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There’s also a remarkable lack of tension even when people are being shot,and bombs are being placed,with the finger a hair-trigger away: Khan’s debut feature Kabul Express was much tighter.

Run Away
Movie Name: Runway
Cast: Amarjeet,Lucky Ali,Deepal Shaw,Tulip Joshi
Directors: Suneel-Praful
Showing at: E-Square ,Inox ,City Pride, Big Cinemas,

‘Runway’ remains a puzzle from the first to last. It opens with a tanned fellow with shoulder length hair and bulging biceps (Amarjeet) arriving in Mauritius in order to shoot a few other fellows,on the orders of a bad guy back in India.

Why,no one knows. He’s ordered to fetch up at a bar where a girl with no clothes (Tulip) is gyrating. Why,no one knows. In between all this,a druggie (Deepal) dies of a bad liver,and a cigarette smoking contract killer (Lucky Ali) goes about looking sinister,and making big holes in people’s foreheads.

How I sat through this bilge,only I know

Heavy Metal
Movie Name: Terminator Salvation
Cast: Sam Worthington,Bryce Dallas Howard,Helena Bonham Carter,Anton Yelchin
Director: McG
Showing at: E-Square ,Inox ,City Pride (satara rd.),Gold Big Cinemas,Fame,Mangala.

First let’s try and figure out this sequence: a) in The Terminator (1984) a terminator is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor before she gives birth to John; b) in Terminator 2 (1991) an advanced prototype is sent back in time to kill John,John from the future sends back one of his own terminators to save the two; c) in Terminator 3,a yet more advanced prototype is sent back to kill fighters leading the war against the machines,while mankind too sends back a terminator to save John and his wife. We are told John would die around 2032. The time is 2004. And now,get your mind around this puzzle: Terminator Salvation,we are told,is a “prequel” – for,John here co-exists with own father Kyle (Yelchin),who is in his teens,apparently sent back from the future by John himself. Bet you can’t figure out that one,but in a franchise so used to shuffling between the past,present and future,time understandably must be hard to keep track of. So,grant the film that leeway. And then brace yourself for two hours of relentless shooting,blazing,blowing up,melting,dying,and so forth,from which one man and only one man emerges unscathed. And no,that’s not John Connor,as played by Bale,who has found his star on the rise since the much-appreciated The Dark Knight.

While Bale shouts out loud a few times about the importance of beingdifferent from the machines,he appears too mechanical,literally following the prototype established by the earlier films. In his few addresses to the Resistance leaders or in private moments alone with his mother’s voice on a tape recorder (yes,tape recorder),he shows none of the qualities that make him the prophet who will apparently save mankind.The visual effects,of course,are par the course. Skynet,which controls the machines,deploys all firepower that is at its service,on the ground and in the air,and the film’s greyish tones are well conceptualised. However,there is no Arnold Schwarzenegger (only an insult of a cyborg or,whatever they call it,looking like him),or even that liquid metal delicacy called T-1000 of Terminator 2 for that something extra. But all you fans out there,don’t worry. A sequel looks very much in the works: the Terminator will be back.