UNDA - Review (Prime)

The sophomore venture from director Khalid Rahman features an ensemble cast, headlined by a very de-glammed Mammootty. Much like his debut Anuraga Karikkin Vellam (The Tender Coconut Water of Love…?), Unda too revolves around a borderline-dysfunctional group – the hero’s family in the former - though this time, it’s a larger one with much bigger stakes. Unda begins with a battalion of cops from the Kerala Police camp getting set for a mission: assist the ITBP in ensuring that the local elections in certain stations, deep within the forests of Chhattisgarh and considered infested by Maoists, take place on time and sans a hitch. The battalion gets further divided once they’ve reached the state, and from here on, we follow the 9-men troop, led by Sub-Inspector Manikandan (Mammootty) and headed to Bastar. Now unlike the actor’s khaki-clad characters from the past, SI Mani is a world-weary man who is nearing retirement and yet, doesn’t have much to highlight in his resume. However, that doesn’t stop his teammates from looking up to him… until he falters miserably during the first of many near-death situations faced by the rag-tag squad. And yes, Mammootty performs best when provided with roles outside the starry rut and he continues the trend here too.

Coming to the subordinates, the writer (Harshad) and the director have etched each of the eight guys with distinct personalities and backstories. And as a result, there are several internal conflicts too: ones which must be resolved before the insurgents get to hit the station. There is the cop who happens to be the only one capable of properly handling a rifle, but is totally pissed, thanks to an impending divorce. And there is that guy who gets his high from spitting racial slurs at his colleague, who happens to hail from a tribal area. Another is expecting a child, while yet another is just about to tie the knot. Also on the scene are the ever-suspicious guy, the one who hopes to make it big on the silver screen someday and the one who hardly speaks, but has a bottle ready and tucked away in his bag. Naturally, it's up to the leader to keep the bunch in check. And amidst these ever-escalating internal issues and the team's whole fish-out-of-water situation, comes another, even bigger problem: Lack of Ammo (and hence the title, Unda).

Naturally, one would expect a film with such a storyline to be a wholly dark, dour and serious affair, and Unda is anything but. The makers use the plot to not-so-subtly lampoon how the Government machineries keep playing the blame game through such a grave situation, and to emphasize the point that after all, the so-called Maoists might well be the manifestations of vote-hungry politicians . There are also plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that strangely, but brilliantly gel with the morbidity of the situation. The climactic fight sequence gets a bit OTT compared to the rest of the film, but here too, we get to see teamwork at play, rather than the lone hero single-handedly mowing an armed gang down.

Also at the heart of the movie is Kunal Chand (Omkar Das Manikpuri), a Bastar native whose village had been ruthlessly cleared out to accomodate the armed forces in the name of fighting the Maoist threats. It's through this character and Kapil Dev (Bhagwan Tiwari), the hard-drinking resident guard-cum-doctor at the Bastar station, the team slowly get to learn the gravity of the whole situation. And there's the ITBP Commander, who gets flummoxed by the team's complete lack of awareness, every time he comes to assess the situation. Thankfully, apart from a gang that arrives near the film's climax, all these characters are just flesh-and-blood humans, but exhausted beyond their limits.

Supporting performances are solid all around in this film, though special mention goes for Omkar Das as well as Lukman, who plays Biju, the cop who gets subjected to racial insults so frequently , that once he reaches the breaking point, he vows to quit his hard-earned job . Coming to the technical merits, the film fires on all rounds and hits the target, and hence, without a doubt, the film looks and sounds great in the Full HD-Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation from Amazon Prime.

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OVERLORD - Blu-ray Review

Produced by J J Abrams and directed by Julius Avery, Overlord is that kind of WWII-based genre-mashup flick one quite does not expect to be brought out by a studio major like Paramount, let alone a prolific producer of Abrams' stature. Very much reminiscent of the FPS classic Wolfenstein, the very hard-R film's plot follows a quartet of surviving American soldiers - fresh from a gruesomely botched D-day airdrop - making their move to take down a Nazi comms tower stationed on top of a church. Finding an ally in Chloe - a Nazi-hatin' girl from the village where the church is located - and a refuge in her house, they finally begin hatching a plan... until trouble arrives at the doorstep in the form of Captain Wafner, the bad guy with a lustful eye on Chloe. And as the said church is revealed to be housing stuff much more nefarious and sickening than that pesky radio tower, the titular Overlord is born and the film kicks into overdrive, never stopping to catch a breath till the end.

Despite its predictable plot and archetypal characters, Overlord is a blast throughout, as it succeeds in taking its time to build the tension up to the inevitable breaking point while still managing to nail the occasional jolts with jump-scares and graphic moments of hyperviolence. The film also complements the already bonkers plot with fun artistic liberties, chief among them being the middle finger raised against WWII racial segregation, in the form of Pvt Boyce (Jovan Adepo), the naïve black soldier who fights alongside the whites. Game of Thrones breakout Pilou Asbæk effortlessly seethes and snarls as the uber-evil Cap'n Wafner, whereas Wyatt Russell, much like the yesteryear roles by his legendary Dad, plays up his tough guy act as the gruff corporal Ford who believes in playing dirty to get the job done. Mathilde Ollivier makes an impression as Chloe, though she does not get much heroic moments for most of the film. The real stars of the film though, are the VFX and sound departments, with the former going all-out deviant to portray the horrors lurking inside the church and the latter, going for broke from the very start (that plane crash!) and further ratcheting the dread up with the aid of Jed Kurzel's creepy score and perhaps, some of the most terrifying foley work heard till date. Though 110 mins long, the film's edited to keep up with the breakneck nature of the plot and does not feel overlong.

Paramount delivers an excellent presentation of Overlord on its 4k release (which itself contains the 4k UHD disc and the routine 1080p Blu). Shot by Laurie Rose and Fabian Wagner, the film goes for a warm, yet grimdark visual aesthetic for most of the film, complete with oppressive shadows and occasional lens flares (c'mon, you didn't expect that from a JJ flick?), though that doesn't take away anything from the overall picture quality or distract anyone from the bloody, gooey mayhem on display. However, the Dolby Atmos (for both 4k and HD) audio here is an absolute beast that never lets up and keep assaulting from front, back and centre (and even above, per the reviewers equipped with Atmos systems). The lone extra here is an almost-an-hour-long 7-part BTS documentary on the 1080p disc.

SICARIO - Blu-ray Review

Directed by Denis Villeneuve ("Prisoners"), "Sicario" follows a by-the-books FBI agent Kate (Emily Blunt) who, eager to take out the Mexican drug cartel, volunteers to participate in an on-site mission proposed by a very casual and laid-back DOD officer Matt (Josh Brolin) who also instructs her to "watch and learn" without divulging any useful info. Joining the ride is Matt's partner Alejandro (Benecio Del Toro) who turns out to be even more enigmatic and sinister, and may harbor some kind of hidden agenda.
In short, Kate gets more than what she bargained for, and as the movie progresses, becomes increasingly frustrated and unsure about what the hell's really happening under the guise of tactical ops.

The film opens with a seemingly routine raid sequence which ends with a very gruesome revelation that also sets the tone for the rest of the flick. And to be honest, Sicario can be quite an uneasy film to watch, with the tension being frequently ratcheted to unbearable levels and the violence, unflinchingly brutal and disturbing without ever resorting to flashy stunts or over-the-top gore. Sure, there are the bad guys who run the cartel and execute numerous innocents, but they are just tiny blips in the bigger picture. The film, after all, is all about the three leads - Kate, Alejandro & Matt - with Kate serving as the audience surrogate who, like the viewer, only gradually manages to get a clear picture of the situation she's in. 

Speaking of these characters, Emily Blunt is perfect as the tough idealist who also happens to be quite vulnerable underneath all that toughness, whereas Josh Brolin lives the part of Matt, the federal douchebag for whom the end, and not the means, is all that matters... which brings us to Benecio Del Toro's turn as the mystery man Alejandro. The actor's in top form here as the ruthless lawyer-turned-enforcer who also inhabits some shreds of humanity deep within, but not enough to have him give up his murderous pursuits. There are a few important supporting characters too, namely, Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya), Kate's equally idealistic partner in FBI who is as clueless as Kate is, if not more, about the specifics of the cross-border mission, and Silvio (Maximiliano Hernández), a Mexican cop who has an entire subplot running parallel to the main story and culminating at a critical juncture in it.

Technically, the film is very strong. In fact, Sicario seems to have been designed much like a neo-western with its usage of numerous sweeping aerial shots of the Mexican landscape, courtesy of the legendary lensman Roger Deakins, and the insanely tense pursuits and shootouts. The deft editing too helps the film keep a firm pace throughout, and the sound design elevates an already excellent movie to another level with Johann Johannsson's incredibly dark score contributing a lot to the already bleak atmosphere. 

And I'm glad to report that Lionsgate's Blu-ray release pretty much perfectly recreates the film's dark and moody AV design, with the Dolby Atmos track often threatening to knock one off the couch. Speaking of extras, there are four short, but fairly informative featurettes. No filmmaker/cast commentary though.

ARMY OF DARKNESS -Blu-ray Review

Sam Raimi's cult horror comedy starts off with a brief recap of events from Evil Dead II, after which our chainsaw-and-shotgun-wielding hero Ash (Bruce Campbell) finds himself trapped in the past and surrounded by medieval knights. They first suspect him to be a foe and sentences him to being consumed by Deadites (a.k.a zombies who know kung-fu) along with a few other suspects. However, armed with his chainsaw, shotg...err... Boomstick, one-liners and (lack of) wits, he becomes the darling of the masses and is bestowed the title of "The Chosen One" who has been brought there to deal with the Deadites. He is tasked with retrieving the "Necronomicon" (Book of the dead) from a Deadite-infested cemetry, in order to have the zombies done for good and to have Ash travel forward in time and back to his normal life... and that's just the first third of the story, folks! 

AOD, from the get-go, is loaded with laughs. Or in Ash's words, AOD is a horror comedy... and horror has already left the town. In any other movie, the aforementioned Deadite-infested cemetry sequence would be fodder for countless scares... but this one is not any other movie, and Raimi and Co. makes the whole scenario a non-stop barrage of Looney Toons-esque gags involving Ash, lots of bones 

and miniature doppelgangers of Ash himself, finally leading to the birth, death and undeath of the film's villain, Evil Ash. And the goofy action-packed finale is testament to the fact that the entire cast and crew - especially the stunt and FX guys - were having the time of their lives with this film. Last but not the least, there's Bruce Campbell who owns the show as Ash 

as well as his evil twin, Evil Ash. Hail to the king, indeed, baby!

Scream Factory has released a truly awesome collector's edition for AOD with three BD-50's, each brimming with content. Disc 1 contains the Theatrical cut with related extras, Disc 2 contains the Director's Cut (which I watched) with related extras and Disc 3 contains the 4k-sourced International cut as well as a TV cut, along with the rest of the extras. The DC looks very good, even though print-related damage can be spotted at places. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is a fairly active one, although spatially limited by its Dolby Stereo source.

The extras include a commentary (DC only), a feature-length making-of doc, alternate beginning and ending (for the TC disc only; the DC has these reinstated), another doc on the old-school VFX and quite a few more, which I can't recollect. The cover art is reversible, with one side having the theatrical poster art and the other having the new artwork commissioned by SF (which is used for marketing and release).