Change Your Image
varungupta3009
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
The Hunt for Veerappan (2023)
Shattered expectations!
A pretty visually captivating documentary that addressed some lingering questions I had about Dr. Rajkumar's kidnapping, the whole Veerappan fiasco, and how the hell he absconded for as long as he did.
Netflix documentaries often leave me skeptical due to their tendency to sensationalize and fabricate narratives to fit their own agendas (I'm looking at you, The Billion Dollar Code). This one, however, struck a surprisingly balanced tone, fairly representing the perspectives of all involved parties: The forest department, the police forces, and Veerappan's own kin and crew. The series avoids presenting any one side's version as absolute truth, instead repeatedly juxtaposing contrasting views and opinions within the same scenes. This allows the viewer to make their own opinions, and come to the realisation about how deluded one of the sides is, without forcing a narrative.
I particularly appreciate the series' commitment to authenticity, employing subtitles instead of dubbing, which allowed me to hear my fellow Kannadigas' narratives in Kannada itself. Overall, a highly recommended watch.
Squid Game: The Challenge (2023)
What a load of balooney!
The show has unfortunately veered away from its original format, transforming from an engaging game show into a drawn-out drama series. The once captivating challenges have been replaced by excessive interviews and unnecessary filler content, resulting in an extended runtime that fails to justify its length. The show's focus on personal drama rather than the competitive spirit has alienated long-time viewers who tuned in for the intellectual challenges and strategic gameplay. This shift in tone suggests a misguided attempt to cater to a broader audience, potentially at the expense of its core fanbase. While the show's production quality remains commendable, the content itself has lost its essence, leaving viewers with a sense of disappointment and disillusionment.
The Billion Dollar Code (2021)
This is what happens when a bunch of narcissists make targeted propaganda disguised as entertainment and a horde of misinformed people watch it.
Not a shred of truth in the entire series. Dragged myself through episode one and stopped watching after 150 seconds of episode two.
"Based on a true story" is a pretty powerful phrase, when used maliciously makes fairy tales turn into reality TV.
It doesn't take a minute of research to confirm the facts. But why exactly would someone do that if you wanna watch propaganda anyway?
If you want the TL;DR: They literally stole the code given to them by Stanford Research Institute shown in 1994, presented it the next year as their own project, and patented it. The patent was ultimately invalidated.
And that's not the half of it. If you ask ANYONE who's ever worked in tech at that period, they will tell you how absolutely impossible it was to process that kind of data then, let alone by a single machine or in this case, actual criminal basement hackers.
The Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 6: From the Desert Comes a Stranger (2022)
How come the best parts of "The Book of Boba Fett" are not about Boba Fett?
The series started out pretty strong, inspired by Patton Oswalt's filibuster/monologue from P&R, with the backstory of Boba after Episode VII being much more intriguing and exciting than the "present" timeline that the series is supposed to take place in.
Boba's time as a Tusken and his adventures after that (just before he becomes Daimyo) were pretty awesome, but Filoni and Favreau brought out the big guns by bringing Djarin and Luke into the series, which, even though sidetracked the "series" as a whole, made the individual episode viewings a WHOLE LOT better.
I cycled through a whole bunch of emotions while watching Episode 5 and 6, and overall, I think the guys have done an absolute smashing job.
Durante la tormenta (2018)
A Beautiful Movie.
I'll keep this short. Coming into this movie, I felt skeptical that a Netflix Film would be at par with high-budget time-travel/sci-fi feature films like those produced by Hollywood. But I must say I was surprised. This film is very well made, and I found the entire story and the acting to be beautiful.
One of the toughest things about making a movie is to avoid the cliches and make it less predictable. This movie achieves that perfectly. There are many twists compared to the average mystery sci-fi but none forced to an extent that fatigues the mind. You are always on the edge of your seat and never squeamish at that too.
I would definitely recommend this movie to all sci-fi/mystery lovers out there!
Table No.21 (2013)
Portrays a very accurate and true-to-life scenario of school/college ragging in India.
It's astonishing that this movie is rated so low. I initially watched it when it was released and re-watched it recently when it stuck in my mind.
The movie paints a very accurate picture of how students are ragged in India and creates a beautiful horror-mystery film around it. The concept of social justice while being completely legal is very interesting and novel, and satisfies the viewer at the end, but to truly understand and appreciate the movie, you unfortunately need to relate to it.
I was personally ragged a lot in high school and could relate to so many scenes, especially the one where you literally can't express your sorrow to anyone. The fact that the movie was able to beautifully represent the pain and suffering endured by people first, and then make a point about the issue is what increases the impact of the message, and not make people restless watching a regular movie with a moral message.
Over-all, I feel the film achieved exactly what it was meant to, in a beautiful way, and the amount of work put into research and portraying it so accurately should be commended.
The Indian Detective (2017)
Please don't watch it if you're an Indian, especially if you speak Hindi.
I get why Canadians, or any other English speaking country would get this show, but as an Indian, it's extremely painful to watch, and I cringed the entire time I watched it.
First, let us address the elephant in the room: the entire cast, and their dialogues. Except for Russell and Anupam, none of the cast spoke Hindi or acted naturally. It's like their dialogues were written in English, triple translated into Hindi, and then transliterated back into English. Priya acted like a person who doesn't speak Hindi trying to act like a person who doesn't speak Hindi. And it was the same story with the most of the cast. Even the Indian English spoken by them was with a fake accent.
Then there are the stereotypes. I understand how the world would relate to a show set internationally if they get the stereotypes most often associated with it, but as an Indian, it was extremely inaccurate and just plain painful to watch. It's like no research went into the making of the entire show. Not even a simple Google search.
If you create a show set internationally, the MOST IMPORTANT thing is to make it look and feel natural and true to the country it is representating. This show did the exact opposite. It wasn't even shot in India! I mean, the least you could've done was hired Indian actors or actors who even spoke actual Hindi to play the Indians. Instead, what we see is non-Indian brown actors trying their worst to impersonate Indians. Even Anupam, a Hindi speaking Indian actor himself, didn't speak any Hindi in the show! Why is everything just plain wrong about this show?!?
Non-Indians would enjoy this show for it's storyline, but as an Indian who lives in India and speaks Hindi, I can't ignore the dialogues and acting. So I gave it the score it deserves.
Fractured (2019)
Decent thriller flick for a boring night.
So yeah, most movies are predictable, some aren't. This one definitely falls in the former list.
The first 95% of the movie is pretty predictable and straightforward, the rest is a slightly forced twist that tries to take on a Shyamalan.
But that's not what you'll focus on, rather the gripping story and decent acting and direction. The movie is like an amalgamation of Flightplan and Shutter Island (maybe a little bit of The Sixth Sense), taking good ideas from all the movies, making for a pretty interesting watch.
I definitely suggest that you watch it if you have nothing else on your watchlist, if you like mystery thrillers in general, or if you just wanna pass some good time.
Hardball (2018)
A Great Trivia Game-Show Like Idea Executed Horribly.
Unlike a few other people, I found Hardball to be really exciting and unique. I love Trivia game shows and Hardball adds the perfect amount of thrill and excitement to it. But, there are some obvious (and utterly ridiculous) flaws that have been overlooked.
The game show, as a whole, is pretty fast even when the actual trivia game isn't being played, making it feel overwhelming and boring to some people. The biggest flaw is the jackpot. Hardball gives away just a few hundred pounds away as a jackpot, which itself is variable depending on the individual knowledge of the contestants, and after going through north of a 150 questions, the finalist isn't even guarenteed the entire jackpot! Not only does the finalist usually lose, but those that do win also have their final rewards cut down by almost 8x just by "boost"ing one place on the question track.
Compared to Millionaire, the rewards are almost negligible, considering the knowledge and amount of effort the contestants are putting in. No one wants to see a smart person butcher through all those questions over the course of one hour only to lose it all to a ball on a rail.
Fixing the jackpot and adding a few more game modes to a novel trivia game show idea like this could definitely make the show popular again.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Excellent cannot describe it enough.
If you have not watched the movie, please do NOT read this review.
I was very excited to watch this movie. But I am one of those peculiar people in the audience. I somehow knew, from the start, who Soze was all along. It happens at many occasions, once we see many such great movies, that we always expect the unexpected. But, even though I tried my best to find a loophole in the plot, or tried to understand it a bit better, I was always left astonished. I knew the cripple was Soze, but the movie was so beautifully crafted that the audience has absolutely no chance of guessing who it was. So much care was taken while making this film and there is so much detail in every scene that I am utterly baffled that someone could hide such a huge twist from the audience till the end.
This is one of the most beautiful mystery movies I have ever watched.