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Browsing through NetFlix’s online streaming collection is not unlike those late Friday nights spent browsing through the movie maze in your local video store. The search for that perfect movie is often tricky. Sometimes you have to deal with a fuming partner and/or a melting tub of ice cream in the car. The pressure is compounded by a listless, unhelpful store clerk in some cases. This column aims to be that clerk for NetFlix Instant Watch – maybe just a little less listless and little more helpful. This is what I waded through recently at NetFlix.

Went Looking For…

Believe it or not, I sometimes do have a predetermined playlist while browsing for movie titles. Generally, there is a week between my adding them to the playlist and actually watching them.

Vettai

Compared to Muran from the previous edition of this column, Vettai (The Hunt) is more of a stereotypical Bollywood/Kollywood movie. Cop movies and movies involving brothers (even better if they are twins) are a sure bet in Kollywood. Vettai mixes both to good measure. The director then proves to be a genius by pairing the brothers with two sisters. Netflix seems to have signed a deal with UTV pictures in India, resulting in a sudden bounty of Hindi and Thamizh movies.

Who should be watching Vettai?

It was three hours of guilty pleasure someone like me, a person who has veered away from core Thamizh cinema these past few years. So, it is a homecoming of masala to my cine senses.

Someone who is looking to write a thesis on the song and dance and fight and dialogues and comedy and song and dance and dialogues and fight and song and comedy and dance of south Indian movies would surely benefit from watching this movie.

Netflix subscribers deprived of Thamizh cinema in streaming will grudgingly watch this movie, although a more regular cine watcher might have already seen it through unmentionable means. A friend showed me a site for pirated movies that had the same look and feel of Netflix’s site layout. They are catching up…





Who should not be watching Vettai?

If you are someone looking for world cinema – the art house and Cannes festival opener kinds – this is not for you. There are no layers to this onion no matter how hard you try and peel. There will be tears, though.

If you do not fancy the story of a lawless city where a cowardly cop’s brave brother in vigilante fashion enforces law while the said brother sips the accolades, then this might not be for you. The said story reaches a boiling point when the cop has to take matters in his own hands and over the course of a Rocky-like montage develops the physique and tenacity of a super cop - adrenaline has no language barriers and no logic either – and might disinterest you further.

Thamizh cinema has better fare to offer but Vettai isn’t a totally tasteless appetizer. Check it out and see if it interests you.

Blitz


Blitz, a British movie, comes with the tag line “Cop Killer versus Killer Cop” and my mangled brain fetched images of Demolition Man from its hidden columns. I cringed a little bit but I’ve just been overdosed on Luther and Sherlock. My trust in the British moviemakers helped me overcome the unwarranted panic introduced by the
“Snipes versus Stallone” memory fetch.

Jason Statham is the “killer” cop and appears to be working outside of the disciplinary requirements of the job. To show him as someone without basic computer skills is probably to underline his roguish character but it seems forced. Anyway, a cop killer is on the rampage, brutally killing street cops seemingly randomly. The movie initially conceals the identity of the cop killer only to reveal him with no big fanfare. Statham links the different killings with a common thread and is aided by a fellow cop who is quite different from him in his ways.

The nice thing about British movies is the lack of formula in narration. There is enough scope for Hollywood clichés including the buddy cop (chalk and cheese) routine, the predictable twist while revealing the cop killer and maybe give the cop a personal reason to go after the killer but the script just keeps avoiding them. Even the high speed chases are believable and in fact ends up in Statham chasing the suspect on foot instead of say, a car crashing on to a helicopter over the Thames river. Besides Statham and, to a certain degree, the Basic Instinct 2-tainted David Morissey, the cast was a set of unknowns, which only engaged me more with the story. Perhaps Morissey’s tabloid journalist character is a tad underdeveloped with the aim of giving Statham more screen time.

As the story builds towards a climax, the street smarts of the two killers are pitted against each other. The end is again devoid of any flash, making it refreshing.

Blitz will not disappoint you.