Tag: comedy

Steele Wool

  By

★★★
“Puts the ‘hard’ in hard of hearing…”

Daphne Wool (Varela) has finally had enough of her abusive husband, so has killed him, chopping up the corpse and keeping it in a storage locker. Which actually is a good thing, because it turns out he was wanted by the Mob, and there was a price on his head. For their “help” in carrying out the hit, Daphne and pal Tony Steele (Cappello) are rewarded, but things go further. Daphne becomes a full-time assassin for the gangsters, learning to kill with everything from a paper-clip up, while Tony acts as her facilitator. However, they quickly become a liability to the organization, and are given a “poison pill” contract, being sent to kill weapons inventor Vincent McCabe.

The approach here is very much light in intent. Witness how Daphne’s training is largely watching movies like La Fille Nadia [sic], or the way in which she does, in fact, use a paper-clip as the instrument of one target’s demise. The film does a decent job of countering this with an awareness that this is a dirty and unpleasant business, as when she visits (from a distance) the widow of a target and their now fatherless child. It is a difficult balance for a movie to strike, and I’m not convinced Cappello gets it right, resulting in some awkward lurches in tome from the comedic to the supposedly heart-felt. Both come off a bit flat: I never got past a wry smile, and was never completely engaged.

This is not Varela’s fault, nor that of her character. Daphne is played gloriously against all the tropes of the female assassin: it’s no coincidence her most effective undercover disguise is an estate agent. Add to this, Varela is deaf: this element affects, yet does not define, her character and that’s exactly the way disability should be portrayed. It is even worked nicely in to the plot, with one of McCabe’s weapons in development being a sonic cannon. However, I’d like to have seen more of her in action; perhaps for budgetary reasons, this is limited, or perhaps Cappello just wasn’t interested in that aspect.

This brings me to the other issue: Cappello the director is too much in love with Cappello the actor. The latter wears out his welcome well before riding to the rescue of the supposed heroine, in McCabe’s underground lair. This is a shame, since Daphne is such a gloriously unconventional character, the reverse should have happened. Tony is never interesting to begin with, the script (also by Cappello, naturally) forgetting to give him any particular reason to exist, beyond Daphne needing someone to talk to. Having him become the hero for the finale, feels forced and unnatural. This is not enough to derail an excellent concept, or negate what I think is likely only the second disabled action heroine on this site, after Ready, Willing and Able. Yet it’s definitely a pity.

Dir: Frank A. Cappello
Star: Cami Varela, Frank A. Cappello, Nicholas Ontiveros, Arina Manta

Sister Wrath

  By

★★★½
“Nun-conformist”

I think it’s safe to say you’ll probably be able to decide within a few minutes, whether or not this is your cup of tea. The opening scene is set in a strip-club where the next act on the main stage is dressed as a nun. After a couple of minutes, she pulls out an unfeasibly large weapon from under her clerical garb, and guns down the mobsters present, in gory fashion. Thereafter, you can expect more of the same, along with extremely savage jabs at organized religion. Catholicism is the main target, but Judaism and Hinduism get their share of jabs: for example, Gandhi is a martial arts teacher. Or there’s a Yiddish hitman, Viper Goldstein (Lavallee), who practices the art of “Jew Jitsu”. If you just roll your eyes at that, this is likely not for you. However, if you roll your eyes and also laugh, then you, like me, may be the intended target audience.

The heroine is Kelly (Nicklin) an aspiring nun with a bad temper, who ends up enrolled, not entirely willingly, in the Order of the Black Habit – though surely Order of the Bad Habit would have been an even better name? Whatever… They are a group of fighting nuns, each named after one of the seven deadly sins. Unsurprisingly, Kelly becomes Sister Wrath, and joins her colleagues, such as Sister Pride (Cipolla), in taking down the criminal empire of Momma Rizzo (Tretheway, shamelessly channeling Shelley Winters in Bloody Mama). Momma isn’t going to sit back and let that happen, however. After her own goons prove not up to the task of taking on the Black Habit, she brings in Goldstein and his Ninja Throwing Stars of David, to escalate the war. With the help of a mole inside the church, he kidnaps Sister Pride, in order to lure Wrath and the rest of the nuns into a trap.

There’s a lot of glorious invention here, not least the remarkably catchy musical number in heaven, which rivals the one at the end of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. [In one of the film’s rare subtle moments, the same actor is here playing both Jesus Christ and the Devil] It’s gory and foul-mouthed, though for whatever reason, remains remarkably chaste: the stripper in the opening scene is wearing pasties. Likely only a lack of the necessary gratuitous nudity prevented this from getting a seal of approval, because the rest of it is right in my wheel-house of poor taste. Cameos from Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman – again, if you don’t know who they are… – only add to the sense of fun. The latter plays the Pope, who shows up late to absolve everyone of their sins. If not quite reaching the dizzy heights of post-grindhouse classics like Hobo With a Shotgun, it’s one of the rare cases where a B-movie genuinely lives up to the promise of its poster.

Dir: Richard Griffin
Star: Sarah Nicklin, Alexandra Cipolla, Rich Tretheway, David Lavallee Jr.
a.k.a. Nun of That

Asking for It (2020)

  By

★★
“A Net loss.”

Not to be confused with the 2021 rape-revenge film of the same name (which I’ll get round to reviewing down the pipe), this is somewhat lighter in tone, though there’s a case to be made that this clashes terribly with the subject matter. Jenny (Hsu) is a journalist, working under Cheryl (Garofalo),and her work has brought her to the attention of an online stalker, who sends her increasingly disturbed and disturbing emails. When the harassment begins to move from the cyberworld into the real one, and the authorities fail even to reach the level of disinterest, Jenny teams up with room-mate Lisa (Morales), to hunt down the perpetrator and bring him to justice themselves.

In case the above is not clear, this is a comedy.

Yeah, I’m a bit uncomfortable about this. Not necessarily about the subject matter, as I tend to think any topic can be seen through the lens of humour. However, the more problematic your target, the less room for error. If you want to joke about, say, the Holocaust, you’d better bring your A game. This isn’t anywhere in the same league as a subject; however, nor is the comedy here anything close to an A game. There are a few amusing moments involving veteran Garofalo, who has the timing to hit home, with her depiction of a jaded and cynical writer. Yet otherwise, it’s mostly a weirdly toothless kind of satire, possessing too many “Is that supposed to be a joke?” moments, e.g. the blanking out of all the F-bombs.

I did enjoy the performances, with Hsu an appealing lead, and Morales doing some heavy lifting as the weirdo housemate from hell, whose special skills are indispensable to the plot. Though her “hacking” scene is another of those “Is that supposed to be a joke?” moments. The best scene probably has the pair heading to utterly deadpan teenage gun dealer, Lisa’s step-daughter, Missy. She delights in speeches like, “You left your G-string, by the way… I wore it. And then I sold it. On a website for perverts. And then I donated that money. To an elephant. Charity,” or “I don’t know how any of them work… I’m not a school shooter. Jeez, I’m sorry I can’t tell you the science behind riflery.”

Outside of those five minutes, the rest does not consistently work, either as a comedy or a thriller. I think it’s mostly a scripting problem, not least because the identity of her stalker is painfully obvious from the moment he first appears. You have to wait about an hour for Jenny and Lisa to catch up, and the pickings in that time – save Missy, who deserves her own movie – are slim. I was left mostly wondering why anyone would want to a) live in New York, and b) work as an online writer – fortunately, this is not my day job. I suspect this was not exactly the intended take-away. 

Dir: Amanda Lundquist, Becky Scott
Star: Stephanie Hsu, Irene Morales, Colin Burgess, Janeane Garofalo

Mad Heidi

  By

★★★
“Pure cheese.”

I’d been aware of this movie for some time, through its innovative crowd-funding approach, which raised $3 million to cover the cost of production. After COVID hit, there were doubts it’d ever see the light of day, but here it is: the first “Swissploitation” film [If not quite the case, it’s certainly the first one with a seven-figure budget, as well as the first Swiss movie covered on this site] And it’s not bad: if you’re familiar with similarly crowd-funded spoof, Iron Sky, this is along similar lines of broad parody. It covers almost every genre of cult from kung-fu films through Starship Troopers to women-in-prison films, e.g. there’s an Asian prisoner sporting inmate number #701. It doesn’t all hit, yet safe to say, the more you’re a fan of B movies, the more you’ll get out of it.

The film takes place in s dystopian version of Switzerland, where the authoritarian government are the only ones allowed to produce cheese, under “very Swiss leader” President Meili (Van Dien, making the Troopers spoof propaganda film which opens proceedings, all the more amusing). They crack down harshly on black-market cheese dealers, and this includes shooting dead the boyfriend of Heidi (Lucy) in spectacularly gory fashion, blowing up her grandfather (Schofield) and imprisoning Heidi, under the tender care of warden Fraulein Rottweiler. The heroine eventually escapes, learns martial arts from two nuns and Helvetia, which I am guessing is the spirit of Switzerland. She then takes revenge, Gladiator style, on Meili’s second-in-command, Kommandant Knorr (Rüdlinger), and finally the big cheese himself.

There is a standard by which all nostalgic attempts at recreating grindhouse cinema are measured, and that is the near-perfection of Hobo With a Shotgun. I think the main area in which this falls short is the lead actress. While it’s almost unfair to compare anyone to Rutger Hauer, Lucy simply doesn’t make the same impression as the likes of the original #701, Meiko Kaji, Tura Satana, or even Dyanne Thorne. Although I cannot fault her effort, I was never fully convinced Heidi was the bad-ass necessary to the plot. However, the supporting cast are solid, led by Van Dien hamming it up to thoroughly entertaining effect.

It looks slick, with every cent squeezed out of the budget, and some startling bits of violence. Could have used more nudity, I’d say: the main source is Swiss performance artist Milo Moiré, who has quite the resume. I think I was hoping for it to be more outrageous. Operating entirely outside the confines of the studio system, it feels rather too safe. Yet I will admit to genuinely laughing out loud on occasion, and some of the sequences are fabulously deranged. For example, a prisoner is tortured with cheeseboarding – it’s like waterboarding, except with melted cheese – then finished off by being impaled through the head with a Toblerone, sorry, for trademark purposes, a generic, triangular bar of Swiss chocolate. Whether that concept has you appalled or intrigued, is likely a good guide as to whether or not you should watch this.

Dir: Johannes Hartmann, Sandro Klopfstein
Star: Alice Lucy, Max Rüdlinger, Casper Van Dien, David Schofield

A Serial Killer’s Guide to Life

  By

★★½
“Too politely British for its own good.”

Lou Farnt (Brayben) is stuck in her life, with a dead-end job, no apparent friends to speak of, and still living with her domineering mother (Ball). She seeks escape from one self-help guru after another, spending her money on their books, DVDs and audio-tapes, though with little or no apparent positive results. Then, she meets the unconventional Val Stone (Roe), who lives in a seaside caravan and promises to change Lou’s life forever. After some qualms, she agrees to depart with Lou, who does indeed deliver on her promise. For, as the title suggests, Val is a psychotic if smart killer, who is specifically targetting those same gurus. Either she regards them as a curse on humanity with their vapid schemes, or she simply wants to dispose of the competition.

It seems clear that writer-director Roe holds a strong, likely personal grudge against self-help tutors, in order to create a movie which is largely based on showing their flaws, and then killing them off. This isn’t a cause I particularly care about: if not my cup of tea, I’m sure some people find them helpful. So this naturally limited my buy-in to the concept here. Kill off social media “influencers,” reality TV celebrities or Los Angeles Dodgers fans, and I’d be right there with you. Motivational speakers? Meh. It is somewhat amusing how naive Lou is, in regard to Val’s extra-curricular activities, and how long it takes her to realize she is taking life advice from a psychopath.

When she does, her reaction is little more than a shrug, admitting it feels quite empowering to kill. The movie really needs to buy into this concept considerably further, rather than gently nodding its head. The likes of Killing Eve have shown even we British can engage in a gleeful embrace of the darker side of things. The script here is simply too gentle for the subject matter, not least with much of the violence happening off-screen. We never get much insight into what makes it particularly empowering, since there’s no sense of catharsis for Lou. These aren’t people who have wronged her in any way, more than the most superficial. Unless “being annoying” is a capital crime? In which case a lot of people are in trouble…

I enjoyed Roe’s performance, which does have much of the same failure to give a damn as Villanelle in Eve. But how much you get out of it may depend on two things. Firstly, how long you see the end twist coming before it’s announced. Note: not if, when. For it’s one that most viewers will see coming, especially if they are familiar with a couple of cult movies from 1999 and 2003, the latter reviewed here. The other issue is how much this bothers you. Personally, less than I’d have expected. Though that may reflect the film’s general lack of impact. It feels like the kind of horror-comedy which would rather invite you in for a nice cup of tea than horrify you.

Dir: Staten Cousins Roe
Star: Katie Brayben, Poppy Roe, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Sarah Ball

Golden Arm

  By

★★★½
“Arms and the (wo)man.”

The sport of arm-wrestling has been featured in the movies before, most notably the Sylvester Stallone vehicle, Over the Top. But that wasn’t a comedy – at least, not intentionally. This entry, as well as switching to the distaff side, also has its tongue in cheek, while still sporting a strong message about female empowerment, that never becomes a lecture. If you’re looking for an inspiration I’d saw the first season of TV series GLOW is very much a touchstone. As there, we have a woman who becomes involved in a sport at a difficult time in her life, only to find herself… well, finding herself as a result of her new endeavour.

The heroine is Melanie (Holland), a mild-mannered cafe-owner whose enterprise is almost out of business. Her pal, truck driver Danny (Sodaro, sporting one of the worst haircuts in cinema history), takes part in women’s arm-wrestling, but just had her wrist broken by the infamous Brenda the Bone Crusher (Stambouliah).  Seeking revenge, she eventually convinces Melanie, who has a natural talent – the “golden arm” – to enter the national championships in Oklahoma City. The goal is to win the crown, and fifteen thousand dollars that go with it, to save Melanie’s business and take down Danny’s nemesis. But the path towards that title will go through not only Brenda, but over a number of other hurdles for the rookie athlete, both physical and mental.

There’s very little new here in terms of plotting. Everything unfolds exactly as you’d expect, right down to the final which pits – surprise, surprise! – Melanie against Brenda in a best-of-three battle. Still, the joy here is in the characters and performances. There appears to be, if this film is to be believed, a significant overlap between arm-wrestling and pro wrestling, with the participants here adopting personas and cutting promos to intimidate their opponent. Melanie, for example, begins as a masked wrestler called “Freaked Out”, after the ring announcer mistakes a comment as her name. But she eventually becomes The Breadwinner, complete with a dusting of flour on her cheek.

However, the greatest pleasure is the Melanie-Danny relationship, which builds over the course of the film. They’re total opposites – “Please don’t say ‘twat'”, begs Melanie repeatedly – but there’s still such chemistry, you can see how they’d be fast friends. It’s so good, in fact, that the romantic angle between Melanie and referee Greg (Cordero) seems entirely superfluous. It actually drags down the rest of the movie, and provides nothing of substance except for an explicit reference to The Natural. That’s another apparent inspiration, in its story of a sports star rising above injury at the moment they need to most.

This is thoroughly foul-mouthed, albeit for comic purposes, and I will say, it doesn’t all quite work. For example, there’s an extended discussion over the female equivalent of “going balls out,” that’s frankly a bit cringe. However, the sheer heart on view throughout is undeniable: that powers this through the flaws, and will likely leave you with a big, goofy grin on your face.

Dir: Maureen Bharooch
Star: Mary Holland, Betsy Sodaro, Olivia Stambouliah, Eugene Cordero

Chick Fight

  By

★★½
“Fight Club: Ladies’ Night”

You are probably not going to see a more relentless parade of cliched storyline elements than here. Anna (Akerman) is seeing her life fall apart. Her coffee-shop business is failing, her car just got repossessed and her love life is entirely non-existent. Best friend Charleen (Sloan) takes her to an underground fight club for women, who need to deal with their issues in a less feminine form than society allows, i.e. by beating the crap out of each other. There, she incurs the wrath of club bad girl, the undefeated Olivia (Thorne), who challenges Anna to a bout in two months. Luckily, she’s introduced to a boxing coach, Murphy (Baldwin), who used to train Sugar Ray. There’s romance too, in the shape of club doctor, Roy (Connolly), though Olivia has also set her sights on him. Can Anna overcome her inner doubts, and triumph over adversity, after a welter of training montages?

It hardly would count as a spoiler to reveal the result, with almost everything here being horribly underwritten. Anna is given a dead mother necessary to the plot, and a father who has just come out of the closet, which most certainly isn’t. I also question the entire underlying principal of the entire concept. In what universe does it make sense, when you are out of work, broke and on the edge of being homeless, to spend all your time training for an amateur MMA bout? DEAL WITH YOUR EVERYDAY PROBLEMS, PEOPLE. Naturally, all of those get conveniently hand-waved away, in another of the plot’s convenient contrivances. See also: the manner in the which the final fight unfolds, which is seriously foreshadowed in the most unsubtle of manners; the thoroughly unlikely way in which it proves to be a bonding experience between Anna and Olivia; or the disposal of the legal charges against the heroine.

Yet, there are a couple of elements which meant it did manage to hold my attention – though it was touch-and-go at some points. Akerman does a good job of selling her character, giving her an airy, if likable, persona that does leave you wanting to see her prevail over her misfortunes – even if they are, largely, of her own making [struggling business owners shouldn’t have a Prius]. But the most pleasant surprise was the action. I was expecting little or nothing on that front, yet mad props are due to fight choreographer Shauna Galligan, who delivers brawls that wouldn’t be out of place in a Scott Adkins or Jason Statham film. That begins early, with Anna’s first fight lasting only about five seconds – and if you can make the chick from Twilight look like a serious bad-ass in the cage, you’re clearly doing something right. It’s never going to be enough to salvage a script that’s intent only in ploughing along paths that are painfully well-travelled. Yet it did provide some unexpected pleasures, and I was left feeling my time had not been entirely wasted.

Dir: Paul Leyden
Star: Malin Akerman, Kevin Connolly, Bella Thorne, Dulcé Sloan

36 Husbands

  By

★
“Save yourself!”

I have so many questions. Not the least of which would be, how the hell is this ranked a 7.3 on the IMDb? I do note a sharp division among the sexes: male voters gave it a 3.3, while women an 8,3. What can I say? I now know the meaning of the phrase, “Bitches be crazy.” It did, however, cause me to consider my opinion on one topic. There is a school of thought which says that films that intentionally try to be bad, cannot succeed. In the past, I’ve tended to disagree: the Sharknado franchise, for example, certainly has its moments. However, this is a good counter-argument; it’s not just trying to be bad, it strains towards its goal like a constipated elephant – and with much the same end result.

The problem here is, the makers seem to think that to make a parody, you simply have to be worse that what you’re parodying, and that’s where their invention stops. “Look at how shitty we are! Isn’t that funny?” No. No, it’s not. The target here appears mostly to be sixties spy-films, with three heroines (Pasch, Bianchini and Nourney) trying to stop – or at least, delay – World War III, through methods that are almost entirely unclear. Yet I’m really not sure tismakers have ever seen an example of what they’re supposed to be parodying. They possibly just suck at film-making, though I’m sure they and their pals had a fine time globe-trotting to make this.

I’m not sure which are the worst elements. A smugly self-indulgent script which is simply too damn meta for its own good. Line delivery from the three leads that could be improved by replacing them with a text-to-speech program. Or the cringeworthy musical numbers which seems to have escaped from open mic night at your local college coffee house. The makers appear to have a group called Bright Blue Gorilla, whose songs are about as terrible as you would imagine a group with that name to be.  Actually, my mistake. It’s the kung-fu. Definitely the kung-fu: feeble wet-noodle limb-waving, which makes Honey West look like like Michelle Yeoh’s greatest hits. And they don’t even have an ocelot here.

My brain shut down after 20 minutes and I had to physically step away. When I resumed, the rest was little improvement though I will say, the use of one actor to play triplets was surprisingly well-done. If only the rest of the film had remotely approached that standard. I gave serious consideration to simply bailing, and pretending the whole thing did not exist. But if the existence of this review manages to save one person from making the same mistake as I did, then my sacrifice will be worthwhile. So, I persisted, right through the eight-minute credit crawl, including what seems like a picture of every single person involved in the production. Further proof, as if any were needed, confirming the largely vanity nature of this project.

Dir: Michael Glover
Star: Christa Pasch, Roberta Bianchini, Nadine Nourney. Dominic Anglim

Bad Policewoman

  By

★★★
“School’s out… for ever.”

Yang Yang (Yang) is an impetuous young policewoman, whose career is on thin ice after shooting the target of what was supposed to be a surveillance operation. Her superior officer – who also happens to be her uncle – is forced to re-assign her, and sends Yang to operate undercover as a student in a high school from which girls have been going missing. The leading suspect is an arrogant pupil who has recently been accused of sexually assaulting a classmate. Teacher Wu Xie (Zhou) is a witness in the case, so Yang is also tasked with making sure he isn’t pressured into changing his statement. Fitting in is going to be part of the problem for Yang – despite the help of Molly (Li), who takes the “new girl” under her wing.

The idea of cops being sent undercover to school is hardly a new one, best known in the West through 21 Jump Street. Originally a TV series starring Johnny Depp, this was recently revived as a movie franchise, with a lighter tone. However, in much of the East, the touchstone is 1991’s Fight Back to School, with Stephen Chow as the policeman. It became Hong Kong’s all-time top-grossing film to that point, and foreshadows the comedic approach of the Hollywood movie. Those are some enormous boots to fill, and it’s hardly any kind of surprise that Yang is no Stephen Chow in terms of comedic persona or timing.

That said, it isn’t too bad. The lead actress actually looks like she could still be at school, which is an immediate leg-up over the thirty-something Channing Tatum, who was the least convincing high-school student since Olivia Newton-John. Even her “bad policewoman” attitude isn’t entirely inappropriate, though the film does have an unevenness of tone which is quite frequently awkward. The juxtaposition of a jokey approach with the sexual assault charges has not travelled well to the West [and while I’m at it, why is this apparently Chinese film set in Singapore?]

The action is a bit up and down, too. The best bit is a lighting-fast fight between Yang and someone out to ensure Wu doesn’t make it to court. This contains a sequence where they’re repeatedly throwing the same knife back and forth, snatching it out of the air before returning it in the opposite direction. It’s like a pointy version of badminton, up until the moment where Yang, apparently bored with the whole thing, catches the blade in her teeth. The rest isn’t on the same level, and proceeds in almost exactly the way you would expect. For example, Yang gradually falls for Wu, creating a scandal at the school, and which brings her into conflict with another student who has a pre-existing crush. However, after a run of really bad movies on Amazon Prime, I was delighted to latch onto something capable of reaching the dizzy heights of artistic competence. Sometimes, you just have to take what you can get.

Dir: Kai Jiang
Star: Yang Zou, Zhuo Wen, Mengmeng Li, Naisen Hou
a.k.a. Bad Cop

Mrs. Serial Killer

  By

★★★
“The anti-Dexter.”

This is the kind of film which I’d say was enjoyable, rather than being good. Indeed, if you want an illustration of the difference between the two, this movie is a good example. Sona Mukherjee (Fernandez) is the wife of respected doctor, Mrityunjoy Mukherjee (Bajpayee). But their life is upended when the bodies of six, formerly pregnant, unmarried women are found on their property. Sona believes her husband was framed – possibly by police inspector and former boyfriend Imran Shahid, (Raina). She takes the advice of a dubious lawyer, who suggests that if the serial killer was shown to be still active, that would prove her husband’s innocence. So Sona kidnaps another expectant young woman, Anushka Tiwari (Khan) to provide a seventh victim. Only… well, Sona is a bit crap as a serial killer, and Anushka is a feisty little thing with a black-belt in taekwondo, pregnancy be damned.

I’m tagging this as horror and comedy, on the basis that it shouldn’t be taken seriously in the slightest. I’m fairly sure this approach is quite intentional, though with Bollywood, it’s rarely possible to be entirely certain. But there are just so many ludicrous elements, not least the central premise, that it definitely works best as a parody of lurid potboilers. For example, Indian police have apparently never heard of DNA testing, and feel that one body is pretty much as good as another. It’s also possible to trigger an immediate, devastating asthma attack, by crushing up flowers in your hands, and then blowing them in your target’s face. I thought that kind of thing only ever worked in a professional wrestling ring.

That all said, I still enjoyed it, not least for the way everyone takes it Very Seriously. It’s at its best when Sona and Anushka are facing off, the “killer” initially trying to convince her victim she has been captured by a man – an aspect as poorly considered as the rest of her plan. The contrast between the two make for amusing confrontations, such as Anushka spitting back, mockingly, “Trying to scare me with your psycho stare? I can do better. Here!” I was disappointed that they ended up taking a back-seat during the final act [for if her husband was not responsible for the six corpses… who was?] It’s still no less lurid, combining operatic music and disco lighting, in a basement festooned with a plethora of IV drips, for no reason beyond it looking cool.

It all ends in a final twist which makes about as much sense as the rest of it i.e. not very much. I won’t spoil it, but will tell you, it does not provide what I actually wanted to see, which was Sona and Anushka teaming up to go all Natural Born Killers on the real perpetrators. That would have been too much to hope for. Yet I can’t deny I was still amused enough, and wished Lifetime TVM were more like their South Asian counterparts.

Dir: Shirish Kunder
Star: Jacqueline Fernandez, Manoj Bajpayee, Mohit Raina, Zayn Marie Khan