Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
Where you gonna run to?
Well I run to the rock, ’’please hide me’’
I run to the rock, ’’please hide me, Lord’’


How to butcher thousands of people brutally, on screen, and get away with it? How do you turn the violent incident of scores of people meeting a violent merciless end , into a mega-blockbuster? James Cameron says add a Love Story.





A quick roundup of the Love boat






Producer/Writer/Director etc. - James Cameron. He’s nowadays best know as the man who made ’Titanic’. He has better works to his credit like Abyss, Terminator I & II and Aliens. Now enjoying a, decade long, sabbatical after the super-duper success of this movie in 1997. Will (hopefully) return in 2007 with the ’’Battle Angel’’.



There is probably no department in the production of Titanic that Mr. Cameron hasn’t dabbled in be it writing the story, script, direction, production, editing etc. When he couldn’t find some of the devices that could be used in filming the (opening) scenes of Titanic, he invented them! [ like he did in Abyss]. Later he made money licencing it to the deep sea exploration companies.



Hero - Leonardo Di Caprio as Jack. Cute chocolate faced guy with blue eyes. A titanic discovery. Makes waves when paired with famed directors like Spielberg (Catch Me If You Can), Martin Scorcese (Aviator) or Cameron; whenever he’s free from his off-screen romances. Natural for a guy like him.



Heroine - Kate Winslet as Rose. A blonde hottie. Mostly limited to acting in so-called critically acclaimed films these days. Famous for her role and the hot scenes she enacted boldly with a younger Di Caprio in Titanic. Also made infamous by the unofficial Kate-Winslet-MPEG which made rounds of internet following it’s success.



Loser - Billy Zane as Cal Hockley. A cunning self-enamored aristocrat. The snobbish blue-blood who loses his fiancee to a tramp on the love boat. Manipulator who doesn’t a wee bit hesitate to exploit the impending tragedy to his benefit. By the time the movie ends you loathe him for saving his sorry a$s by shielding an orphan boy, instead of sympathizing for having lost both the girl (fairly) and the family inheritance (unfairly).



Other Cast and Crew - Cannon fodder to the FX department. To be used as props getting thrown off storeys-long mast into the chilly Atlantic. Later to be used as floating bodies to provide a brooding background to a romantic tragedy.



Special Effects - Awesome for a disaster movie. But you need a strong stomach - and heart too - to digest so many people dying hopelessly without any chances of redemption.






A more leisurely cruise






Titanic was built as a transatlantic luxury cruiser. Considered state of the art marvel for it’s time. Unsinkable till, well, it actually sank after it’s hull hit an ice-berg. Movie has two parts. Pre-interval and post interval. Before the boat hits the ice-berg & the aftermath.



Pre-interval it’s mostly Bollywood style eye candy musical. A grand carnival aboard a magnificent ship. Nicely dressed well-polished snobbish folks supplemented by a crew who also happen to step-dance when freed from coal-hauling duties. A perfect Karan Johar setting for a ’boy meets an engaged girl, they elope and get married’. The ending turns out to be different. It’s as if the priest went mad after the theatrics of a Sooraj Bharajatya movie climax, and shot dead the whole marriage party, the bridegroom and himself.



Love and romance also gets supplemented by art. Be it the Kate’s intensely natural portrait Leonardo draws gleefully, or the steamy chariot scene between the lead pair. No surprises that the North Pole melted and let loose the vagrant mountain of ice. Thanks to the bulldozing insensitivity displayed by the prudish Indian censors, had to watch the boot-legged copy on PC to understand Jack’s immortal art in it’s full grandeur. An art that would make Da Vinci smile (in this case Di Caprio). Happens to top my list of Hollywood art.



Past interval, it’s a leisurely massacre. With thousands trapped inside a sinking cruiseliner with insufficient life boats (someone thought it to be an unaffordable luxury), reality is let to unfold all it’s layers. All that fluff a bait to watch the gory scenes that would follow suit.



I did find the act of Rose turning her lovers dead body into fish food, at the first signs of endangerment to her survival, wee misogynistic. As the tag line suggests - A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets. Haven’t guys dumped countless dames into the deep seas over the centuries, I’m sure feminists will retort back. But the question remains - if Life is a beautiful object to be embraced and lived, why do we blame the antagonist for deciding to live (and may be find love)?



While some accept it with the coolness that would freeze the Atlantic, some others act plain stupid in the face of death; like the lady who wants to reserve her rightful place in a luxury seat on a lifeboat! There are some who heroically commit suicide to save others and others who would go to any lengths to save their skin. But it’s mostly the plain joes who run helter-skelter like the Sinnerman running from the wrath of God.





But the rock cried out, ’’I can’t hide you’’
The rock cried out, ’’I ain’t gonna hide you guy’’
So I ran to the devil, he was waitin’

Plot Revealed In The Review:	Somewhat revealed
Best to watch with:	Friends
Movie Genre:	No Comment
Best part in the movie:	No Comment