'Bernie' Movie Review (2012)

Richard Linklater goes a bit unconventional in recruiting not only a stand-out cast in Shirley MacLaine, Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey to star in his dark comedy, true life tale Bernie, but he goes so far as to use a handful of actual participants that lived in the small town of Carthage, Texas to narrate the story. For all intents and purposes, the film works just fine, but it's more of an innocent and sweet side-story than an actual main attraction kind of film. It earns a few laughs and a couple of smiles, but on a whole just doesn't offer enough or necessarily work as a feature length film.

Not only was Mrs. Nugent disliked by most of the town's 6,500-person population, but Bernie was loved by just about everyone. So when news broke that not only had Bernie killed Mrs. Nugent, but that he had kept it quiet for the better part of nine months, most of them couldn't believe it and even if they did, the reaction from one such Bernie supporter was to say, "It's not as bad as people say; he only shot her four times… not five."
In this sense the film is far more about the people of Carthage, their perception of Bernie and what happened than anything else. Linklater's decision to use the actual townspeople turns it into just as much a documentary as a fictional retelling of the story. Granted, there are a few exceptions, including McConaughey's own mother playing one of the Carthage gossips, but as the credits begin to roll it's quite interesting to see just how many people still stand on Bernie's side despite what he's done.
Jack Black fills the role of Bernie perfectly, taking on effeminate characteristics and owning them, convincing you he just may be the nicest and most caring person alive. MacLaine's performance is hardly in question, her appearance on screen alone is convincing enough, but when it comes to doing what's necessary to convince the audience she may be one of the worst people to have lived, MacLaine falls right in line. As for McConaughey, at this point I think we can all agree playing a southern lawyer is right up his alley.
Part of the story's mystery comes when we see how Bernie and Marjorie became rather close. The two traveled together, went to the opera and ultimately began spending large chunks of time together. Seeing how all of this was done on Marjorie's dime that was enough to raise some eyebrows, but for the most part no one seemed to have cared too much.
However, Marjorie's negative qualities soon get the best of Bernie, just as they do everyone else, and it almost makes you wonder — Is there ever a justified reason for non-premeditative murder?To ask the people of Carthage you may get a surprising answer in this case, and that is certainly part of this film's charm, but there just isn't quite enough to sustain a feature length running time.
I can't tell if it was the back-and-forth way Linklater plays both sides of the story, using a faux-documentary approach while filling in the blanks with fictional scenes, but I never quite became comfortable with the narrative. The film plays more like a comical "60 Minutes" segment than a feature film and at 104 minutes it just ended up losing steam, feeling episodic and disjointed by the film's end.
Linklater uses intertitles to keep the viewer abreast of what direction the story is going and the way they're worded gives further confirmation as to who this story is actually about. Despite the film's title, this could just as easily been Carthage. Bernie and Marjorie's story, however, eventually muddy the water sas the film begins to lose focus considering the town's reaction and the actual goings on don't always go hand-in-hand.
The narrative being played out between Bernie and Marjorie seems like one movie and the impromptu interviews with the townsfolk feels like another, neither of which could sustain a feature just as much as they don't entirely work together.
Bernie could have worked as a short form documentary or an all-out fictional re-telling, but, as is, it's cute, mildly comedic and somewhat satisfying, but not a film you need to rush to see.

Review: Tezz has the thrill, but where’s the dil?

“Aajkal izzat maangne se nahi milti, chheenni padti hai” (You don’t get respect by asking for it these days, you have to snatch it), says Akash Rana (Ajay Devgn) a few minutes into Priyadarshan’s new film. Before you can snap your fingers, Akash and his accomplices Adil (Zayed Khan) and Megha (Sameera Reddy) have planted a bomb on a train from London to Glasgow, and are demanding 10 million pounds to defuse it. Cut to the British railway control room, and cue series of mobile phone calls between sombre bomber Akash, train brain Sanjay Raina and top cop Arjun Khanna.
Tezz could have easily been an action-filled riff on A Wednesday: a lone man using a bomb threat to get media coverage and force the government to pay attention. And the film does spend an inordinate amount of time trying to convince us that Akash is the tragic victim of evil immigration laws. But how getting a lot of money out of the British government in exchange for 500 innocent lives is going to get him ‘respect’ is never explained.

Tezz could have easily been an action-filled riff on A Wednesday: PTI

In fact there’s much that is inexplicable about Tezz. In a Bollywood world where Indians abroad  have never been shown as anything but well-off, well-settled NRIs with their dil in Hindustan, it’s interesting to finally have a Hindi film that allows for the fact that not all desi immigrants are legal, and that they want nothing more than to never have to return to India. Unfortunately, having hit upon a potentially interesting subject, Tezz is content to leave the treatment paper-thin.
Ditto for its characters. Who is Akash Rana? Where did he grow up? Why exactly does he think he can get away with not having legal status in the UK?  Why, instead of being deported all by himself, doesn’t he simply take his simpering British wife (Kangna Ranaut, with scarcely anything to do) and child and go off to India – especially if he’s an engineer? The film has no answers. Zayed Khan and Sameera Reddy’s characters get even more slender backgrounds: just a couple of over-dramatic flashbacks which are supposed to explain why they’re risking their lives to aid Devgn’s train bomb ploy. Well, they don’t.
The guys they’re up against – the British establishment, represented of course by the desi cop Arjun Khanna (Anil Kapoor), desi railway controller Sanjay Raina (Boman Irani) and yet another desi cop (Mohanlal) – don’t have it much better in terms of characterisation. Anil Kapoor, playing a feted UK police officer, doesn’t look like he’s on the verge of retirement. But since we’re told he is, it seems a trifle unbelievable that he should have to fight “you guys are all terrorists” slurs from a random white colleague at this stage of a grand career. And make no mistake, it is grand – he’s the only cop I’ve ever heard of who gets to address an all-white British Parliament. Mohanlal is completely wasted, spending the whole film stuck on the bomb-threatened train where all he gets to do is deal with intermittent outbreaks of passenger panic. Oh, that and speak in a South Indian accent to a little girl speaking in a North Indian accent, who turns out to be the daughter of Establishment Desi No. 3: Boman Irani. Irani, being the talented actor he is, manages to imbue his (equally slender) character with a semblance of teary reality. But on the whole, this is a film where characters don’t really matter.
What matters are the chase scenes, the aerial shots of the train whizzing through the British countryside, the nailbiting stunts. And by Hindi movie standards, these are really rather good. I sat rooted to my seat watching Sameera Reddy rafting dangerously over rapids with a yellow waterproof suitcase and a bike over the heads of nonplussed British cops, all the while being followed by a combination of helicopters and police cars. Zayed Khan had my favourite chase scene, doing a lot of impressive somersaulting across a series of London subways and bridges. And Devgn gets to do a micro-mini-version of a Third Man-style splash through the sewers. All rather fun, and none of them look even faintly ridiculous while they’re doing it.
There’s a great scene in Tezz where Anil Kapoor and his team think they’ve got Ajay Devgn surrounded, until they break into the farm and find a solitary cellphone sitting on a chair in an empty room, routing Devgn’s voice through it. “Maan gaye isko yaar, bahut English picture dekhta hai saala,” laughs Anil.
Same goes for Priyadarshan, clearly. I just wish this Hindi picture had a little more kahani in it.