Footfairy

As far as performances go, the cast of the new trending movie Footfairy may have had it tough. Simultaneously shot in both Marathi and Hindi, the cast had to redo the lines twice without missing the expression or the beat of the scene. After watching both versions, one can’t help but applaud the meticulousness of the craft at display.

Pity one can’t say the same about the screenplay, direction and the overall maturity of the film.

With a climax that’s lifted off straight from Bong Joon-Ho’s taut, masterpiece thriller Memories of Murder, and a good-enough generic idea, Footfairy, the story of a serial killer who stalks women and then saws off their feet, falters and then inelegantly falls face-first, as if its own feet were chopped-off — and that too by an amateur with a blunt, rusted blade.

It is not a good sight to behold, nor a good enough experience to sit through.

Netflix’s Footfairy falls face-first as if its own feet were chopped off, while there’s little to complain about in its animated and very entertaining The Sea Beast

The story — or lack thereof — is of a dedicated CBI officer Vivan (Gulshan Devaiah) and his sensible sidekick Harsh (Ashish Pathode), who chase down a 5-foot 11-inch tall killer, who is smart enough to wear a cap and keep his back to the security cameras at train stations when he pursues and then kills young women who are commuting from work late at night.

The police, as usual, don’t have a clue, because he only leaves a handful of inevitable clues at the scene of the crime that don’t lead anywhere.

The police eventually begin hounding a creepy restaurant owner (Kunal Roy Kapoor) who can deduce women’s foot sizes by glancing at their feet, while the audience are given broad hints that the pseudo-romantic lead of the film (Sagarika Ghatge), a pediatrician who doesn’t blink and has a proclivity for the macabre, could be the killer. However, the only verifiable culprit here is screenwriter-director Kanishk Varma and his ineptness.

The sad part is that one can see the potential in the story and appreciate Devaiah and Hegre’s dedication despite the constricted direction. One can see the forced tone and limited expressions the director wants in scenes, the amateur, non-engaging cinematography he employs, or the ineffective music cues and the unengaging soundtrack he uses (the jazzy opening number doesn’t compliment the badly made opening titles). But that’s not the worst of it.

In thrillers one can stomach mediocrity as far as the ending delivers. Again, that’s not the case here, because there is no conclusion to the story.

This storytelling route, then, is the antithesis of whatever Alfred Hitchcock stood for; according to the celebrated director, every film, no matter how high the cliff-hanger, needs a conclusion. The one we see in Footfairy just has a badly slapped-on ending lifted from a great South Korean movie, and an epilogue cutaway that leaves the door ajar for a sequel.

Streaming at Netflix, Footfairy is rated suitable for ages 18+, for scenes of mock horror and overall maladroitness

The Sea Beast

The Sea Beast is probably the most Pixar-like adventurer you may get at Netflix — and yes, that should be a matter of great pride to the streaming service.

At once emulating big-budget adventure popcorn films such as The Pirates of the Caribbean (this film is, in fact, better than Pirates’ last two parts) with the emotion worthy of any typical Pixar film — with production quality nearly on par — The Sea Beast is the story of olden times, when giant monsters attacked ships and hunters were commissioned by the royal family to slay them.

Not everyone is as skilled as the crew of the legendary ship Inevitable whose Captain and crew are chronicled in books. As heroes in real life and literature, the crew is revered by the common people and their records inspire a young orphan called Maisie Brumble (Zaris-Angel Hator) to run away from her orphanage and become a hunter.

However, Inevitable’s Captain (Jared Harris) — a powerful, one-eyed man of dedication whose appearance harks to Long John Silver from Treasure Island — has had enough. He wants to end his career by killing the Moby Dick of sea monsters, the legendary, unkillable Red Bluster. Maise, who has snuck aboard the Inevitable, gets stuck with Inevitible’s next-in-command Jacob Holland (Karl Urban), and the duo are swallowed by the Red Bluster after a skirmish. The monster — as you can very well guess by the poster — however, isn’t all that bad.

Don’t hold the predictability of the story by writer-director Chris Williams against the film (he directed Disney’s Big Hero 6). The Sea Beast, even given its two-hour-long running time, is very entertaining.

Streaming on Netflix, The Sea Beast is rated suitable for ages 7+ by Netflix.
There is much to enjoy, and little to complain about here

Published in Dawn, ICON, August 7th, 2022