The twenty-first century dodo
Had it not been for humans, there would be no pigeons in this world!
Pigeons are amazingly dumb characters. They have not a thread of conventional intelligence. Nor are they street-smart. They do not have crucial skills like hunting, gathering or even nesting ? the common crow is better in all three, and doesn?t even depend upon humans as much. The only skill pigeons can boast of is an uncanny sense of direction, well exploited by medieval man for postman duties.
Pigeons are lazy. They?re so lazy they can easily be called the sloth among birds! They?re fat, don?t fly gracefully, and can sit (not perch) on a spot for hours doing nothing. Their ?nests? consist of exactly three straggly sticks on some veranda or window air conditioner. Surely, if it were not for the careless benevolence of man to provide food and shelter to it, the very species was doomed.
The pigeon?s repetitive guttural cooing gets on one?s nerves. One could bear with the crow?s cawing if one considers the excellent scavenging work it does to cleanse human society. Why would one endure the pigeon?s unnerving, almost sepulchral moans?!
Over and above everything else, some imbecile had the idea of converting the pigeon into an international symbol of peace, thereby conferring posterity to the memory of the hopeless bird. Or maybe the person was not so much of an imbecile as he was a satirist; perhaps he meant if everyone was as lazy as the pigeon there would be no wars!
The dodo was unfortunate to have perished at an age when human magnanimity was scarce. Had it survived that period, we would probably find the extinct bird among us even today.
Fluttering pigeons and other assorted stereotypes
What?s with this sudden grouse against the pigeon? Well, a fluttering albino pigeon thrown across the path preceding the hero?s ? that?s one of the stereotypes director John Woo introduces in all his movies. The mystique he builds around his heroine in the initial stages is another. A snazzy opener with brief intros, cutting quickly to the chase, is another. Yet another is the mandatory chase scene. Then there?s the infusion of technology, usually bordering on science fiction. The by now corny ?saving the world? theme is one more!
One regular feature that appears not to have repeated itself this time round is that of men throwing themselves forward and sideways firing from revolvers in both hands.
Cheque this
Paycheck, though engaging in parts, is certainly not in the league of Woo?s earlier works, such as the masterly Broken Arrow and others like Face/Off and MI-2.
Ben Affleck plays a super-brained mercenary scientist who develops products incognito for astonishing sums of money, with the rider that, at the end of the project, he subjects himself to a process that obliterates all memory pertaining to the period of the project. How?s that for weird?!
So Affleck is suddenly offered ?the big one? by a magnate (played by Aaron Eckhart) ? a project that will take three years to complete, but that which will make him richer by an obscene amount. He accepts, partly because he?s besotted by a prospective co-worker (Uma Thurman), only to discover that he?s supposed to reinvent the wheel! Er? no, not exactly. He builds an elaborate ?crystal ball? ? a device that looks all around the curvature of the Earth to glimpse the future! What?! And throw good ol? Bejan Daruwala and Shelley von Strunckel out of business?!
Next up, he wakes to the real world at the end of the contract, only to be shocked twice over. First, he discovers that he ? in his contract period ? had forsaken the billions he was supposed to receive as fees, for an envelope with assorted odds and ends. Then, he finds himself on the run from the FBI, being a part of an international conspiracy to wage nuclear wars, start epidemics, and other such mumbo-jumbo.
Are you still reading this? Frankly, I?m amazed! Well, anyway, he can trust no one now, except his old friend. Hell, he can?t even recognise Thurman! But by and by he discovers (some competition to that old discoverer Columbus) that he had mailed himself a survival kit ? with each innocuous looking titbit coming to use in innovative ways of saving one?s life.
Still interested in the ending? Go watch the movie. But don?t say I didn?t warn you!
My take
Take it from me, this caper is a kind of Hollywood version of ?masala? movies!
Okay, on the positive side, you get to see some trademark Woo action scenes. Some scenes are even able to generate suspense and a wee bit of awe. If only the story was more credible!
Among the performances, Affleck looks sincere, but lacks either the screen presence or even the voice to make it real big. Eckhart zombies his way through a role that doesn?t require much out of him. Thurman is wasted mostly. After Kill Bill, this was one big dampener. Expectation, as they say, is the mother of disappointment.
The FBI (or was it the CIA) is reduced to a bunch of nincompoops that stands around coughing when Affleck nimbly jogs out of its high-security interrogation room, and later follows him around in a copter savagely hollering ?We?re here to help you? at him through microphones. Hell, even the pigeon looked more dignified!
Finally, my point is ? if you can see the future through that contraption (through multiple angles), and then take evasive action and not undergo that future, then what in tarnation did you see in the first place?!
But hey! Still, why that damn irritating pigeon??!
