Feeding into our paranoia

Die Hard 4.0 marks Bruce Willis’ return for the fourth time to the role that made him a superstar, that of Detective John McClane, an everyman copper who gets no respect even as he performs one heroic deed after another because, in his words, “he’s that guy”.

I must say, in some level, it was nice to see Willis back to his wisecracking best, performing impossible stunts and getting banged up in a way no self respecting hero would dare allow himself to be.

The Die Hard movies (at least the first two) worked because we, the audience, cared about McClane. We wanted him to win because he represented all the working Joes out there who, in a given situation, would do the right thing without ever wondering if it was heroic. Sure, we wouldn’t exactly jump off an exploding building or take on a terrorist on the wings of an airplane, but the gut instinct to reach out and help someone is there in most of us.

But McClane, like many of his fans, has grown older and wearier, a dinosaur in a world of computers and the Internet. And America, too, has changed in the intervening years between his last adventures, becoming far more insular and, dare I say it, paranoid.

This is the post 9/11 world, but to the producers’ credit, the terrorists in the movie are home grown and not foreign elements at work (though for some reason, the henchmen are French; liberty fries, anyone?).

Someone has been getting hackers to write algorithms for them in the pretext of a security check, and as soon as the program is ready, eliminates the authors. They then put the programs to work, hacking into government computers as a prelude to larger hacks to come. The Feds are understandably nervous and decide to bring in all known hackers on their dangerous list in for questioning. To do this quickly, they arrange for the local cops to bring in the suspects.

As luck would have it, McClane – now divorced and estranged from his daughter – gets the dirty job to bring in one of the hackers, Matt Farrell (played by a suitable enthusiastic Justin Long) but ends up saving the young man’s life when hired goons try to kill him off.

By the time McClane gets the boy to D.C., all hell is breaking loose as the terrorists take control of the transportation system and communications network. With the government agents clueless, it is up to McClane and his new sidekick to find the terrorists and stop them from sending America back to the Stone Age.

There are plenty of stunts, fights and explosions in this movie, though there are no showstopper moments like in the previous ones (the blowing up of the White House doesn’t count). McClane really gets beaten to pulp here, but the fact that he keeps on going makes him look more like Rambo. This is too bad, cos for the most part, Willis makes McClane feel very believable. But the final third of Die Hard 4.0 has one ridiculous scene after another, making it very hard to root for McClane.

And as for the premise of hackers being able to have a “fire sale” and bring the government to its knees, ho hum – we’ve seen it all before. What is interesting is that the Homeland Security Department is made to look extremely incompetent as the events unfold. But, as one hacker points out, this is the government that took four days to send water to the people stuck in the Superdome after Katrina, so maybe it’s not such a stretch after all.

I think it’s time McClane retired from the force and go slowly into the night. He could have traded in on his fame (after movies I and II) and gone into private consulting to make big bucks, but that’s not the kind of guy he is. But the world has changed, McClane. It’s a shame, actually. We like you. We really do. But it is time to call it a day.

Die Hard 4.0 is also known as Live Free or Die Hard, and co-stars Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q and Cliff Curtis.

Mitra Themis

On positive thoughts … Part I

Is there something to The Secret? Rhonda Byrne’s book and movie is rapidly gaining a cult following, but is the Law of Attraction it illustrates really real? Or is it just some marketing hype gone supernova?

At one level I want to believe it. It seems so easy – Focus on what you want, ask for it, pretend you already have it and hey presto! It’s true. Can it really be that easy? Are the majority of us idiots that we cannot comprehend this?

One of the motivators a.k.a. successful chappie we should listen to says: “Use the universe as a catalogue and pick out what you want.” Oh I want it to be so simple. But I need to ask if the reverse is also true.

For instance, I don’t think any of us consciously wish for something bad to happen in our lives, yet it does sometimes. Yet, when we want something positive, we are told we must be focused with our thoughts, hold it in our mind’s eye with all the energy (read positive thoughts) we can muster in order for the Law of Attraction to kick in.

Why is it so much harder to get positive thoughts to work than it is negative thoughts? Are negative thoughts stronger? They shouldn’t be. After all, positive thoughts spring from that universal favourite: LOVE. Where do negative thoughts get their energy from? I can hear some people volunteering the eternal punching bag known as the EGO. But really, I have a hard time with this as well. Ego exists for a reason, and it cannot just be all bad.

If you believe in balance, then it holds that both positive and negative thoughts are equal in terms of power, but what is variable is our choice in wielding them. Or perhaps, each individual differs in their ability to wield thoughts as powerful tools to shape their realities.

More on this later …

Mitra Themis

The 10 Commandments

Title: Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments

Author: Kent M. Keith

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton

In 1960s, Kent Keith, then a student at Harvard, had a crazy idea. He proposed that, while the world may sometimes be crazy, individuals could still act well and create change for the better. He called his manifesto the ‘Paradoxical Commandments’ and it was published in a handbook for student leaders in 1968.

More than 30 years on, his ‘commandments’ have reverberated around the world in many forms, from speeches to books and graffiti, to poems, bookmarks and greeting cards. Most of you would undoubtedly be familiar with them in their various forms.

The 10 Commandments are:

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centred. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Here in this book, Keith once again draws out his 10 Commandments and illustrate them with personal experiences. His are simple words to live by, but how much better a world it would be if we tried.

Mitra Themis

The battle that Suu Kyi lost

I find it hard to believe that a better biography of Aung San Suu Kyi – the Nobel laureate and Burmese voice of conscience – has yet to be written. It’s rare enough that we have the privilege of sharing a stage – or an age, if you like – with one considered by many of her people to be the single shining beacon of light in Myanmar (or Burma, if you still want to call it that).

But even more telling is that, despite all the international support and pages of press, she remains under house arrest in Yangdon, with only an aide to help her buy groceries and the occasional visit from her doctor to keep her spirit going.

Justin Wintle, in his new biography of the freedom icon, Perfect Hostage – A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi (published by Hutchinson), posits an interesting question – is Suu Kyi, for all her sacrifices and personal courage (and there’s plenty to be had), actually doing her countrymen any good?

Has her non-violent approach to dealing with the military junta played into the hands of the compassionless rulers, when a more aggressive approach may have succeeded in pushing out the old guard?

In this he echoes the very sentiments that kept Mahatma Gandhi out of the 100 most influential people in history list. The author – Michael Hart – had argued, quite convincingly, that Gandhi’s non-violent partisan movement may have actually delayed India’s independence, and paved the way for all the communal headache and border disputes with Pakistan.

And while Gandhi’s “I won’t do what you want, so beat me, please” movement may have carried moral water among the white colonisers, Suu Kyi’s similar rant has had no effect whatsoever with her more brutal oppressors. If anything, the Junta has grown even more bold over the years, and the lack of an international trade blockade has meant they are able to carry out their plans with minimum encumbrances.

All this and more is discussed, or at least given cursory airing, in Perfect Hostage, which uses interviews with friends, colleagues, former teachers, refugees, as well as letters and speeches made by The Lady to fashion a piece of living history.

But to get to this, you’d have to wade through Wintle’s mostly prosaic and tedious retelling of the tumultouos history of Burma, through its blood drenched centuries of violent conquest and the eventual rise of a freedom movement shaped by Suu Kyi’s father, Boygoke (General) Aung San.

Aung San’s assassination paved the way for Myanmar’s nightmare without end, and his daughter, in her own way, has tried through the force of her personality to set things right. And so far, met with failure.

Still, it’s hard not to sympathise with Suu Kyi’s plight – having spent the better part of the last 15 years in Myanmar’s struggle for democracy, not to mention losing touch with her family, it would be a hard blow for the lady to accept defeat and shuffle off the stage she has so carefully crafted for herself.

It is not in her mindset to give up. And perhaps, it would be a sad day for all those who believe in freedom – true freedom to vote your conscience, to work for pay, to be free from harassement and threats – if she were to give up.



Mitra Themis

Pirates and the irrational mind

Dear Mr Verbinski,

Why can't the dead be allowed to rest in peace? Okay, they may be in their own personal vision of hell, but dammit, in life there is supposed to be some kind of karmic balance, isn't there? Good deeds should be rewarded, and bad deeds punished - in this life or another, blah blah blah.
But when scriptwriters keep resurrecting characters from the dead for no clear purpose, it shows a bankruptcy of ideas and a failure of will.

That in the end is what really bothers me about your latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which reunites the cast of Part I and II with a few additions.
Part II ended with Captain Jack Sparrow going down with the Black Pearl after being attacked by the Kracken and betrayed by Elizabeth Swann, who feels so guilty about it all, she insists on mounting a rescue with the aid of a sorceress and the late Captain Barbossa.

In this pirate adventure, Will Turner plays tag-along, albeit a bit reluctantly, his feelings in turmoil after catching his lady love smooching ol' Jack before he died. But Will's part is further muddied by his need to save his father, Bootstrap Bill Turner, from the claws of Davy Jones and The Flying Dutchman.

So begins an almost incomprehensible tale of betrayal, double dealing, lost love, greed, swashbuckling action and a real downer of an ending.

The loyalties of the characters turn at the drop of a pin - unsurprising, as this is a pirate movie - but what really worked in Part I (and to a lesser extant in Part II) was the chemistry between the main characters. But by keeping them apart for most of the movie, you and the scriptwriters force viewers to pay attention to the plot - which is so far past inane, it's worse than ridiculous.

Take for instance the matter of Calypso - the sea goddess who was bound into human form by the 1st Brethren Court with the help of Davy Jones. After such a major build-up over what she might unleash if released from her bonds, what finally transpires is a major letdown. Hey, where are your powers, Calypso? One big whirlwind and you're done? Centuries of subjugation and a very localized maelstrom is all you can do? Jeez!

If that's not enough, the most fearsome creature from Part II, the Kracken, is summarily disposed of without so much as a goodbye. Hello? If it was too great a monster for the characters to deal with, why introduce it in the first place?


SPOILER ALERT!!!!



Actually, the character that gets the most amount of screen time is Swann (played by Keira Knightly), who seems stuck with the unenviable task of holding this hodgepodge together. Oh she tries, but the lack of a happy ending for her and Will (even with the epilogue - don't leave your seats before the end credits are over) just leaves a sour taste.

SPOILER ENDS!!!


As for Jack Sparrow, Depp is reduced to rehashing his mannerisms honed from the earlier movies. That in itself is no bad thing; but he shines when he has new material to play off, especially the scene with his father (played by Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, whom he parodied) and the bit where he's stuck in Davy Jones' Locker, slowly going insane.

You brought in Chow Yun-fat as the Pirate Lord of Singapore for this movie, but he has precious few moments on screen before he is dispatched - certainly not enough to justify all the hype. Hell, Jack the monkey gets more action that Chow - a shame really, considering what he is capable of.

Really Sir, you should have sieved through the script a little more to keep things a bit lighter and on firmed ground. Too many plot points only serves to deaden the pace, even with the numerous set pieces thrown in for good measure.

Yet, on the sum of it, Pirates 3 is not a bad movie - it's just not on par with what we've grown to expect from Capt Jack and Co. It's still entertaining - the dialogue is snappy in bits, and the SFX is up to par. But with the obvious set up for Part IV, I can't help but think this ship is showing its age. So perhaps, it's time to decommission the Black Pearl and put her crew ashore. But that's my opinion anyway.

Till next time, your humble fan,

Mitra Themis