Cast: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and others…
The title of the movie “National Treasure” suggests that movie is about treasure hunting. ‘National Treasure’ is one very good entertaining movie. It may not be all time best movie or classic movie but it serves basic purpose of why normal viewers go for movies that is entertainment. And it is highly entertaining, funny, adventures, thrilling, action and also family movie.
The movie tells the story of Benjamin Franklin Gates played by Nicolas Cage, who is from the family who believes that there is ancient treasure hidden somewhere by Freemasons in order to save it from British in Civil war. And the family tried to hunt it for ages. Now as current heir of the family the responsibility lies on Ben Gates, who starts hunting the treasure with likeminded friends Riley played by Justin Bartha and Ian played by Sean Bean and is also a sponsor of whole hunting operation. On trail of treasure they reach a ship called “Charlotte” which is frozen in the north of Arctic Circle. From the ship they get next clue that the map for the treasure is at the back of original Declaration of Independence of USA. At this point Ben Gates and Ian who turn into villain now have disagreement over stealing the Declaration of Independence. And Ian tries to Kill Ben and Riley. But they survive.
Now in order to save the Declaration of Independence from Ian, Ben visit FBI but they did not took him seriously. So Ben decides to meet head of National Archivist. Who happens to be Dr. Abigail played by Diane Kruger and going to be love interest of Ben. But at first she also did not take him seriously. So as last option Ben decides to steal the Declaration himself and restore it after reading the map. Then story moves on with how he steal the declaration, how he understand the map, how he decode next clues and finally reach to the Treasure.
Movie has very good pace it to, at no point you feel bored of it. You might ask at some instances, how can this be possible? But give in to creative liberty of director and writer. Nicolas Cage as usual gave excellent performance. Characters played by him are always believable. It is only his acting skill that makes you believe that guy like Ben Gates who can crack such impossible codes can also manage impossible action scenes. Justin Bartha is in the movie to provide comedy and he did his job very well. Diane Kruger is pleasing to eyes but there is much more scope in acting. All the actors Sean Bean, John Voight and others did their job.
The movie has history, humor, mystery, love, action, adventure, and suspense. So their hardly anything to complain about. Although movie talks about American national history and I am not aware of American history it does not stop me from enjoying the movie. I in fact feel on the same lines there is so much scope for making movie on Indian History and culture because Indian history is full of royal families, treasures and mysteries in it. I am sure it will be a brilliant movie unless someone tries to add magic stuff in it.
“National Treasure’s” second part is already out and I am eager to watch it. And I heard that the 3rd part of the movie will be out by 2011.
If I have to rate this movie I will give 8 out of 10.
Cast: Aamir Khan, Asin Thottumkal, Jiah Khan, Pradeep Rawat and Others
Music: A. R. Rahman
Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi.
‘Ghajini’ was one of the most awaited movies of the year. It was biggest movie of the year and as it turned out it was also biggest hit of the year. The movie was talk of the town months before it actually released on 25th Dec 2008.Thanks to new hair cut and eight abs physique of Aamir Khan which he flaunted all over the town and now known as Ghajini look. Which actually help promoting the film in great deal. It kept the curiosity of the people alive till the movie released and after the movie released it became even bigger rage and new style statement.
As for the movie it starts with a medical student Sunita played by Jiah Khan wants to investigate a case of Sanjay Singhania played by Aamir Khan. Who is suffering from anterograde amnesia that means he has very short memory, he can remember things only for 15 minutes nothing more. But his case was more interesting because he lost his memory in an incident in which the bad Guy Ghajini Dharmatma played by Pradeep Rawat killed his girlfriend Kalpana played by Asin Thottumkal and hit him on the head which actually cause his short term memory. So this is a story of how Sanjay overcome his deficiency to get his revenge by killing the bad guy Ghajini.
The movie is a remake of Tamil movie with the same name. It was also directed by A. R. Murugadoss. It was enacted by Surya, Asin, Nayantara, and Pradeep Rawat. I watched this movie in Tamil. Actually I don’t understand a single word in Tamil but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the movie. Even though I could not understand the meaning of the dialogues due to language barrier, I didn’t miss any emotion expressed through these dialogues and I think that will be solely certifies the quality of the movie. So it wasn’t the story which drawn me to the movie theatre, it was Aamir Khan which more often than not means value for money of my Ticket. And I also wanted to find out how he represented or we should say recycled this movie in new colors. Aamir did amazing job on this movie both as producer and actor. The tamil actor Surya also did great job but what Aamir did better was he brought more glamour to the role and as usual glamour is not always realistic, it was more fantastic. I feel like what Aamir did to this movie as a producer is what Dilip Chabaria the famous DC who modifies any car into ultimate beauty. He modified the Tamil Ghajini.
Aamir khan did great job as an actor. He again proved how seriously he takes his job and how much dedicated he is to his films as he worked really hard to get the physique which he is flaunting in this film so often. Then the director A. R. Murugadoss did wonderful as director as well as writer because I find scenes of the movie, plot of the movie was simply brilliant. Ideas like protagonist writing on his body and taking photographs was brilliant and so much more important for the film. He changed the climax of the movie from the Tamil version but that did not make any difference as it wasn’t important how he kills the bad guy but he kills him and gets his revenge with his short term memory. The essence of movie was love story, mystery and a revenge which director handled very well.
Asin was brilliant, even though she is superstar in south this was her debut. And she had a dream debut as not only she gets to work with Aamir Khan she gets a fantastic role to play which any actress will envy to play. This role of Kalpana can only be compared to Geet in Jab We met played by Kareena Kapoor. She played the same role in the Tamil version. Another actor repeated from the Tamil Movie is Pradip Rawat as Ghajini but he fail to impressed he was overshadowed by Aamir Khan. I think when film is titled on villain’s name then they should have cast bigger actor than him. It would have made the movie even better. Jiah Khan’s performance was OK nothing great she should work harder on her accent. She is one lucky girl who worked with two biggest names Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan so early in her career. A. R. Rahman as usual gave 6 blockbuster songs he seems to be competing with himself and coming up with better music with every film.
Lot of people had problem with the violence in the movie. Many people find it hard to believe that man of Aamir’s stature even though with 8 Abs can hit 6 – 7 feet tall bulky guys. Yes it isn’t new thing in bollywood, it has been happening for ages but it was difficult to digest the way Aamir hits them till there turns other way around. It was quite remarkable achievement by him. But let us just say that highly dedicated people like Aamir’s character who badly wanted revenge can do anything at least in movies. And that’s what we love about movie isn’t it the fulfillment of fantasies.
One funny quote I read about this movie came from very famous artist M. F. Hussain. He demanded that the Government should ban this movie as it has unwanted violence. It was surprising and funny to come from him as he himself fighting for creative liberty for his own art and he wants censorship on others creativity.
Anyways for me this is good entertaining movie, may be not list in all time classic movies but surely count in one of the most popular movie in bollywood. After success of this movie I am sure the Action and thriller movies will come back which took backseat for so long. As for Ghajini if I have to rate the movie I’ll give 7 out of 10.
