A Few Good Men
Rob Reiner
A Few Good Men is a courtroom drama about the court martial proceedings of two marines charged with murder of a fellow soldier. The film features a great cast with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson going at each other for most part of the movie and a stellar supporting cast including Kevin Beacon and Demi Moore. Moore is excellent as a woman in the navy struggling in a male-dominated military which prompts Jack Nicholson to remark “A few good men and a damn fine woman.” The real hero of the movie is Aaron Sorkin’s dialogues.
Tom Cruise’s performance earned him an Academy Award nomination.
Pursuit of Happyness
Gabriele Muccino
A film based on the real-life story of Chris Gardener played excellently by Will Smith this is a beautiful rags to riches story. One of the best scenes in the film is when Smith shows up for an interview in a stock brokerage firm straight from jail. Jaden Smith as his son puts in a great performance when they go through troubled times. This very inspiring movie has you rooting for Smith’s character through all his misfortunes.
Inception
Christopher Nolan
Inception is a thinking man’s sci-fi movie about dreams and reality. Captions for the movie and the trailers were intriguing with stunning special effects. Most movies fail to live up to the hype, but Inception is a truly remarkable movie by a great director with Dicarpio and Ellen Page at their very best. An open-ended conclusion to the movie, novel concepts about dreams and the need to tie numerous pieces of the plot together to make full sense of it make this one of the most unforgettable movies.
My Cousin Vinny
Jonathan Lynn
A courtroom drama about two New Yorkers accused of murder and their defence by another New Yorker and a rookie lawyer make for a comedy. Joe Pesci defending the accused without knowing Southern American sensibilities and courtroom procedures is magnificent with Marisa Tomei who won the Academy award for this movie. Fred Gwynne as the judge and Lane Smith as the government prosecutor also put in great performances.
Be Cool
F. Gary Gray
John Travolta returns in the sequel to Get Shorty, a stylish film about the music business in America. Travolta as a cool hero handling difficult situations is great, but Vince Vaughn, The Rock (Elliot) and Cedric the entertainer are great in their comic roles. The highlight of the movie is definitely it’s soundtrack with songs by Aerosmith (Cryin’), Black Eyed Peas (Sexy) and more.
Those that almost made it
Rounders : John Dahl
Aviator : Martin Scorsese
Nayagan : Mani Ratnam
Wedding Crashers : David Dobkin
Good Will Hunting : Gus Van Sant
Arun Balasubramanyan works for an international software company in Chennai. He loves watching movies, in particular courtroom dramas.
