Get Smart

Well it’s been a while since I have reviewed a film. I thought of reviewing both Dasavatharam and Taare Zameen par (the former due to mental compulsion and the latter due to inspiration) but indolence took the better of me, as usual. But never I thought I would bounce back my reviewing with an English film and that too a less hyped and talked about one.

Yes Iam talking about the hilarious, laugh out loud flicks “Get Smart”. Well I don’t know about you all, but Iam a great admirer of Steve Carell. The suave looking actor impressed me a lot in his small but extremely comical role as Evan Baxter in “Bruce Almighty”. He has got this unique skill of maintaining a straight and serious face while delivering the most funniest lines that would make your stomach ache with laughter and roll on the floor and this was exactly what we were doing the full two hours (a little bit of exaggeration as you obviously cant roll over the floor in a theatre… but that’s the effect of the film). I was really surprised to find out from Sudhish Kamath’s review that he’s one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood. I really hope he gets more fame and popularity through this film.

The plot is simple. It’s about a secret agent association, CONTROL, which aims to foil the evil plans of a terror group called KAOS who plan a mass destruction via a radioactive nuclear explosion. First Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) is introduced as an analyst in the department who makes full fledged and comprehensive reports on terror groups. But he deeply aspires to become a field agent along with his close friend Agent 23(The Rock). When the headquarters is attacked and the identities of its members revealed, The Chief (played by Academy Award winner Alan Arkin) appoints a new team and exalts Max to the most coveted post of field agent. He gets an added blessing of getting the aid of skilled super sexy Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway). How they work together to stop the evil forces of KAOS forms the rest of the story.

The next actor to be mentioned is The Rock. A huge cheer erupted as he made his entry and the cheer slowly burst into laughter with the comic scene that followed next. He’s got enormous style and charisma and his body language is simply awesome. He is one of the few actors in Hollywood who can do both action and comic roles with aplomb. The next one is Anne Hathaway. She plays Agent 99 and my temperature reached that number whenever she was on screen (figurative speech employed). Apart from physical beauty, the actress has played her part well. All her action scenes have been choreographed well and her expertise mingled with Smart’s inexperience provide a lot of hilarious moment. And there are also lots of double entendres to boost the humor quotient. Another thing worth noting is the mockery of the American President in almost all the films in which he is a character. Even in our own Dasavatharam, Kamal made a perfect yet hilarious imitation of Bush and in this movie Bush is shown as a complete goof (which is also true in real life as in the reel).

I hope that this review has been compelling enough to make you grab a ticket for the film and even if it hasn’t please do not miss this wonderfully crafted comic caper.

A tiring day

Whoa! It’s been a real tough day. Never had I done so much driving in a single day. Not that I’m fed up of driving, it’s one of the activities I deeply adore but it transforms into a living hell when are you are caught up in heavy traffic while doing it and it’s very rare that I get caught in it more than once. But today was something exceptional and I was a victim to heavy traffic as much as 4 times in different parts of the city.

The journey started at around 2 pm when I left home for college to get some no due sign from our staff. Our psychotic dept had decided to torture us for the last tome in their life with these no dues, signatures and such crap and I must say they are really successful in it. Anyway none of the staff were present today and my trip to the college turned futile (as usual). I spotted only our FA (Faculty Advisor, but I have a better expansion for it. Contact me if you wanna know) but decided it wise not to meet her. A couple of days earlier, I approached her for the same no due work and she bluffed about one of the three laptops (were there really three? I seriously thought there was only one!!!) Getting lost and we students were responsible for it. Let me inform you ma’m that the last thing a sane, I again quote “sane” student would do, is to steal something from the dept (I really can’t see anything worth stealing in the dept anyway) and that too a laptop. It is a well known fact through out MIT and possibly chromepet( if you had a chopper view of chromepet, the college along with the railway station seemed to cover the entire area with houses and shops sprinkled here and there) that the systems in the elex dept contains more viruses than useful information. So anyone in his senses would never even dream of purloining a laptop brimming with viruses.

I met up with Kumar and we left to sathyam cinemas to see Indiana Jones part-4. We had a nice chat along the way. We discussed about Dasavatharam music, some college gossip (This is one bad habit I would like to avoid) and about directorial skills of Selvaraghavan, Gowtham, M.Night Shyamalan and Spielberg. The movie was an exciting ride from start to finish. The only other Spielberg film I saw in theatres was “war of the worlds” and it was total crap. He lived up to my expectations this time and I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

After the film I and Kumar headed to Burma bazaar. I had to exchange a wrongly given DVD the other day with the film I needed and Kumar was to catch the train to chromepet at beach. On the way there was heavy traffic at triplicane, not caused by vehicles, but by pedestrians. The roads there are narrow and these people simply crowd along the roads turning a nelson’s eye to the vehicles. On a particular junction I had to tae a left but a biker was blocking my way. I honked as hard as possible but he didn’t seem to respond. Only when the auto-driver behind me bestowed him with the title of “son of a buffalo” did he move. After asking for directions we reached Burma bazaar at around 6-45. While we were searching for the shop, we were accosted by a shop keeper who was bent on persuading us to buy something. The modus operandi employed by these persons is simply amazing

He approaches us as if he is the noblest person in the entire universe.
The guy- “Hello?" Do u like any DVDs?”
Me-“No we actually came to return a DVD”
Him-“Can I have a look at it?”
ME- “No we are in a hurry; we just have to exchange it”
Kumar-“Yes, we already called up that guy to tell that we want to exchange this with the film we needed”

But the guy was adamant and he jus took the DVD I was loosely holding, opened it and examined it (as if he was the genius who invented these things and could spot a flaw just by seeing it). This act of his deeply incensed me.

Me (a bit angrily)-“jus give us the DVD, we are here jus to return it and get the money back if the film we ask for isn there”
Him (acting as if he was smart) - “Sir, even if you want to lie, try to tell a lie that is believable”

Me-“Ok ok”

Later to Kumar- “Yeah, as if the govt is gonna award me for lying to a jerk off like him”

The guy’s ulterior motive was to make a few bucks out of us so that he could have booze or even more probably to get laid with a prostitute. But I made it a point not to buy anything from him and I didn’t. In the end, we reached the shop and exchanged the DVD. But fate had some other thing in store with which I will mention at the end of this blog.
On my way back home, I was caught in heavy traffic in RK Salai, Kodambakkam Bridge and Valluvarkottam junction. Only when you want to reach home early and take a rest, do these things happen. In RK salai, the traffic is generally smooth, but it seems there was a wedding reception at a marriage hall located near the main road and this had disrupted the flow of traffic. While passing I spotted policemen and traffic personnel. Seems some bigshot in the city was getting married or getting his son or daughter or even his wife married.
Reaching home, I fell with a heavy thud on the bed. Having rest for a few minutes, I had dinner and checked the DVD. And Guess what happened? The guy had given me the wrong DVD again. Along with the DVD he gave me his visiting card as if he was of Ambani mould. But it came in handy as I called him up and gave him a good blasting( And you very well know how good I am when it comes to blasting). He told he would call again but didn’t and I too by that time had become too tired to do anything.

So with a huge hope that the next day wouldn’t be as bad as this one, I shut my eyes and fell asleep.