Arun Rajagopal

Movies in Muscat – Shooter, Shakalaka Boom Boom April 13, 2007

This is my first post after making the move to WordPress. It took me some time to sort out the name servers on my DNS control and then for the blog to come live, but boy it’s good to be home.

I’ve had a great weekend so far. Watched Sri Lanka notch up a comprehensive victory over New Zealand yesterday. Wonder what’s happened to Fleming’s boys, they looked so jaded on the field. I slept like a log, for over 12 hours, woke up way past noon, after seeing all kinds of dreams including a train ride.

Spent some time on TV, Asianet was showing ‘Varavelpu’ (Malayalam). Really love the story of an NRI who comes back to Kerala and puts all his money into running a bus service which hits rough terrain, when the ‘system’ in Kerala rears its ugly head towards the entrepreneur. He loses all he has made in life and then returns back to the Middle East to start from scratch. Seen that so many times in real life too.

Went for a movie in the afternoon, in fact let me quickly post you on the newly released flicks in Muscat – the ones I have seen in the last few days.

Shooter (English)
Screen: Ruwi Cinema
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Danny Glover, Ned Beatty, Michael Peña, Kate Mara
‘Yesterday was about honour. Today is about justice.’ Shooter is about rifle-totting heroics of Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg), a former United States Marine Corps sniper who is framed in an assassination bid on the President of the USA, and how he turns the table on those who frame him. Mark Wahlberg delivers a very restrained performance as the sniper on the run who uses his military training to get justice for himself in a world of corrupt, evil and powerful hotshots. Though Shooter has got the right mood and has its fair share of action sequences, you will find to your dismay that the ‘kick-ass adrenaline’ that usually flows through this kind of movies is in short supply in Shooter. Pitched between ‘The Terminator’ and ‘The Fugitive’, Shooter is neither there nor here, and that’s where it lacks. Makes up for passable viewing.

Shakalaka Boom Boom (Hindi)
Screen: Ruwi Cinema
Starring: Bobby Deol, Upen Patel, Kangana Ranaut, Celina Jaitley
Shakalaka Boom Boom is the story of the personal and professional rivalry between two musicians – AB & Reggie and how this rivalry shapes their life, love, music and destiny, before consuming them both. The movie gives you a sneak-view into the dirty underbelly of the music industry, where talent is often sidestepped and nipped in the bud by powerful connections and influence. May be Upen Patel’s character Reggie called for a lot of cheeky confidence and brashness, but I found his acting to be quite irritating. Even Bobby Deol gets garishly off-track at times. The less said about the leading ladies of the film, the better. SBB is not worth watching if you are looking for a good story or powerful acting performances, but then people have quite average expectations from a Hindi flick these days. Himesh Reshamiyya’s music for SBB is rocking – I love the title track Shakalaka Boom Boom and Namumkin. The music’s better than the movie.

‘Charlotte’s Web’ and ‘Lady in the Water’ are the other movies running in Muscat. I will be probably watching them soon. I picked up ‘The Devil wears Prada’ and ‘World Trade Centre’ from the video shop – two movies I’ve wanted to see for ages. Will come back and tell you about how they went.