Movie Nation

“The Warrior Queen of Jhansi” is a respectable B-movie from India about a heroine of “The Mutiny,” the 1857-58 Indian Rebellion against the rule of the British East India Company and its British soldiers.

Ambitious, if choppy, flatly-acted and less inspiring than was its intention, it is the story of Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, who resisted the all-powerful East India Company’s efforts to annex her princely state after the death of her husband,bstripping its independence and the succession of her stepson.

Devika Bhise has the title role, a genuine warrior queen who galloped into battle with her troops, fought with sabre and bow, and coined — the film says — the term “freedom fighter” in her quest to free her people from the British corporate and colonial yoke.

When widowed and threatened by the ruthless, racist Company Man (Nathaniel Parker), unappeased by the sympathetic British soldier (Ben Lamb) who acts as go-between, the young Rani lets her temper show.

“I would remind you I am no stranger to battle.”

Trained with sword, rifle and bow since childhood, she was ready to fight.

But the action is slow to come in this “Warrior” tale. There’s much intrigue, a whole lot of chewing out by Queen Victoria (Jodhi May) directed at Lord Palmerston (Derek Jacobi) of “the greatest company in history.” The Queen has Indian sympathies driven by an Indian Muslim attendant, as “The Warrior Queen” seems to be moving the timeline up for the “Victoria & Abdul” story — which happened decades later.

Years pass, and yet the dead maharaja’s adopted son, whom the Brits signed off on as heir to the throne (Jhansi was a British-allied state), doesn’t grow up. At all.

The picture slips into a confused murk during the interval between when The Company first decided not to recognize Rani’s family succession and the beginning of the rebellion. The Rani must find alliances before the British finally attack.

Because cholera holds them at bay for a while. Eventually, though, led by Sir Hugh Rose (Rupert Everett, unenthused), they march. The great siege begins, the cannon roar and The Rani charges into action, a sabre in each hand.

Bhise (“The Accidental Husband,” “The Man Who Knew Infinity”) is fine in the action scenes, less interesting in the assorted ladies-in-waiting/confer with advisors/negotiate with the British officer interludes.

Her fiery moments of “Do NOT presume to tell me what I can and cannot do,” her speeches to rally the troops with tales of “rivers of blood…flowing through our motherland” are nothing special.

Bhise’s mother, actress and producer turned director and co-writer Swati Bhise, doesn’t demand more from her, and the film she conjures up is often exposed as a malnourished polemic about British racism, sexism and Anglo-Christian supremacy as resisted by this Brahmin born royal.

Not that epic, in other words.

Most of the fighting in this two year rebellion, sparked by British decisions to force Muslim Indian East India Co. troops to use paper cartridges sealed with animal fat for their rifles, is kept off camera in this would-be epic.

There are continuity errors, and not just having the same little boy play the young prince in scenes set five years apart.

Parker is agreeably vile as the “racist Brit,” the one who fumes “We owe these vulgar natives nothing. They’re barbarians!” Jacobi’s East India chief tries to charm Victoria with the notion that they’re “civilizing” and “converting to Christianity” the vast, fractious subcontinent that this extra-governmental corporation is running.

May’s Victoria gets her back up nicely. If only Bhise exhibited this sort of confident fury as Rani.

“The Warrior Queen of Jhansi” is educational only if you take to the Internet afterwards to look up the details I just filled in, allowing you to realize the corrections that needed to be made to the film’s account.

The entire enterprise has a tentative feel, with the elder Bhise more confident directing dialogue vignettes and the combat than with handling the sweep of the story, which feels incoherent, as often as not.

And as unemotional as most of this depressingly uninspiring, blood-stained tale is, you have to wonder what’s missing, and how the filmmaker can presume to tie Rani’s heroic struggle with the eventual independence of India, which came almost 100 years later.

She had to be more charismatic than this to inspire over the ages.

MPAA Rating: R for some violence

Cast: Devika Bhise, Jodhi May, Rupert Everett, Nathaniel Parker, Derek Jacobi, Arif Zakaria, Siyaa Patil and Omar Malik.

Credits: Directed by Swati Bhise, script by Dekia Bhise, Olivia Emden and Swati Bhise. A Roadside Attractions release.
Running time: 1:42

For those who haven’t been paying attention, Indian films and movies set in India have been showing up on screens nationwide with increasing frequency.

Few have made much of a dent in the US box office, but the Subcontinent Diaspora in North America is large enough to justify the effort.

“The Warrior Queen of Jhansi” is a piece of Indian history about Manu, a woman who resisted the corporate tyranny of the British East India Company, became queen of her state and leader of an army that included women.

Looks fun. 2400 plus screens have this, so Roadside Attractions is gambling that it will have wide appeal. Let’s see if it should.

The star power, stellar reviews and awards season cachet of one of the best pictures of the year should be enough to ensure “Ford v. Ferrari” will own at least one weekend at the box office.

Tracking interest — retweets, YouTube views of the trailer, IMDb pageviews — point to a $20 million plus opening for this prestige picture about racing and iconoclasts changing the culture of a huge corporation.

But after “Doctor Sleep” underwhelmed last weekend, does this very guy-centric dramedy seem like such a sure thing?

Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Stewart and Patrick Stewart are rebooting “Charlie’s Angels,” but does that star power add up to anything like a sure thing? No. It could do $13, Variety and Box Office Mojo are saying. It could be a surprise smash. Remember “Hustlers?”

“The Good Liar” had awards buzz..until critics saw it. Older cast, limited box office appeal, it feels like a limited release that is opening wide. I don’t think it will manage the $6 to 7 million projected for Dame Helen and Sir Ian’s handiwork.

“The Warrior Queen of Jhansi” is opening wide with limited buzz, promotion, etc.

If “Midway” has another good weekend it will clear the $35 million mark since release by midnight Sunday.

I figure “Playing with Fire” will bottom out, and “Doctor Sleep” will show little sign of waking up.

Will the top ten clear $100 million all together? Box Office Mojo says “No.”But let’s hope so. There are some good choices out there.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/article/ed3765437444/?ref_=bo_at_a

You can’t manufacture a “cult film.”

But you can play around with “Hey you guys, this REALLY happened!” Try a new twist on the “found footage” horror formula that “The Blair Witch Project” perfected, a “long lost movie” myth with a touch of “The Ring” about it.

Call it “The Deadliest Movie Ever Made,” and make it about a motion picture that screens as “the work of the Devil,” a movie never truly released because people who saw it died, a theater that showed it burned up and killed a bunch of people.

San Franciscans who tried to watch it decades later rioted, and more death ensued.

“Antrum” is its title, a 1979 American made “indie” film that a couple of film festival programmers screened for admission to their fests in the ’80s — and met untimely ends.

This is the “cursed movie” myth that dogs John Wayne’s debacle “The Conqueror” or more recently, where “Poltergeist” lost a lot of sweet and respected actors, and let Craig T. Nelson live.

Filmmakers David Amito and Michael Laicini wrap their conceit in a mockumentary, complete with “experts” on “Antrum” and “demonology” and horror movies. Their expert testimonials speak of it being “the Holy Grail” of cult films, one that it’s “not safe” to watch.

A favorite amateurish touch? They misspell “Budapest,” the city where the theater allegedly burned down in their “tribute” closing credits. Perfect.

The “only print” of the movie itself is an odd affair, a simple spin on “Pet Sematary” with Cyrillic and English credits, and a bizarre tale of a little boy (Rowan Smyth) who sees his beloved dog Maxine, “put down” by a vet.

Nathan knows “All dogs go to heaven.” But Mom says no, Maxine was “bad.” She’s a hound in hell, now.

Nathan is so distraught that his sister Oralee (Nicole Tompkins) locates a book of necromancy and leads him on a camping trip to the forest “where Satan fell when he was cast out of Heaven.”

They’ll follow the book’s directions, with chapters headed “Before You Get to Hell,” and “Welcome to Hell” (not pictured, the prologue, “So You want to Go to Hell). They’ll find the exact spot, near a hollowed out tree, and dig their way through the layers of hell until they find the one Maxine is in, and bring her home.

They’d better watch out for Cerberus, the multi-headed dog that supposedly patrols the banks of the River Styx, at the entrance to Hell in Greek myth. Nathan thinks he hears him.

Flickering flash-cut black and white inserts interrupt this quest, images of Satan in the shadows, of people being tortured. Odd noises blast out of the soundtrack, too. Which of these trigger viewers’ deaths?

The footage looks properly grainy in some scenes, the light has a hint of that “Eastmancolor at dawn” flavor common to the movies of the day.

And the kids? They soldier on through layers of Hell described by chapters labeled “Nefastas,””Malificus” and “Demonium.”

“Look, it’s a DEMON!” Actually, it’s a stop-motion-animated demonic squirrel with a black tail.

I appreciate the effort here. The idea is sound, but the script needed several more passes before they committed to shooting it. The odd Cyrillic titles suggest a funnier way to go — shoot the damned thing in Hungarian, make the “legend” more exotic and foreign. It’s not like we’re told this is a Hungarian or whatever print that was found recently in Connecticut.

The “Look, a DEMON” bit is the only thing here that’s funny, and that’s another direction one could have taken “Antrum.” Cult films like “The Room” are often laughed at.

“Antrum” has no other laughs, and unless you’re a rube who falls for every “Hey, you guys, this REALLY happened” on the Internet, there’s not much here to hold our interest.

“Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made” isn’t amateurish enough to be charming or professional enough to pull off the con job.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence

Cast: Rowan Smyth, Nicole Tompkins

Credits: Written and directed by David Amito, Michael Laicini. An Uncork’d Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:34

An ageing actress summons her extended family to scenic Sintra, Portugal, in “Frankie,” a lovely but downbeat and dull showcase for Isabelle Huppert, who has the title role.

You’d think that with a husband, ex-husband, stepdaughter who is contemplating divorce, a son who isn’t the closest to her and a rebellious step-granddaughter about to head off to college, the filmmakers could manage a few sparks, some confrontations — something out of this set-up.

But not really. Director Ira Sachs makes chatty, relationshippy melodramas, for the most part — films that often have gay texts, subtexts or merely a character or two. While “Love is Strange” and “Little Men” or “Keep the Lights On” have their acting moments and other virtues, they are conflicts in a minor key. Not enough happens.

“Frankie” is filled with absurdly frank confessions and moments of over-sharing as a stellar cast breaks up into pairs for scenes that don’t so much go anywhere as flesh in the back stories in front of one of the loveliest tourist towns on The Continent.

Frankie is married to Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson), divorced from Michel (Pascal Greggory), who is the father of prickly, lonely Paul (Jérémie Renier).

Frankie would like to fix Paul up with her favorite on-set hair stylist, Ilene (Marissa Tomei). But Ilene’s shown up with her second unit cinematographer beau, Gary (Greg Kinnear). And he’s all about making their relationship permanent.

“We’d have two homes. We don’t need more than that!”

Sylvia, or Vivi (Vinette Robinson) is Jimmy’s daughter from an earlier relationship. And she’s thinking about divorcing Ian (Ariyon Bakare). They’re British, and daughter Maya (Sennia Nanua) is headed for college, and somewhat trapped in the middle of their very civil, almost loving break-up.

Nobody seems all that thrilled to be here, save for the New York film couple. And they “don’t know.” 

We can guess what’s going on, with the hired-guide pointing them to this or that “miracle fountain,” siblings fussing over jewelry and estates and financial stuff.

It’s just that everybody is too self-absorbed to work those “issues” out. All this pairing up just gives the Michel the chance to admit that Frankie divorcing him was the best thing to ever happen to him.

“I met Thierry, and I finally let myself fall in love with a man.”

Maya meets a Portugeuse boy who tells her much of his life story on a trolley ride to the beach.

Even the guide gets in on it — “Sometimes, I don’t even know why I stay married.”

The awkward moments have a light dramatic charge; the way Ilene tries to brush off Gary’s proposal, Paul’s little anecdote about the origins of the lifelong friction with his mother.

Huppert plays a character with “playing cupid” on her mind, among other things. The odd lightly amusing line and a couple of fatalistic ones are all Frankie has to offer her. She’s the fulcrum around which the other tales pivot, and there’s not enough to her.

The spark of her being scolded by her granddaughter for swimming in the villa’s pool in the opening scene — “They can take PICTURES.” “That’s OK. I’m very photoGENIC!” — is about as lively as the role, or the movie that follows, gets.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language and some sexual material

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Marisa Tomei, Vinette Robinson, Brendan Gleeson, , Ariyon Bakare, Pascal Greggory, Jérémie Renier, Sennia Nanua and Greg Kinnear

Credits: Directed by Ira Sachs, script by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias.  A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Running time: 1:40

Maybe returning to your high school to coach will help with that drinking problem.

A March release, starring Ben and directed by Gavin O’Connor.

Oh yes, we’re going back under the sea for a few Spongebob shenanigans, Patrick pratfalls etc. Next May.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is a biographical essay in sweetness and light.

Tom Hanks playing the most beloved TV personality America has ever produced, “Mister Rogers,” may be the epitome of cinematic “on the nose” casting. A “national treasure portraying a national treasure” and all that.

But that’s precisely what is called for in this moving portrait not just of the man, but of his impact on those who came into contact with him in person, and the generations who started life watching him on TV.

“Can You Ever Forgive Me” director Marielle Heller and her screenwriter frame this portait within a fictionalized account of a cynical magazine journalist’s attempt to profile “a living saint,” and falling under the spell of a man who was a veritable “human whisperer.” That would be the soft-spoken Presbyterian pastor with an early childhood development degree, Fred Rogers.

On TV, he preached kindness, compassion, forgiveness and patience. He looked into the camera, as Hanks’ Rogers recalls, and imagined that “one child” he was talking to. And if that child, like him, got frustrated setting up a tent (as Fred does), here’s Mister Rogers showing you how to deal with frustration.

The fictional conceit here is pure manipulation. Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys of “The Americans”) is a hard-hitting investigative reporter assigned by his editor (Christine Lahti) to do a 400 word “puff piece” on Mister Rogers for a 1998 Esquire Magazine issue on “Heroes.”

He gets to write about “Someone good, for a change.” “We’ll see,” he mutters.

Vogel is a journalistic pitbull who chews up most of those he writes about. Rogers quietly and kindly regards him, leaves a lot of long pauses in their chat, and turns the interview around, probing Vogel’s open psychic wound, the reason he shows up in Pittsburgh for their conversation with a cut nose and the beginnings of a black eye.

Vogel has estranged father (Oscar winner Chris Cooper) issues, and a hair trigger rage about the subject. How mad do you have to be to get testy with Fred Rogers? Mad enough to walk out on the interview when Rogers gently turns the questioning on him?

It’s an obvious conceit, the “angry journalist” cliche. The whole movie is framed within it, with Rogers taping his show, dragging Vogel into it (in his dreams) for little childhood lessons about what to do when you’re feeling mad and “forgiveness.” His puppets pitch in. He does what Rogers was famous for doing, taking an interest and kindly devoting all his attention to the person he was with, even though he’s just met them.

The real magazine writer was Tom Junod, and the best reason to change his name for the movie was that all of this stuff is invented hokum. But it works, a motion picture parable built on lessons we’ve forgotten in the rage of adulthood in a divisive age.

Hanks isn’t as wiry and doesn’t attempt the high-pitched voice that made Rogers the target of generations of comedians. But he absolutely masters the hypnotic, soft-spoken calm Rogers projected, a calm that pervaded the set of his show and could seem to follow him into the world.

Lovely scenes in a local Pittsburgh restaurant where the other diners lapse into dead silence so that they can overhear Fred’s zen-like calmness exercise and the homilies that he passes on to Lloyd, or when Vogel and Rogers catch a New York subway, only to be serenaded by the other passengers, starting with the children, with generations of adults chiming in, with “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’s” theme song, give the picture its heart.

It’s not just what he meant to us as individuals, it’s seeing what he meant to all of those around us that gets to you.

Rhys makes a marvelously bitter, broken “professional” — new to fatherhood, a bit of an emotional chore for his wife (Susan Kelechi Watson of “This is Us”).

Cooper is a properly inappropriate, clueless and self-centered Dad who can’t figure out why his son will never, ever forgive him for the past.

And “Just Shoot Me” veteran Enrico Colantoni underplays the disapproving TV show publicist who may have warned Fred away from speaking to this hatchet man, Vogel, but who isn’t surprised his boss, who scowled at being called “a living saint,” turns the reporter into a puddle of feelings, just by sizing him up and being himself — empathy personified.

“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” isn’t as weepy and sentimental as the fine documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” a film that conjured up not just Rogers’ persona and role in our lives, but childhood itself for millions of viewers. “Beautiful Day” is still a splendid synthesis of the essence of the man and his values, a teacher who never stopped teaching while he was alive, and via another Oscar-worthy performance by Tom Hanks, is teaching us still.

MPAA Rating: PG, (fisticuffs, alcohol abuse)
Cast: Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys, Susan Kelechi Watson, Enrico Colantoni, Christine Lahti and Chris Cooper.

Credits: Directed by Marielle Heller, script by Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster, inspired by Tom Junod’s 1998 article for Esquire Magazine. A Sony/Tristar release.

Running time: 1:48

Scary stuff. Horror from Luxemburg?

A 2020 release with Udo Kier and an imperiled young woman learning about her troubling history.

A Hollywood starlet is radicalized, with cause, in this biopic.

Stewart plays the “Breathless” who found screen immortality overseas, and her cause in African American radical politics in the US.

Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz, Colm Meaney and Stephen Root also star.

Limited prospects for this one as she was praised but the movie panned in festivals. Amazon made it, so it will live on online.