Quick Reviews for July

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015) – The quiet retirement hotel in India faces the problem of only one remaining room and two potential customers.  Sonny (Dev Patel) wants to expand to a second hotel, even as he struggles with the difficulties of his love life.  The permanent residents have their own romantic issues going on as this charming group returns to the screen in the sequel to the 2011 hit movie.

Directed by – John Madden                  Starring –

What can I say?  I loved the first movie (here) and not much changes for me with this one.  There’s nothing particularly surprising here.  The story goes pretty much exactly where you think it’s going.  But it doesn’t matter.  Then as now, this movie is about the characters and the incredible actors who bring them to life.  The English and American actors (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Richard Gere, David Strathairn) may be better known but the Indian cast is fabulous in smaller roles as well.  Patel brings a little more depth to Sonny, who is not only a ball of entrepreneurial energy but also nervous groom to be.  He has to struggle with his jealousy of more successful family and friends, and what that may mean for his relationship with Sunaina (played by the stunningly gorgeous Tina Desai).  A special nod needs to go in the direction of Lillete Dubey, who plays Sonny’s mother.  She carries herself with great dignity as her son essentially throws her at what he believes is an influential American hotel inspector (Richard Gere).  It would be easy for the character to get washed away by Gere’s star power, but she holds her own.  I came away with great affection and respect for Mrs. Kapoor.

Just great fun.


Rating – **** Recommended


Deja Vu (2006) – An ATF agent (Denzel Washington) is called in to investigate a massive ferry bombing in New Orleans that kills over 500 people, many of the U.S. Navy personnel.  He discovers that a beautiful girl (Paula Patton), whose body washes up in the wrong place and the wrong time, may be the secret to tracking down the terrorist (Jim Caveziel).  With the help of a top secret “surveillance” team, he may be able to get closer to the answer than he ever believed.

Denzel Washington is on my list of actors I will watch in almost anything.  I don’t particularly remember this movie from first run which isn’t surprising.  There’s a couple of enormous plot holes here if things like that bother you.  But in the end Denzel carries the story, Patton is both lovely and compelling and Caveziel is perfectly creepy as the terrorist with a destiny.

Don’t think too much and you’ll have a fine time.


Rating – *** Worth A Look




The Imitation Game (2014) – Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) is one of the great geniuses of the 20th Century.  During World War II, the English mathematician led a team that would eventually crack the uncrackable German code known as “Enigma”.  With a brilliant young woman, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightly), Turing will work his way through almost every challenge.  In the end, Turing’s homosexuality, in an age when it was still against the law, will be used against him.

Turing’s story is one of the great tragedies of the post war era.  A man who should be lauded among the greatest minds of the century was hounded to death.  Cumberbatch is brilliant here.

If I have a reservation about the movie, it is the unnecessary alterations of history for no apparent purpose.  None of them are needed for the story (in fact they are astoundingly trivial as the story goes.  The actual history would have worked perfectly).  The other issue was casting the lovely Knightly as the very plain Clarke.  But Hollywood can not bear the idea of a female romantic lead as anything other than ingenues and beauty queens.

Rating – **** Recommended