By Betsy Sharkey FILM: The Man With the Iron FistsCAST: RZA, Rick Yune, Lucy Liu, Russell CroweDIRECTION: RZA The Man With the Iron Fists is a wildly whirling martial arts spectacle with an endless array of exotic knives, a penchant for Zen philosophising and an unquenchable thirst for blood. It may just be one of the best bad movies ever.I do not confer such infamy lightly, but the flaws are far more amusing than infuriating and its director/writer/star, RZA of Wu-Tang Clan fame, is mesmerising. There is nothing subtle about the film, including its abject devotion to classic kung fu fare. It has the backing of another martial arts fanatic in Quentin Tarantino, though Fists never gets close to the director’s own brilliant kung fu homage, Kill Bill.Through the morass, you can see that RZA has good instincts for grand theatre, while the filmmaking itself is raw and in serious need of refining. It’s why the look of the film — a blend of French Baroque and ancient China — is quite beautiful and the martial arts choreography intriguing in its excess. But the first-time filmmaker doesn’t yet know how to handle his actors, and the performances are terribly uneven as a result.The one thing Fists does frequently, if not always well, is spill blood and expose guts. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone’s throat ripped out so literally. Meanwhile the blood is so thin it seems more like a massive black cherry Kool-Aid slick than the very life leaking out of the fallen.The screenplay, which RZA wrote with Eli Roth, another Tarantino disciple, is a complicated one with a dizzying number of warring clans in feudal China. An assassination, a power grab and some gold digging get things roiling. For reasons that completely elude me, all of the action that follows takes place in Jungle Village, known for its “house of pleasure”, the Pink Blossom, run by Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu). The enigmatic Blacksmith (RZA) spends his days fashioning exotic weaponry for the various clans. His nights are wiled away with one of the Blossom’s fetching young pretties, Lady Silk (Jamie Chung).The Blacksmith — the man who will one day have the iron fists — is the central figure in the film and the narrator as well. RZA has a silky smooth baritone that would be excellent for bedtime stories, so much does it lull you into thinking you will be able to make sense of things. The plot goes seriously off-course in filling in the Blacksmith’s back story, which involves slavery, a ship named Destiny and monks.The extreme action is well-choreographed and comes courtesy of the Chinese clans that square off over the stolen gold. The factions are named after the animals they favour — the Lion, Hyena and Wolf clans, with a couple of Gemini thrown in to further confuse things. The force for good is little more than the one-man show of Zen Yi/The X-Blade (Rick Yune). There’s a long line in the villain column, most notably Poison Dagger (Daniel Wu), plus the many Lions and their fabulous manes — props to the make-up and hair folks for this hoot. Bronze Lion (Cung Le) and Silver Lion (Byron Mann) are the memorable ones.The whole metal thing is something the film just can’t shake. One particularly lethal dude is called Brass Body (David Bautista); you can guess why.Somehow the Blacksmith gets on the wrong side of the clans and they break from breaking one another to punish the smithy. Russell Crowe, as an Aussie mercenary named Jack Knife, ultimately helps save the Blacksmith and outfit him with those fists of iron. Suffice it to say the process is excruciatingly painful and the camera is merciless, with director of photography Chan Chi Ying not shy about going in for a close-up and delivering one of the film’s more gruesome moments.Any way you slice it — and with all those knives there is a lot of slicing — The Man With the Iron Fists really is bad to the bone. When it goes for camp, it falls short. When it edges toward serious, it slips. There is such a twinkle in Crowe’s eyes when he turns up you get the feeling he’s in on a joke the rest of us aren’t privy to.If you’re in a kung fu fighting mood and have some cash to burn, The Man With the Iron Fists can be something of a guilty pleasure. But RZA should keep in mind that next time around bad won’t cut it. — Los Angeles Times/MCT (DVD courtesy: Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha)Brainy, brutal science fictionBy Colin Covert FILM: LooperCAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily BluntDIRECTION: Rian Johnson Looper proves what goes around comes around. In this brainy, brutal science fiction noir time travel exists — though only in the hands of future criminals. The gangsters of the 2070s use the outlawed technology as a waste management system.Since it’s impossible to beat their era’s advanced forensics, they send their enemies back 30 years to the sunny Kansas cornfields, where “loopers” whack them and burn the bodies.Just so there are no loose ends, it’s understood that one day the looper may have to off his future self. Those who don’t “close the loop” are punished in a manner so creatively horrible that failure is not an option. Meanwhile, it’s drugs, decadence and depravity in grungy, dystopian Kansas City.Rian Johnson’s film delves into the ethical, practical and emotional dilemmas this arrangement poses for its protagonist, a callous hit man named Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, dapper and heartless). The sociopath gets a tough lesson in karma when he finds his gun pointing at the future version of himself (Bruce Willis). When Joe fumbles the rub out — wouldn’t you? — the film becomes a dark manhunt thriller with a steadily tightening grip. Old Joe knows something about the future, and its tyrannical mob overlord “the Rainmaker” that makes him desperate to knock history off its train tracks.Old Joe tries to reason with his young double, but neither sees much in the other that he likes. Young Joe’s pursuit of the fugitive brings him to the farm of shotgun-toting mom Sara (Emily Blunt) and her talented son (riveting Pierce Gagnon), who offer him a last chance at redemption. It arrives in a form that is painful but appropriate.Looper gives us a glimpse of a world where some things have changed (there are hover bikes and mutant telekinetic prodigies) but more is a warped extension of today. Future Kansas is a ghastly economic dead zone while Shanghai, where several key scenes take place, is a cutting-edge Shangri-La. Jeff Daniels plays a smiling-barracuda mafia emissary from the 2070s who warns his young hit men, “learn Mandarin.”Nothing in Johnson’s past prepared me for the impact of this film. His hardboiled 2005 high school murder mystery Brick was a clever stunt, while his con man romance The Brothers Bloom was a cloying exercise in arthouse whimsy. Here the writer/director isn’t showing off but knuckling down.The plot is Swiss clockwork, yet Johnson takes time to develop powerful characters. He’s visually in command of his material, giving us scenes that resemble Andrew Wyeth landscapes, others that echo mobster anime, and a handful like nothing you’ve seen before.The film borrows expertly from 12 Monkeys and Terminator, sidestepping the paradoxes that can gum up even the best time-travel story. Old Joe tells his young self not to start asking questions or “we’ll just end up making diagrams with napkins and straws.” It’s possible to nitpick Looper’s storyline, but, the set-up is so confident you willingly suspend disbelief. Johnson wears his new maturity with confidence, delivering a tense, twisty story with an unexpected emotional wallop. — Star Tribune/MCT(DVD courtesy: King’s Electronics, Doha)Stylish saga with a little substanceBy Troy Ribeiro FILM: Student Of The Year (Hindi)CAST: Siddharth Malhotra, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Rishi Kapoor, Ram Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Gautami Kapoor, Sana Syed, Kayoze Irani and Farida JalalDIRECTION: Karan Johar Karan Johar talks about loving your friends in his latest film Student Of The Year (SOTY).Student Of The Year is light and fluffy, yet full of substance. The lead threesome — Varun Dhawan, Siddharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt — are adorable.The narrative goes back and forth in a similar fashion that was witnessed in Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na. School friends meet after a decade of leaving school when they come to meet their dean, Yogendra Vashisth (Rishi Kapoor) who is unwell and recap their final year in school.They studied in St Teresa, a formidable school where kids of rich and famous mingle with hardworking scholars. The contrast is evident when the have-nots are at the beck and call of the creme de la creme.The rich and flamboyant, Rohan Nanda (Varun Dhawan) is the heartthrob of the school. Shanaya (Alia Bhatt) is his taken-for-granted girlfriend. Life is hunky dory, till Abhimanyu Singh (Siddharth Malhotra) enters.SOTY is quite unpredictable. Instead of the regular clichéd rivalry here are two friends who bond together, till circumstances push them away.Those who are not into teenybopper sagas may find the film dragging in parts. It’s only post-interval when the competition for the Student of the Year Award heats up that the viewer is glued to his seat. The pace of the film picks up and we wonder who will walk away with the coveted trophy.The film emits Karan Johar’s pink humour in plenty. Rishi Kapoor as the gay dean with a roving eye and soft corner for the sports coach, played by Ronit Roy, is fabulous. The scene where he throws the ‘dafli’ at the coach’s wife during the sangeet ceremony of Rohana’s brother is thoroughly enjoyable. The camera does not miss any opportunity to capture the best of the male leads Siddharth and Varun, with their six-pack abs et al. A treat for the eyes of many.In terms of performances, all the three debutants are confidence personified. Siddharth is a bit stiff in certain scenes, whereas Alia Bhatt obviously has acting in her genes. But it is Varun Dhawan who steals the show with his charismatic and endearing performance. He is spontaneous and an elegant dancer.Niranjan Iyengar’s dialogues have their moments. With puns and rhymes, he wows the audiences. If Rensil D’silva’s screenplay is sleek, production quality is visually appealing, glossy and vibrant. Vishal-Shekhar’s young, peppy and soulful compositions are enjoyable and foot-tapping.Overall, the film is larger than life. A blend of High School Musical and Julia Robert’s Monalisa Smile is an enjoyable combination. Definitely worth a watch. — IANS
War movie action with a French accentBy Roger Moore FILM: Special ForcesCAST: Djimon Hounsou, Diane Kruger, Benoit MagimelDIRECTION: Stephane Rybojad The commandos are grizzled and grinning, loaded into choppers, zipping into trouble spots and dealing death with skill and stealth.“I love this job!” one declares.And afterwards, after silently sniping away at the bad guys, tossing a well-timed grenade here and there and slitting the occasional evil throat, they fly back to their aircraft carrier, anxious for their next leave to visit girlfriends and wives.But in Special Forces, they’re flying back to the aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle. They’re commanded by Tcheky Karyo. And they’re speaking French.Special Forces is a routine commando action film about elite French fighters sent to rescue an intrepid French reporter (Diane Kruger).Elsa Casanova has been on the trail of a brutal Western-educated warlord (Raz Degan of Oliver Stone’s Alexander), and he’s turned the tables on her and captured her and her driver-“fixer” Amen (Mehdi Nebbou).The French president declares “No French woman will be decapitated (on TV) for the world to see.” Send in the Special Forces. The commanding Djimon Hounsou is well-cast as the leader of the team sent to Pakistan’s Wild Western tribal regions to fetch her. His six-man team has “types” any fan of combat films will recognise — even if they sometimes (no always) speak French. There’s the bearish Victor (Alain Figlarz), the even gruffer Lucas (Denis Menochet) and the sensitive sniper Elias (Raphael Personnaz). How sensitive?“I don’t even hate you,” he yells, at one point. In French.Director Stephane Rybojad filmed a French TV documentary about soldiers, so you’d expect the details to be spot-on. But the firefights are more Hollywood than you’d expect. The commandos stand up and line up for toe-to-toe shootouts with waves of Taliban. John Wayne isn’t dead. He’s just become a wine-drinking croissant eater.The team, and the hostage, have to trek and fight their way through stunning deserts and snowy mountains, because the first casualty in war — OK, war films — is the radio. In the movies, the myth of the “surgical strike” and “sniper who never misses” live on. Technology only lets you down when that would make for a shorter movie.But even in its over-the-top moments, Special Forces is solid entertainment, a chest-thumping (and reporter-hating) recruiting film in the Act of Valor mould — but with a French accent. — MCTOutrage over criminal cover-upBy Rene Rodrigues FILM: The WhistleblowerCAST: Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave, Monica BellucciDIRECTION: Larysa Kondracki In The Whistleblower, Rachel Weisz delivers a sensational, captivating performance as Kathryn Bolkovac, a police officer and divorced mother from Lincoln, Nebraska, who accepted a lucrative offer in 1999 to serve as a peacekeeping officer in Bosnia for six months and wound up uncovering a shocking conspiracy involving human trafficking, underage girls and the United Nations.Weisz portrays Bolkovac as a devoted investigator who can’t believe what she’s stumbled onto but pursues her leads doggedly — at first out of incredulity and obligation; eventually, out of outrage and a desire for justice. In Weisz’s eyes, we see Kathryn’s transformation from a public servant doing what’s expected of her to a crusader driven to by her own conscience. Her performance is terrific; the movie, sadly, is not.First-time director Larysa Kondracki, who also co-wrote the script, is the kind of filmmaker who doesn’t trust her audience: She hammers away at the viewer relentlessly, as if she were afraid we would miss the extremity of the crimes that were committed (the movie is based on actual events). As Kathryn’s investigation — which begins when she attempts to help a group of terrified young prostitutes — gathers steam, her superiors and co-workers (including Vanessa Redgrave and Monica Bellucci) claim to be unable to help, or even become impediments to her detective work. The case is related joylessly, with an emphasis on its dehumanising aspects.Unlike other fact-based dramas about whistleblowers (such as The Insider or Silkwood), the movie never develops any dramatic momentum or pull: The film is just a procession of increasingly grim and ugly scenarios and discoveries, capped off by a wildly frustrating ending. Kathryn places herself in increasingly greater danger as her investigation proceeds — danger from both outside and inside the UN — but we know she, at least, will emerge from the experience alive. Some of the women she’s trying to help, however, may not be as lucky.The Whistleblower makes viewers feel angry that the US government continues to employ the security firm DynCorp International, the main culprits of the unspeakable crimes committed in the film. But aside from Weisz, The Whistleblower fails as a movie — self-important and heavy-handed when it should be harrowing and heartbreaking, and intent on feeling your outrage for you. – Miami Herald/MCT(DVDs courtesy: King’s Electronics, Doha)