Movies & ROI!!!

Mixing movies & the concept of ROI may make it seem like it talks about financial part of the movie-making, but that's not relevant here. What's relevant for the post is the set of movies which one starts watching with low expectation & stays glued on till the end. Also by the time the movie ends, viewer is so involved & attached that he doesn't want to leave the movie. Initially I felt that most important thing working for such movies is that they come with zero expectation, so even if they are good the ROI for viewer is extremely high. But then by that logic ROI should not remain same at the time of repeat watch, but by personal experience I can say that most of the below mentioned movies would work on repeat watch, or may be I have selected movies which also work on repeat watch. Also most of the movies mentioned below are based on radical ideas, ideas which would not hit you on their own, but once someone help plant the seed in your head it becomes difficult to take it off.

By no means is this an exhaustive list or every movie mentioned below would work for everyone, but these are top-of-mind when I was thinking about high ROI movies. Will try and avoid spoilers to the best of my abilities.

• Aakrosh- Currently there are three movies with this name, but let me tell you one thing there is no way in the world anyone can believe the recent namesake of this 1980 movie can make it to any decent movie-list. The movie is first directorial venture of Govind Nihlani, with a script written by Vijay Tendulkar & Who's who of parallel cinema at that point of time. I mean when you see the star cast comprising of Naseeruddin Shah, Om puri, Smita patil , Amrish puri, etc, by no means can you let go of the opportunity to watch the movie. So I was channel surfing late night and by mistake it went to one of the doordarshan channels, opening credits were rolling & I got slightly interested but I was sleepy as well. And for the next 2 hours plus I didn't move, it was way beyond mid-night when the movie ended without justice being served, without a 'they lived happily ever after' ending, with all the lead character struggling with helplessness, with the 'hero' accepting the fact that good will not triumph over bad. I was mesmerised & wanted to watch more of the futile struggle that was to be faced by the lead actors, but director knew better. Its a simple story which has been retold hundred of times in various different types of cinema, a man belonging to backward caste faces trial for his wife's murder & a young lawyer tries to defend him post which the plot gets complex & there are characters with shades of grey. Om puri as a wronged man, who is silent for most of the movie is awesome. Naser as an ideal & vulnerable lawyer, has the meatiest role in the movie & he delivers big time. Amrish puri, one of the most under-rated actor of Indian cinema, gives a subtle & powerful performance. Smita patil looks beautiful & delivers a really strong performance. I can go on & on, but the crux is its a must watch movie for the performances & script, which was dealt with perfectly by the first time director.

• The man from earth- At many a times I open IMDB, look for a movie & then using some link I keep exploring more & more. Came across the movie during one of my hurricane IMDB sessions, and at the onset it looks like the simplest of movies with a plot which can be mistaken for single act of a play. The entire movie is set in a house where 7 teachers (and one student) have gotten together to wish goodbye to one of their own. They all want to know the reason behind the sudden movement & all the secrecy around it, as the details of his new whereabouts & future plans are not shared with them. Then "The Man" starts talking, making viewers wish that he would never stop. So in a room they talk & talk till it is about time for the guy to move. Plot would not sound that interesting to anyone, but believe me once you start watching this awesome movie, there is no way you would not like it. Its a one of its kind script where concept like God, beginning of life, essence of life, mortality, etc is discussed, which usually everyone would find boring & preachy. But the treatment is so unique & fresh that you not only take in every word said, but also left begging for more. Seven professors who are expert of their own respective field discuss & debate amongst themselves with an idea so radical that its almost crazy. Awesome performance by all & sundry, but the biggest thing in this movie is script. I have recommended the movie to plenty of friends, post watching invariably we would have long discussion on the movie. It is that kind of a movie, which makes you think & debate.

• I am a Cyborg, but that's OK- Not often would you come across a movie title that has so many words. But before you start judging, I would add that its the English name for a South-Korean movie. Chan Wook Park has written & directed this movie, which hasn't been appreciated by his regular fan base for some reason which is beyond me. Yes he did direct the Vengeance Trilogy, for the uninitiated old boy being one of the three movies, & he directed 'Thirst', 'The Good, the bad & the ugly', etc. And IACBTO is the closest he got to a love story, but what a story it turns out to be. A movie set in a mental asylum, where the female lead thinks that she is a fighter cyborg (her granny thought that she was a mouse), the male lead thinks that he is a soul stealer & tries to help the girl when she was on the verge of being really ill. The idea of sanity with the background of insanity & good with the background of indifference, works really well. Very few characters, very simple plot, great acting & awesome direction makes this movie what it is. In most of the movie the girl is hallucinating about killing people & being a real fighter cyborg, but in the end she imagine herself to be happily living with the guy, at the asylum. Now this isn't one of those movies which will make you feel extremely happy or will make your head spin with its radical, out of the world, concept, its a simple feel good movie which grows on you.

• Defendor- Saw 'Natural born killers', was extremely impressed with Woody harrelson, though I knew that movie would be good as the script was written by Tarantino. Hence did some IMDB on Woody & landed on this movie. Wasn't expecting anything from this one & got pleasantly surprised. I mean I did enjoy plenty of superhero movies, but I haven't till then seen a movie which does belong to superhero genre, but is anything but your typical superhero movie. Talking about the movie would not be fair, so rather I would talk about the actor. Woody harrelson still does mostly bits & pieces roles, but once in a while he gets to deliver a sublime performance like in Defendor, NBK,The messenger, etc (Yet to watch larry flynt), where he just bites into the character & does not let go. Here he plays a guy who thinks he is a superhero & believes he need not have superpower to be a superhero. He is shown to interact a lot with his psychiatrist, which help viewers to get his perspective & plenty of relevant question are asked & answered. Its a believable, feel good movie, which has humour, action, emotions in right proportions. And it is full of great performances & with a different story. So combination of all the things mentioned makes it a must watch.

• Let me in- I had just seen a few vampire movies which treats the subject differently, namely Daybreakers, Thirst (South korean movie, directed by CWP & lead role by KHS). So was IMDBing the genre & came across a European movie named "Let the right one in". It had a different plot & it had received good reviews across. Also read somewhere that there is an English movie called "let me in", which is remake & is not as good as the original. Randomly decided to watch the movie & was not prepared to see some really Young actors acting in the manner they did. The kids pair shares a great chemistry & was repeated in 'Hugo'. Chloe moretz as a vampire is simply mind blowing. Even long after movie the lines were playing on repeat in my head 'eat some now, keep some for later'. Remakes of bad movies do not have to deal with comparisons with great movies & high benchmarking, hence I have always felt that it is difficult to remake a successful movie. So I felt director did a pretty decent job & the more spoken about Chloe moretz, lesser it is.

• Kick-Ass- Chloe moretz saga continues, saw a few movies of her & loved what I saw. But still nothing prepared me for the awesomeness that was 'Kick-Ass'. This was a movie which was again very different from usual super-hero movie. I am not a big fan of Nicolas Cage, but Mark Strong again reposed my faith in the movie. Director was also of reputation as I had seen quite a few of his previous movies, but still I was pleasantly surprised by the movie & got a great ROI on my viewing experience. It was the one of the best movies which I have ever seen, because Mr Vaughn did an awesome job, Mark strong was good as always, Nicolas cage gave a subtle performance, the entire cast was awesome but most importantly it was because of Hit-girl & the music, that you can't stop thinking about the movie for a long time. And the repeat value is so high, I have already seen the movie about 5 times & every single time it provides awesome entertainment value, great ROI on time spent.

• Before the devil knows you are dead- Yes the movie had Sidney Lumet for director, Phillip Seymour hoffman & Ethan Hawke as actors, so saying that expectation was not there would be completely incorrect. But they are all guys who are reliable, but great stuff from them comes few & far in between. So this movie was also seen with a limited expectation, it never generated the buzz it should have for whatever reasons. But it was an awesome movie, it was dark, serious, didn't have an happy ending. Characters were struggling with each other, they all faced some unrest. But typically very few movies with such element would be qualified as great movies, though you would have quite a few good ones. According to me this one does qualify for the list of great ones. This is a movie where two brothers plan to rob their parents store, thinking "Nobody gets hurt, everybody wins". Any body's guess as to how things go on from there. Hoffman here is the real treat to watch & Marisa tomie looks amazing, adding to the beauty quotient of the movie.

• Hot Fuzz- This is the movie which made me aware of the genius that is Simon Pegg and what an experience it was. The pegg-frost chemistry, the British understated humor which they bring on the table, awesome imagination which is visible in their work, weird characters which is always there in their movies, etc was all introduced to me by this movie. It also introduced me to the world of Edgar wright, who is a quintessential British director. I have since been following whatever work is done by all the involved guys & have seldom been disappointed. To think of it, they might have done better work with some other projects, but since the objective of this post was to consider ROI hence "Hot Fuzz" is mentioned in the post. Its a movie about two cops who are as different from each other as possible and they realize that things are not as they seem in their town. Simon pegg is such an under-rated creatively gifted guy, who is multifaceted and can pull off quite a few things. Movie would not be loved by everybody, so mostly you would either not like it or love it.

• Perfume- A story of a murderer- This movie was there in my hard-disk for ages, didn't knew much about it, had no idea about it, title felt like it would be a thriller so decided to give it a go. This movie has Alan rickman & Dustin hoffman, for stars & they perform wonderfully well. But the real star of the movie is a relatively unknown actor Ben whishaw, he delivers much above the expectation in an extremely unconventional role. Whoever has seen this movie, found it gory & dark. But somehow I never found the movie gory, its dark for sure but not gory as the actor portrays the role with so much innocence that you could actually end up sympathize with a serial killer. The movie (based on a book) is about a boy who was born in a fish market, with an excellent sense of smell. He uses that skill to impress a perfume maker & get a job at his shop. From there how the story evolves and goes into a really dark place. Would not divulge any details, but the ideas are amazing & unimaginable. The climax is one of the better ones that I have seen. Again an extremely under-rated movie & a must watch. 

There would be so many more which can be safely added to this post, but than completion of this post would become an impossible task. So would end the list at this, in no way am I saying this is the all time best movie list or whether they follow a particular order, its just that they gave me much more than I expected & are more than good movies. As an after thought I realised that all of them had awesome music (background score) to enhance the effect on viewers, which according to me is critical & at times the only difference between good movies & great movies.