Review and Analysis of "Homefront (2013)"

"When I go home, I am gonna read my daughter a bedtime story. This is how it ends."

                                                                            

                                                                                                                                            - Phil Broker

The trend of action movies have always been a hit. Many of the old action heroes have started to come back as well as new actors have joined in. With hits such as "The Expendables" (1 and 2) and "The Fast and The Furious series" there is no doubt that this genre is still giving audiences what they want to see- people beating each other up, explosions and car racing taking place. One of the most recent actors to inherit a name for himself in this genre is Jason Statham who earlier starred in many caper films directed by Guy Ritchie and is mostly famous for his lead role in the "Transporter Trilogy". His movies generally compromise on the story and character development in place of intense action sequences where we get to see him beating up bad guys and he always performs it with extreme delight. His recent flick, "Homefront" promised to give more than that. Let's see what it offered.

Based on a screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and on a novel by Chuck Logan, the film follows a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent by the name of Phil Broker (Jason Statham) who goes into an undercover operation to stop a biker gang named "The Outcasts" in shutting down their drug distribution operation. When the operation gets bused, the leader of the gang, Danny T (Chuck Zito) tries to escape with his son. However, in the firefight, his son gets shot and killed by the police which forces Broker to quit his job. The reason was never specifically stated except for the fact that maybe he didn't like the fact that a father lost his only son. We cut to 2 years later in the film, where Broker has moved in with his daughter, Maddy Broker (Izabela Vidovic) to the quiet town of Raysville which according to her has everything they would want to have except for a "Wi-Fi".

                                "A beautiful house, horse trails, river in our backyard"

Trouble starts when Maddy beats up a local boy at the school who was bullying her who turns out to be sun of a drug addict Cassie Klum (Kate Bosworth). It so happens that Cassie is the sister of the main antagonist of the movie, Gator Bodine (James Franco) who has a small meth distribution system setup in the town and is planning to expand it to the states.

When Cassie asks Gator to "scare off" Broker and his daughter, Gator starts to look into his background. When he learns the truth about him, he hires his girlfriend Sheryl Marie Mott (Winona Ryder) to act as a middleman to Danny T.'s lawyer so that he can give him Broker in exchange for state wise distribution of his drugs. And that's where the battle for "Home" starts.

The plot is intriguing enough but the film had some flaws. As the movie was filled with a good cast, I was inclined to assume that maybe it was not a regular Statham flick like many were hoping to believe. First, its the main antagonist himself. James Franco is a wonderful actor and seeing his performance in "127 Hours" made me realize his potential to act as a villain. However, his character was seriously underutilized. The name Gator was twice compared to an alligator in the movie: once when we see the tattoo on his right arm and second when during the opening movie credits when we see an alligator swimming in a lake thereby indicating that he will fight for his territory. However, apart from that there was nothing fleshed out about his character. We see that he feels sorry for his sister and angry at himself for giving her the drugs but apart from that we never see the conflict going inside him in which he may question himself as doing the right or a wrong thing. In other genre, he may have made an excellent character where the film makers could have sympathized with him for him being evil and could have explained why he chose to do the things he is doing. Aside from stating only one specific reason for why he wants to hurt Broker (due to his sister) there is no other reason why he does not believe that is it worth to risk an innocent man's life, most particularly, a child's. I was expecting some dramatic moments as the whole movie was revolving around the theme of a hero and a villain both fighting to protect their family for their own particular reasons. I believed the reasons of the villain were never explained clearly in the movie. In the end, he did bad things because he was bad and turned out to be a typical movie villain in a typical Statham movie. He also didn't seem much of a threat and was very easily defeated by Broker in the final action sequence. Ryder's character was also underutilized due to the fact that we know she can act. Frank Grillo, played a hitman named Cyrus who was sent by Danny T. to kill broker and who also failed to deliver good villainous moments even after delivering solid performances in "The Grey" and "Prison Break". The actors had a lot of potential but the script did not allow them to fully explore what they could have given. 

  "I believe your reputation is the most important thing"

Now, we come to the hero. Statham as usual delivers a good performance as the tough father.Here's a father whose daughter you don't want to mess with because that's the last thing you would be doing. We get to hear break knuckles, throw punches, blast shotgun shells and throw heavy stuff at his enemies. Its always a delight in all of his movies to see him warning bad guys about not messing with him and how we root for the bad guys to do just the opposite of it because when they do...we are in for a treat. There is a scene in the movie where Broker threatens Gator in a restaurant which is a great suspense builder. However, the outcome was a disappointment. Nevertheless, apart from the finale the rest of the action scenes were done pretty well and brutal. This one could easily qualify as one of Statham's "Satuday Action Hours".

                               "I want my kid's cat back. Today. Not a hair out of place"

Overall, the film was enjoyable for its action sequences but apart from that it lacked character development and many plotholes. One of the main reasons was the presence of a good cast which made me believe this would not be a standard Statham action flick but a bit more. Also, Sylvester's Stallone's name attached to the screenplay definitely build up the hype due to his previous successful works. There is a lesson to be learnt here, a good cast does not necessarily mean presence of good characters and plot if its a Statham flick. Sit back and enjoy it for what it gives you for your time and money...explosions and action.

My rating-45%

                                                                                      

Review and Analysis of "Gravity (2013)"

“Ryan, you’re gonna have to learn to let go”

                                                                                                 -Lieutenant Matt Kowalski

Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” is a masterpiece to behold. Its a movie about life’s unknown destinations, the act of self-realization and to move on after accepting the biggest hurdle faced in life: loss.

Based on a screenplay by Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron, the film follows two astronauts, medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and a veteran astronaut Lieutenant Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) on a fictitious space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble telescope. Within a few minutes of repairing the telescope they are forced to deal with a cloud of satellite debris heading their way due to a missile strike by the Russians on it. What Matt Kowalski calls a “right of disposal” immediately turns into an impending danger as the initial debris begins to hit other satellites and increases the size of the overall debris travelling towards their trajectory path. Being unable to change their trajectory within time the space shuttle which is named “Explorer” gets bombarded by the debris and the astronauts find themselves adrift in the blackness of space. The film follows the aftermath of the incident and how the two astronauts embark on their survivalist journey to go home.

The opening shot of the movie itself defines the sense of silence, isolation and solitude experienced by the characters in space and how it contradicts with the noise and chaos in our home, i.e. Earth. Cuaron clearly paid homage to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001:A Space Odyssey” by the extensive long focus camera shots. Its clearly a delight to hear the characters talking to themselves in a silent and calm environment, most particularly Kowalski’s short stories which gives a feel of how they are extremely comfortable to the environment around them which is clearly beautiful as well as dangerous. The two main characters themselves define the life up there: in one instance Dr. Stone says that she can get used to the “silence” up here and Lieutenant Kowalski says that nothing can “beat the view” of things seen here. There lies a difference between the behavior of both characters regarding things happening around them which is clearly explored once the disaster takes place.

Clooney plays the cocky and totally in charge Kowalski who always has a story, joke or a humorous thing to tell irrespective of the things happening around him. He acts as a sort of supportive figure to Bullock’s character, always trying to keep her calm by initiating regular conversations, trying to be ridiculously composed even after facing lack of fuel in his thrusters and lack of oxygen in Ryan’s suit. Its only through Kowalski that Ryan finds the inner strength of her character and learns to plant her feet on the ground to move on. As for Ryan, its only when Kowalski asks her about her home when we get to know her character who is  a woman who has lost everything in her life, most particularly her 4 year old daughter who was killed in an injury playing a game of Tag. Its a thought on how disastrous things can happen during a normal routine which reflects their situation indirectly. Since that incident, Ryan has lost faith and purpose in life and she has been continuously “driving” on this road without any sense of where her ultimate destination is. The subtle messages which Cuaron gives are very beautiful where the universe can be compared to Ryan’s life and how she is always floating adrift here and there without knowing where she’ll ultimately stop. Ryan has never been able to “let go” of her tragic past and Kowalski acted as a medium, a person which had to be gone from her life through which she will ultimately learn to move on. Its only when Ryan lets go of Kowalski that she gains the strength to accept her past losses.

 Its always stated that you have to accept your past to move on and not to cling to it else you will always be in a state of ruin. In this picture, Ryan clinging to Kowalski is a visual symbolism of her clinging to her past and how she has to let go to get back to her life,i.e., the ISS here. In a nutshell, the whole movie is about Ryan's journey and how by accepting her past she was reborn as a woman and once again came back to mother Earth. One of the images which Cuaron gave for the themes of life and rebirth is-

There is a scene later on where Stone gives up and accepts that she will die when she sees a hallucination of Kowalski which once again rejuvenates her inner strength. Here, the conscience of Stone begins to take place of Kowalski where she calls upon him sub consciously to give her the will to move on. Another memorable sequence in this film is when she gets out of the Soyuz pod to disconnect the parachute cables before the debris comes. Her musical humming while the debris destroys the ISS next to her face is truly terrifying where she knows the situation yet is trying to keep her calm, just the way Kowalski would have done. Its this transformation, rebirth and change from a weak (Ryan) to a strong (Kowalski) person. Also, in the final shot she is reborn back to Earth and emerges from the water all clean and fresh like a new organism where she starts to take “baby steps” to move forward. The scene of a frog swimming in the lake symbolises the concept of her rebirth from a tadpole to a frog.

The camera shots in the movie are marvellous. The long shots, particularly the first 13 minutes of the movie coupled with the regular upside down movement gives us a feel of how it is to float in space slowly. There’s a sense of disorientation felt when Bullock’s character floats adrift at high speed on initial impact by the debris. The shots of the Earth’s reflection swaying to and fro, upside down, left and right makes us feel the “vertigo effect”. The film also uses first person shots like the image above to give the audience a feel of how the character is experiencing what is going on up there. Last but not the least, long distance shots of the universe where we can see a tiny glimpse of the astronauts and stars show us how miniscule they are compared to their surroundings.

  Sandra Bullock and George Clooney both give a phenomenal performance as Dr. Ryan Stone and Lieutenant Matt Kowalski and its sometimes hard to believe the difference between the actual character and the actors. Personally, I believe this is Clooney’s best performance since “Up in the Air” and I expect to see him in more good future projects. His character even though in the film for only 30 minutes, makes a memorable impact on the audience and it’s a classic example of a film fact that “its not how much time a character spends on screen, but the amount of connection he/she makes with the viewers that count”. Also, Steve Price’s soundtrack fits the danger, gloominess, melancholy, isolation and the infinity of space. The visual effects were stunning and beautiful at the same time. Some of the key scenes where the "Computer Generated Imagery (CGI)"  was truly at its best were the shot of the Earth’s sunrise, the debris particles, the destruction of the ISS and the Explorer, and the pod’s breaking into tiny meteor showers. The film is definitely recommended to be viewed in 3D Blu-ray.

The only issue which I had with the film was that it felt short. With a run time of only 90 minutes, on my initial viewing I felt that they could have expanded more on Stone’s struggle where she could have faced more hurdles on her return journey. Also, I would have loved to see more of Clooney’s character and his random comforting talks. I was actually very glad when he returned but was surprised when it turned out to be a hallucination. However, these are just minor issues and can be clearly overlooked.  Alfonso Cuaron did an excellent job in creating a film which was spectacular and gave some of the facts of everyday life through having us experience a huge disastrous event and also which respected and gave homage to the previous movies of the “Sci-Fi” genre having the same themes like Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13”, Duncan Jones’s “Moon” and Ridley Scott’s “Alien”.

My rating- 95%

Behind the scenes

Did you ever experience the temptation of knowing there was more to a movie than what meets the eye? Has it ever happened that once a movie ended you said to yourself something along the lines of “Wow, that was awesome and I would definitely like to see it once again and pick up the little details” or  “Hmm, it was okay. One time watch if you don’t have anything better to do” or “Argghh, what a waste of my time and money, I would never want to see this movie again”. I believe every one of us has said this to ourselves or to someone at some point of their cinema experience.

Welcome to "FlickZea" where I would be writing movie reviews on old classics as well as current ones. It would not be a standard review but a full “break down” on every aspect related to the movie relating to themes, settings, background scores, performances, dialogues etc. Any comments in the way of personal views, suggestions, or any other alternate theory regarding the movie would be greatly appreciated and would definitely add to the fun element. Every genre of movies would be covered.

The aim of this blog is to create a discussion place for every movie goer who sees movies as a work of art, as a normal leisure hour thing or as a way to get away from reality. Irrespective of whatever the reason a person watches them, the blog is meant for a novice, casual as well as the hardcore movie buff.

Well, that’s all there is to know about this blog. As for me, you can call me Ankur and I come from the city of Lucknow which is situated in a diverse landscape known as India. I have been interested in movies from the start and they have been a big part of my life. I live with my mom and dad and have just finished my post-graduation with the hope of earning a career in Finance. In my free time I like to play video games, watch movies and read books. Seeing my first movie when I was 13 and developing a regular habit ever since made a big impact on me. I asked myself thoughts like-

• What is the director trying to show?

• Why was this movie better than the previous one? What was lacking in the former?

• Why this movie looked darker and that one cheerful?

• What's up with the camera?

• What is he/she trying to do,think or say?

These usual thoughts intrigued me to explore the world of cinema. Earlier, I was restricted to one or two genres only but as time went on; I explored every category of genres available and now have a much wider field of view of them. So much so, that I wanted to share my thoughts with all of you which prompted me to create “FlickZea” and would love to hear your ideas and opinions as well.

I would also love to do reviews on request and they can be posted on the comments section or on FlickZea’s email id- flickzealotreviews@gmail.com.

Follow me on twitter at- https://twitter.com/flickzea

Well that’s it folks...let’s catch up to those reviews.

P.S.- If for some reasons, blogger comments are not working you can mail me the requests.