MOVIE REVIEW – PREMIUM RUSH

                             

                                Hi People, Hope you are all in pink of your health. I am pretty sure, when you are blessed with good health it ultimately means that you have a bunch of keys with you, one key among them is the key to open the door to attain tranquility despite you don’t have wealth or a peace of mind. It was October 24, 2012 and it was a holiday on the eve of “Vijayadhasami” here in Bangalore. So I decided to take a sojourn to my office buddy Imran‘s house near Agara. I was accompanied by my office friend Nadeem to Imran‘s place. Having Imran, his roommate and my new friend Arif, I bet you guys it’s the best place in Bangalore to get rid of all your Mulley grubs. Arif whom I met for the very first time in my life didn’t even take an hour to gel up well with me. I have never seen such an energetic, invigorative and a practical guy like Arif in the recent times.

                              After scrutinizing and debating about our company policies for more than 2 hours altogether, the time was quarter past four before we decided to break for lunch. The twilight lunch at “The Bhagini Restaurant” was more expensive but also a pompous one to be frank. After the meal we 4 decided to watch a movie at the Gopalan Cinemas, Tin Factory. The 3 guys around me were insatiable Hollywood movie freaks and “Premium Rush” was the only new release left unwatched by them so we decided to give it a try although the IMDB rating was not too high for this movie. A Tamil Guy, A Malayali, A Bihari and a Bengali in a place where they speak kannada predominantly, buying tickets for a Hollywood movie can for sure never happen anywhere in the world other than ethnically, culturally and traditionally richest country, India and I am really proud and exultant being an Indian. Ok folks let us not deviate from the topic of interest, here we go

PREMIUM RUSH – MY RETROSPECTION:

                                                                            

                                                                            The Movie starts with a scene wherein Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) hits the deck from his bicycle and he starts bleeding badly. The clock goes back 90 minutes before wilee got injured. Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his Ex-Girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) work as a bicycle Messenger in a courier agency in NYC. Their daily routine include ducking and dodging speeding cars, trucks, two wheelers and pedestrians with their superb light weighted, No brake and fixed gear bicycles to reach the recipients destination within the stipulated time with extreme riding skills which might prove suicidal and insane most of the time. Nima (Jamie Chung), roommate of Vanessa delivers a sum of $50,000 to Mr.Leung (a Chinese hawaladar) that she has saved for more than 2 years and exchanges it for a ticket which she must deliver to sister chen before 7 pm so as to bring her son and mom to US through a ship that smuggles people from China to US. Nima reaches wilee to dispatch this ticket to Sister Chen. Wilee doesn’t actually know what is there inside the envelope and picks it up from Nima to deliver it to Sister Chen. Meanwhile Lin, a local goon learns of the ticket and approaches Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon), a gambling addicted NYPD cop and tells him to bring the ticket so that in return bobby Monday need not repay his huge debt.

                                               

                                               Bobby comes to Nima, asks for the ticket and gets to know that wilee has already gone to dispatch the ticket to sister chen. Bobby chases wilee and confronts to give the envelope containing the ticket to him. Wilee shrewdly escapes and heads to the nearest police station to lodge a complaint on Bobby. To Wilee’s dismay and astonishment, he comes to know that bobby is a NYPD cop over there and starts running back to the courier agency to give back this life threatening envelope. Manny picks up this envelope from the agency after wilee drops it over there and starts heading towards the destination, meanwhile bobby calls and changes the address to be delivered and Manny is now heading towards the villain’s address. Vanessa gets to know the seriousness involved in the envelope containing the ticket from Nima and tells it to Wilee. Wilee then feels guilty for Nima and joins hands with Vanessa so as to deliver the ticket to Sister Chen before 7pm and then the drudgery and the combat Wilee and Vanessa faces through Bobby Monday (NYPD Cop) while delivering the ticket to Sister Chen is what the rest of the plot revolves around. In the end Nima gets her child and Mom transported to US through that ship. Wilee and Vanessa Rejuvenates their broken relationship in style.

                                                The Movie was indeed racy all throughout except in certain dribs and drabs. For the first time I could find a logical loop hole in a Hollywood movie wherein I didn’t understand why a NYPD Cop chases wilee using a “bicycle” all throughout the story all though they had sporty and Racy cars and bikes in their department. We weren’t born yesterday to believe such a crap till the end of the movie. David sardy, the music director has given us some soul stirring BGM’s coherent to the situations in the movie. Hats off to Mitchell Amundsen, the cinematographer who has given us such a crystal clear visual delight although the movie was shot in the heart of the Manhattan and the NYC wherein you could no way see a beautiful scenic background rather than sky scrapers and buildings all the way. A big round of Applause and all praise to David koepp and his team for giving us a racy thriller with such a terrific screen play despite having a Numb and a Null impact storyline.

MY VERDICT:

                             

                              Fixed Gear, Steel Front, No Brakes and No strings attached and that is “PREMIUM RUSH” worth its brag J 

AN ENCOMIUM ON MAJOR MARIAPPAN SARAVANAN

I know very well that, this post is an obsolete one. Better late than never! And it’s not too late. I consign this post to My Beloved Brother S.K.Shiva Subramani. It gives me an immense sense of pride, privilege and a plethora of hyper patriotism when I start typing this post and feeling really proud in dedicating it to a real hero for a change. This post shall be an accolade for the “Hero of Batalik” and for an officer in the most esteemed Bihar Regiment of the Indian Army, Major Saravanan.

               “Men Love their country not because it is great, but because it is their own” said Seneca, the roman philosopher. The above slogan was indeed outlived by Major Saravanan. The Name “Saravanan” is a customary common name as and when you come across men from Tamil Nadu before 29^th may 1999, until, the hero of this article, Major Captain Saravanan lost his precious life while combating and killing four Pakistani intruders in the Line of Control during the Kargil War.

                   He was possibly the first Indian martyr to have been killed in the Kargil war. Major Saravanan was born on 10^th August 1972 in the island of Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu. It’s not that easy to decide about your future when you have kids of your age group around you telling that they want to become a cricketer, Software Engineer, An IAS, A doctor, a lawyer and what not? But Saravanan was an exceptional kid who showed deviance from the rest. Having been born to an Lt.Colonel it would have been inane if Saravanan had chosen something else as his career rather than joining the most prestigious Indian Army; it was no wonder that the Army Blood was innate in Saravanan.

                    Saravanan Graduated from St.Joseph’s college, Trichy. As a first step towards joining the Indian infantry he joined the NCC infantry unit in his college. From then there was no looking back, Saravanan made rapid strides in his Army career, he joined the first Bihar regiment as a lieutenant. His dedication and sincerity then made him grow by leaps and bounds. He was ranked captain and Major in the successive years. When you spell out the name “Major Saravanan (INDIAN ARMY)” aloud, it will bring you boundless joy and a spirit that could ignite your minds with some positive vibration.

                    “Forgiving Terrorists is left to God, but Fixing their Appointment with God

                       Is our responsibility “ - INDIAN ARMY

         

                            As the above Awe-Inspiring Quote goes, Major was assigned a new operation. He was supposed to move to Kargil from Assam that would never be an easy mutation for any normal human being even if you are in your pink of health. Adapting to the coldest weather of Kargil all of a sudden from a sultry hot Assam weather is neither a joke nor that easy that too at an altitude of 14500 feet. Saravanan never knew that May 28^th, 1999 was going to be his last day in this world. It all happened when Major was assigned the operation of capturing a Pakistani position at the above quoted altitude in the Batalik sector. 

                              He and his fellow army men planned an attack at around 4 am. The plan was perfectly executed when our Army men along with Major Saravanan shot a series of bullets at first, which was then followed by an intensive back firing from our most hated rivals. There were plenty of ammos scattered all around that area which failed and fumbled to pierce the Noblest Indian Army. The brawl got intense and so our Major had to use the Rocket launcher during the combat which would have easily weighed somewhere between 3 to 5 kg. He triggered the launcher which killed two of our foes, during the launch Major Saravanan got badly hit by the shrapnel. He was then acutely injured; he never gave up.

                          
                        Major made the motive crystal clear in his mind “DO IT FOR OUR MOTHER AND THEN DIE”, his perseverance to save our mother India made him continue the combat. Meanwhile the Pakistani soldiers charged a volley of bullets which injured many of our men. The Commanding officer ordered our Major to retreat and elude because too many Indian Army men had been injured.  Major Saravanan was code named “Genghis Khan” for this operation. “Genghis Khan Fall back” came the order, “Not Today sir, we are almost close to the enemy position and the objective” replied major. He then went on to kill two more Pakistani soldiers, but this time Major Saravanan got hit by a bullet straight in the head. Major cuddled and curled up slowly before he became a martyr and his name got carved in the history of Indian Army. His fortitude and patriotism will always be etched in our memories. A true warrior, for whom the artilleries were the only backbones, had bereaved us.  You might wonder what is so very special about this particular martyr while there are plenty of others as well; yes it was only because of him I got to understand the meaning of a martyr for the very first time in my life when I was just 9 years old. It was he who taught me “For our better tomorrows the Army men have been giving their todays”.  It costed him his precious life to receive the highest individual award “VEER CHAKRA” posthumously.

MY SMALL TRIBUTE TO BELOVED MAJOR:

  “Major Saravanan would have enjoyed sleeping in his mom’s lap just like you and I

    He would have enjoyed his mom’s food just like you and I

    He would have enjoyed his childhood and adolescence just like you and I

    He would have enjoyed being with his friends just like you and I

    He would have enjoyed Rajni and Kamal just like you and I                                       

    He would have enjoyed Rahman and Ilayaraja just like you and I

    He would have also enjoyed Sachin, Dravid and Ganguly just like you and I

    But in the end he died for a stranger: U and I

If ever there is something called rebirth or next birth in my life, I would desperately want  to join the Indian Army and serve my nation. I take a bow, Respect and Salute all the martyrs of India who sacrificed their most precious lives in the noble cause of protecting our Mother India. Proud to be an Indian forever.  Long Live the Indian Army!