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RIDER ON THE RAIN / Le Passager De La Pluie (Dir. René Clément, 1970, France)
* * * In René Clément’s peculiar Rider on the Rain (1970), the film wields an enigmatic allure, driven largely by the magnetic presence of Marlène Jobert. Known for his rugged demeanour, Charles Bronson plays second fiddle here, emerging in a compelling yet understated role during his fascinating European phase. Jobert, however, commands every frame Continue reading
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BRUBAKER (Dir. Stuart Rosenberg, 1980)
Along with Cool Hand Luke, Brubaker is one of director Stuart Rosenberg’s most popular films in a career which is criminally undervalued. Rosenberg seemed to have a knack of using genre to craft genuinely gutsy political cinema. However, a lot of his loosely structured films which are fuelled by a particular ambience, would easily see Continue reading
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THE GOLDEN CHILD (Dir. Michael Ritchie, 1986)
Not strictly vintage Murphy, The Golden Child was made at a time when he was the biggest film star in the world. Undeniably a star vehicle for Murphy’s loud mouth antics, when the film was released back in 1986, the poster deliberately alluded to Beverly Hills Cop, and was pitched in a similar vein by Continue reading
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MULK (Anubhav Sinha, 2018, India) – Us and Them
The final shot of Mulk is an unexpected one, a freeze frame of a young Muslim boy leaping in the air. He is wearing a white topi cap and the No 7 shirt of Dhoni, an icon of Indian cricket. There is a pluralism at work, the co-existence of multiple identities, that seems under threat Continue reading
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THE MAGNIFICENT 7 (Dir. Antoine Fuqua, 2016, US)
What if you got the opportunity to rework a contestable classic but had nothing to say? This is pretty much what The Magnificent 7 feels like. One can probably imagine the creative heads that cooked up this idea stemmed from the certified stone cold image of Denzel Washington as a mysterious gunslinger on a horse cloaked Continue reading
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