Month: February 2021

Well clearly Netflix is just cruel. Less than two weeks after the tragic news, they go out and release the film The White Tiger. Couldn’t they have waited? Do they have no shame or heart?

I am of course talking about the death of Siegfried Fischbaker, who died on January 13, 2021, which happened within a year of his partner, Roy Horn, dying on May 8, 2020. So soon after the duo has left our world, they decide it is appropriate to release a movie about their tigers? Is there even a god?!

…

Wait, this movie has nothing to do with the tragic act of Siegfried and Roy, but is just based on a novel of the same name, and dealing with a part of the world where white tigers are occasionally a thing. My bad. But I will still be sad about the magic duo leaving our world, if you don’t mind.

Those American girls with their low cut shirts and hatred of modern slavery, what gives?!Our story is mostly told through flashbacks, so I will not talk about the overall narrator level of the story, just what the flashback story is about. Which is about Balram (Adarsh Gourav). He grew up a poor kid in a poor area to a poor family. Family means everything in India, as does respecting your elder members, and giving back what they gave you eventually. People grow up and usually don’t find success, but still have to bring money home to help support the family.

Balram has big ideas and dreams though. He is going to defeat the caste system, and become rich and powerful. Which is generally impossible in a strong caste based society. But he has the drive, (literally he learns to do just that) in order to become a driver with a rich and successful family. Because he knows if he has an in, he can grow further and change his destiny.

But at what lengths will Balram go to achieve success? And if he does the unspeakable, will he feel guilty about the final result, or proud at overcoming corruption?

Also starring Rajkummar Rao, Priyanka Chopra, Mahesh Manjrekar, Vedant Sinha, Kamlesh Gill, Vijay Maurya, and Sanket Shanware.

This is a story about a rise to power, and a growth to moustache. 

I went into The White Tiger expecting nothing, and I was surprised to find something far greater than nothing. Seriously. I am trying to review some movies that are bad here, and checking out new Netflix releases usually gets me something, but for the most part this month they have been on it, and everything is at least decent if not great. How dare you Netflix up your quality. Where is the bad shit? Where?!

Ahem. The White Tiger was good Gourav is a charismatic lead and narrator, and you want to know his story. His rise to power seems impossible so it is a compelling story to see how he goes from basic Indian servant to someone who answers to no one. It does a good job of teasing the eventual conclusion along the way, and giving snippets of what our main character is capable along the way.

But more importantly, I LOVE the ending. When the narrator compares it traditional Indian narratives, and how this story is different, it goes really hard with its message and I am all here for it. Go you fictional character, go you!

The supporting cast is fine as well, but no one really musters up to Gourav, because they aren’t going to be given a chance. They really are just supporting characters in one man’s story.

The White Tiger gives me a look on India/Delhi that is not entirely accurate, but certainly a look you don’t get often in Bollywood pictures.

3 out of 4.

Psy. Cho. Gore. Man.

Psycho Goreman.

Really rolls off the tongue there, doesn’t it? It implies a lack of sanity, and a man who enjoyes producing gore. That is certainly not a good combination. And it is sometimes advertised as PG: Psycho Goreman. For most people, PG means parental guidance, and it is what most kid friendly movies are. There are G level, but those are super basic. I have to feel the branding and the acronym are intentional to combine these two thoughts together. They aren’t doing it to “trick” parents into taking their kids to see a violent R rated film, but given that this film plays with the tropes of “alien crashes to earth and is found by kids”, it just continues to play up that ridiculousness.

I mean, what if the alien was actually not a nice and docile creature? And what if humanity is worse?

In this picture: A sociopathic evil mastermind, a little boy, and a deadly alien

Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (Owen Myre) are two siblings who often play their new came Crazy Ball with each other, but Mimi is much better at the sport than her brother. She is also meaner, like on a sociopath level. So because she won, she makes her brother dig a big hole in the background and eventually they find some glowing light alien stuff. They don’t do anything with it, go to sleep, and then the Arch-Duke of Nightmares (Matthew Ninaber, Steven Vlahos) is awoken and escapes his prison.

A ruthless killer alien, who has been trying to destroy the galaxy, has now been unleashed on the world and is ready to kill with blades, magic, and more. Fuck life, says this incarnation of evil. But Mimi ends up getting a hold of his special orb, which means he has to do what she says and cannot try to actively harm her. Ain’t nothing wrong with being in control of a villainous killer assassin. Also she renames him Psycho Goreman, because its better, PG for short.

Also there is an alliance of aliens who imprisoned him who now have to head to Earth to try and stop him from like, destroying everything too. Yep, that is a thing.

Also starring Adam Brooks, Alexis Kara Hancey, and Kristen MacCulloch.

Speak softly and carry on you the blood of your conquered foes.

Psycho Goreman is surprising, while at the same time not.

It hits a lot of the expected beats you would expect to see of “Alien comes to Earth, kids find him, but he is super evil.” Some of the chaos he does is pretty gorey, but wit the low budget they are still limited there. And honestly, the plot line of the Templar aliens rushing to stop him costume wise feels a lot like the enemies in power rangers. It could be intentional, but it still lowers the overall quality.

The surprising aspect comes from one of our leads, Mimi, as they did another reverse trope by making the strong determined sibling to be the girl, with the passive one being the boy. It was a great reversal. And I am shocked at hour menacing they made that girl. Absolutely one of the scariest anti-heroes of the year already, and someone I would not want to cross paths with ever in my own life. She did amazing and deserves praise there.

Overall the story is a bit amusing, but is dragged down sometimes from the lower budget and ways they had to work around it for the film. It didn’t shock me too much given the point of the plot, and most of the shock value came from unexpected stars.

2 out of 4.