opposition to his case when the Dean of the college suspends him from the medical school, depriving him the chance of getting medical degree, chance of becoming the doctor and treating the patients with a difference.

He files a case against the Dean in the Medical board and a hearing is done where his unconventional methods of treatment at acknowledged. He finally clears the exams and becomes a doctor.

Prologue:During the next 12 years, Patch Adams opened a home-based family medical practice and treated more than 15K people without payment, malpractice insurance or formal facilities. He purchased the 105 acres in West Virginia, (where he used to run a farm clinic in a ranch) and construction of Gesundheit Hospital was underway as the motion picture was being made. A waiting list of over 1000 physicians have offered to leave their current practices and join Patch Adam's cause.

Hunter Doherty "Patch" Adams has also written a book - Gesundheit: Good Health Is A Laughing Matter.

Chicago

The city of Chicago stops at nothing. People always look for 'hot' news and that hot news could be anything, a woman killing her illicit lover or some new 'hot' chicks in the theatre.

A budding theatre artist is looking forward to a big break, falls in trap of a furniture seller who promises here a big break with help of his non-existant connections with theatre of the city. She is taken to jail where she hires the best lawyer in the city (who has never lost a case).

The lawyer frames up a nice story to show the murder as a self defense case. But then there is another character in the story who is a reputed theatre artist, facing death penalty for murdering her sister when she was playing around with her husband. This character playes foul and tries to ruin the case.

So finally what happens? Does the lawyer win the case? Does the budding artist become the front page artist? Check out the newspapers of Chicago.

This movie is more of a musical story, heavily loaded with Jazz. Not a big storyline but definitely some big names in Hollywood - Richard Gere, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger and Lucy Liu in small cameo role. A typical theatre show.

Batman Begins

I have seen quite a few batman movies and animations. Never till now I was sure why Bruce Wayne became Batman; why and how his parents were killed and why did he chose only the Gotham city ? (unlike Superman who fights against anyone in the World - at least to say) This movie answered all my questions.

Kid Bruce Wanye once falls into well close to his mansion and is stranded with bats in the dark dry hollow. He is set frightened at the sight of any object/creature which looks like a bat. His parents are killed once when he forced them out of an opera. While on way home Bruce's parents are killed. (If you dont know the reason - watch the movie). He considers himself to be the reason for their death and is angered at sight on any crimial. He wanders across the world growing up to his youth, mixing up with crimials like another petty criminal.

His anger and revenge are finally directioned to perfection by a gang of Ninjas who call themselves the saviours of the Earth; these saviours bring whole cities to ashes when there is a lot of inharmony in that city. Little did Bruce Wayne realise that their next target was Bruce's own town - Gotham City. He fights the gang, destroying it (or as he thought he did) and returns to his city, to fight the petty as well as bureacratic crime as BATMAN.

While fighting against the crime, he comes across a plan that is meant to destroy his city; by none other than his own teacher and the gang of saviors. Can he save his city ? Can he stnad against his own teacher?, specially when they plan to destroy the city not in ancient methods, but by employing modern technology to destroy the whole city in one go...

Its a nice movie, a proper blend of technology and fiction. After seeing this movie even i feel i can become Batman :) Of course the technology comes at a cost which even US govt wont fund me - so i dropped the idea of being Batman. I'd try being Hanuman the indian way - meditate and gain boons :D. One must watch this movie and i'd even suggest that its a collector's item.

The beauty about this character against Spiderman or Superman is that this this person is more human than either of them. Neither he get bat powers, nor is he super human. He is a normal human being who has developed control over his emotions and senses and makes use of some advanced technology to turn into batman. For instance he uses a micro fibre cape, that remains like a normal cloth; but when electrically charged, becomes a strong sheet - which he uses to fly :)

Go and watch - The Batman begins...