Box-office bonanza: Five new releases

Bollywood has just one movie to offer this weekend-Striker featuring Siddharth (of Rang De Basanti fame). Hollywood has two action thrillers-Law Abiding Citizen and Armored  and two fun films-Couple's Retreat and Disney's  Old Dogs. While Striker has received some good reviews, the four Hollywood flicks have got quite mixed reviews. 

Hollywood-New Releases

Law Abiding Citizen

The illogical climax is another spoiler which doesn’t live up to the tension that grips you throughout the film. In spite of the drawbacks, Law Abiding Citizen manages to hold you on your seat and this reason is good enough to watch this film once. Indiatimes


Director F. Gary Gray goes about his basic business with dumb, knuckle-dragging glee.  And he has a willing accomplice in Butler, who appears to be having a whale of a time deploying major stink-eye with a minor wink to the audience. Herald Sun


While Law Abiding Citizen is in no sense a successful work of art, a film that offers the illicit thrill of cheering on an all-American terrorist is at least pursuing something more complex than ''moral clarity''. The Age

View the trailer here

Armored

Matt Dillon stars in an underwhelming heist-gone-wrong movie that, inexplicably, has avoided going straight to DVD. While bolstered by the odd adrenalin burst, it's a film of low ambition that comes with a preposterously contrived ending. Mirror.uk

Armored is that old chestnut about security guards who think they can commit the perfect crime and rob their own van. I must have seen this a dozen times, and the guys have never pulled it off yet. Daily Mail

Armored is a brutal, dehumanising drama about a security firm, whose workers wonder why they shouldn’t keep the cash they transport in armoured trucks.
The story starts off promisingly for all of two minutes, then gets sidetracked into a bit of burger-chewing male domesticity. Birmingham Post

View the trailer here

Couples Retreat

Couples Retreat starts off well and makes you feel as if it will offer you something new but as it progresses it only gets worse. For a comedy, even bad jokes are at times welcome as long as there are jokes but in this one you keep waiting for fun and it just never comes. Indiatimes

A toddler pees at the start of the mirthless mess that is Couples Retreat and poops just before the end credits roll. How fitting. You too will want to speedily flush this comic waste matter from your memory. Rolling Stones
View the trailer here

Old Dogs

There is nothing new about John Travolta, Robin Williams starrer new comedy Old Dogs. The film is an old story full of old jokes and older actors. Indiatimes

To describe the knockabout family comedy “Old Dogs” as a ramshackle mess doesn’t begin to evoke the confusion and sloppy continuity of a movie whose disconnected parts sometimes appear to have been randomly assembled from a cutting-room scrap heap. New York Times
View the trailer here
 

Bollywood-New releases

Striker

Don't believe the lack lustre promos. The film has more meat -- and meaning -- than it promises. The Times of India

Also, the subject material is very Mumbai-centric and therefore, will appeal to a miniscule audience. Final word? The striker doesn't strike! Taran Adarsh

View the trailer here

DVD Recommendation

The Hurt Locker

Masterfully directed by Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker follows a group of guys who basically disarm handmade bombs planted by Iraqi insurgents, for a living. Nope. No war melodrama here, no poignant music, no larger-than-life slow-motion shots. This is not your average war movie, although it is certainly above average. Up for the Best Picture category at the Oscars this year, it’s a must-watch. (Recommendation by Yooti Bhansal, features editor, Stuff India)

View the trailer here