Jan 02, 2015 06:40 PM
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Most readers would be aware that the US faced a huge hack on the release of the movie a week ago, and Sony Pictures was forced to cancel its Christmas release all over the USA and elsewhere. By the time America woke up to the menace purportedly unleashed by North Korea, the damage had been done; on the flip-side, the publicity the movie got has got converted into patriotic hysteria by the Americans, who are now watching this movie on YouTube and through other sites on their laptops.
Not being an American, I still figured why I shouldn't see what the brouhaha was all about. I got a link through social media and downloaded the movie and watched it on my laptop. Made by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg with the Sony house of Columbia Pictures, this is a bro-com going wild with inneundos about straight and not-so-straight sex, a supposedly manic North Korean President revered as a God by his people, and a team of chat-program producing crazies played by Seth Rogen and James Franco.
The duo produces a wacky chat-show where they get starlets and have-been singers to spill their beans on the show and get the TRPs out of this. At this point in the movie, they are forced to look for a "serious interviewee" and contribute positively to a better world. They decide to interview Kim Jong Un(played by Randall Park), the Supremo of North Korea who has a finger on the Nuclear Button(he has missiles that can reach the West coast of the US and destroy California and so on). They are then approached by the CIA(fronted by the beautiful Lizzy Caplan) which wants them to eliminate - assassinate -(euphemistically stated as take him out) the Supremo with a patch of ricin(an extremely toxic chemical which kills within 12 hours after contact) applied on the inside of the hand while shaking this with the Supremo.
What follows is a chain of events that leads to comedy, blood and gore, a series of incidents where half-nude women cavort with the guys in the lead-roles, and an end that is not worth the reel it is shown on.
The film portrays America in good light(naturally) and shows that even evil-minded dictators across the world grow up and like American songs and culture and can be brought to their knees with the emotional hook that these songs evoke. On the whole, this movie has nothing much to recommend it, albeit the comedy is something we Indians are likely to enjoy.
The movie runs at approximately 92 minutes. Watch it if you wish, but don't worry if you cannot. It'll probably be thrust in your face on one of the Sony channels within a few months.
