An detective father (Mel Gibson) was enjoying his daughter’s company when she was gunned down in front of his own house. What ensues were a grieving father’s pursuit of the killers and the scheme that involved a big-company’s conspiracy. Mel Gibson was his usual super-charged self with a very good reason to be very angry.

There were lots of actions and interesting conversations between Tom and the hired killer, who reminds of me the consultant in the “Pulp Fiction.” The quotes, “everything is illegal in Massachusetts” was cliche but funny and spoke volume of the liberal state. The quote about “officer involved” was ironic when the one that sold Tom out was his own boss.

The action was good and the twists and turns kept me guessing. Very nice. A summary is as follows (Stop here if you plan to watch the movie and haven’t watched yet).

Tom Craven heard only the shout of “Craven” when a shot gun showered the bullets on his only daughter’s body. Prior to that, they were shopping and sitting down for a homemade dinner. Due to the vomiting and nose bleeding, Emma Craven was about to be rushed to hospital when the shooting occurred. Tom couldn’t imagine his little Emma could have elicited such a violent revenge from anyone until he ran into her scared, paranoid boyfriend, who mistook Tom for the surveillance team outside of his apartment and got into a big fight.

Eventually he had some misgivings about Emma’s employer, Northmoor, after seeing the CEO of the company. Through Emma’s close friend, he discovered that Emma was about to whistle-blew on her employer about some conspiracy, which involved creation of nuclear weapon for foreign countries in order to sustain the R & D team of the company. To expose the conspiracy, she engineered a break-in by a third-party organization that resulted in their being murdered. She was also poisoned by hired guns of Northmoor.

The senator was involved in the cover up as well. The shocking thing is that at the end the hired killer/consultant of the senator, touched by Tom’s sincerity and genuine love for his daughter and his country, turned against the senator and killed the senator and all of his cronies and, of course, got himself killed.

Betrayed by his own police boss, Tom was kidnapped to be poisoned by radiation but he escaped and confronted the killers at the company CEO’s home and killed them all. He finally died from his death bed and joined his daughter in the “better” place.

This movie shows how badly the poor people in the third world country live and how much they want to get rich and become a millionaire. Especially, when a boy is willing to jump into a poop hole and had himself covered in poops in order to get an autograph of his idol. Sad but a reality nevertheless. Coupled with the pure, innocent, love story between a boy and his girl and the brotherly love despite constant conflicts, the movie managed to bring out all the human natures and put them in close examination. No wonder it was widely acclaimed. Bollywood is not far behind Hollywood now. Everyone wants to have the American dream – very badly as the movie showed. A brief summary is shown below (stop here if you haven’t watched the movie and don’t want me to ruin the ending for you):

One young man, Jamal Malik, was on his way to winning the biggest prize, 20 millions rupees, of “Who wants to be a millionaire” in India. In the middle of the program he was put in jail for being a fraud as he came from a slum and little educated. No way a person like that, according to the detectives and the host, could reach the next-to-last question in a popular game show in India and US. During the interrogation, he reflected on how he escaped from the slum with his brother when one day his Mom was killed during a religious riot many years ago when he was barely 7 years old. Jamal invited an abandoned, little girl, Latika, to join them despite his elder brother’s objection. The three musketeers were then formed. At some point, they were tricked into joining a gypsy-like group to beg money on the street. In return, they were fed and sheltered. His brother, Salim, turned into a helper of the operation. When Salim saw that some of boys had their eyes poked out after passing a singing contest, in order to solicit more sympathy from the passerby. He tipped his brother into running away from the group. In the escape process, he had to abandon Latika while running away from the bad guys. As they grew up, they managed to survive by selling things in the train and even faked being a tour guide in the Taj Mahal.

Jamal never forgot his first love, Latika. So he convinced his brother to go back to find her, who now became a beautiful teenager learning dancing and was ready to put into prostitution. During the rescue process, Salim shot the bad guy and ran to an abandoned hotel. From here on, Salim got recruited to join a bigger mob and slowly grew up to become to executioner of the mob. At this time, the two brother broke up from each other when Salim decided to have his way with Latika.

Eventually, Jamal found Latika working/serving the big mobster.He devised the plan to run away together but the scheme was broken up by his brother, who took the girl back to the mobster. Jamal decided to join the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” game show in order to find Latika, since she was into the show, like many other Indians at that time.

At the end, Salim gave in to his brother when he saw him on TV and helped the girl escape the mob and got himself killed, covered in money in the tub – earning his millions in his own ironic way. So the girl joined the 20-millionaire and lived happy after – a classic Indian movie ending and laughably with all the signing and dancing in the train station.

A semi-retarded man, Karl, got out of the mental hospital because he killed with a sling blade his mom and his mom’s lover, mistaking the heat of their loving making for causing injury to his mom. He found a job at a local lawn-mower repair shop and befriended a 9-year-old boy, who lived with his Mom and the memory of his Dad who committed suicides years prior. Unfortunately, his lonely Mom got hooked up with this violent boyfriend who bestowed terror on the family and Karl, who now lived in their garage.

As a way to for Karl to get the family out of the grip of the boyfriend’s violent streak, he decided one day after being kicked out of the garage to do something about it. He walked in the family house and chopped in half the head of the boyfriend with a lawnmower blade.

I’m not sure if this final action is called for as there are ways to get rid of the bad boyfriend. In those days before the enactment of the tougher domestic violence laws nowadays, it’s probably hard to find an alternative except getting out of the small town once and for all. Of course, for Karl, in his simplistic mind, that was the only way out of the complicated world. He did manage to confront his drunken father and got some of the issues out in the open, including his father’s killing/burying alive of his baby brother.

Billy Bob Thornton’s acting as Karl was fantastic and very believable – better than Dustin Hoffman in the Rain Man. His way of talking in the movie sounded like Yoda in his own simplistic and innocent way. It’s probably hard to understand without the subtitles. John Ritter also acted as a gay, sincere, and helpful friend to the family. The boy performed quite well in his helpless and yet brave role.

Overall, this was a story of several tragedies but heart warming to see how the participants helped one another to cope with them within their circumstances.

The ghostwriter of the memoir for the ex-prime minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), of Britain died in the process of wrapping up the book. A new ghostwriter was hired and he may just run into a similar fate as he uncovered strange connection of the prime minister’s past in Cambridge University to a conspiracy. The story of how he became interested in politics from theatrical arts/acting because of meeting his wife, Ruth, simply didn’t add up chronologically. Stop reading here if you don’t want me to ruin the ending.

The clues started to fall in places when he followed the ex-ghostwriter to the last place he visited – the old classmate of Adam Lang, Paul Emmett and link Paul to CIA. He concluded that the Prime Minister was hired by CIA and working for CIA all these time.

After Adam was assassinated, the memoir book was released and the ghostwriter’s job was done. Was it? The final twist was that he discovered that the real CIA agent was Adam’s wife, Ruth, who he saw talking with Emmett at the celebration party of the book release. He confronted Ruth through a note passed to her. And the last scene of the movie was someone, presumably, the ghostwriter, was run over by a fast car, thus the highlighted “Ghost” in the movie title.

The movie was interesting and kept the audience guessing why the original ghostwriter died and what transgression Adam Lang committed, other than the war crimes of handing the terrorist prisoners to US. Though Adam Lang’s accomplishments in UK resembles that of Tony Blair, who cooperated very closely with US during the Iraq War. Is it a fictionalized conspiracy or is it a real conspiracy? Very interesting indeed. I enjoyed the movie. Highly recommended.

Wow, started watching this because of good review on Netflix. Never knew how a couple or any people can be so cruel to each other. It’s so emotionally draining!

While guzzling down bottles of booze, the dysfunctional couple went at each other verbally and physically in the presence of another couple. All the resentments, disappointments rose to the top and burst, fed by the dynamics of the other couple. They were “games” played – the hurt games and there were lies, like the boy they never had to keep the audience interested. This movie reminded so much of the marriages I know at the ICU death bed. Nowadays, people simply get divorced and moved on. But the brave ones remain in the marriage to fight it out just like the movie. It’s sad. Life is too short for that.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were wonderful in this movie. I can see how this script could make a good Broadway show: 3 acts and lots of acting and conversations – probably too much conversations for today’s audience. Would I recommend this movie? Maybe, to the people in terminally-ill marriages.

A woman writer fell out of love with her husband and went on a spiritual journey to find happiness and finally met the man of her love. Along the way, she traveled to Italy, learned Italian, met new friends. In Italy, she drew metaphor of the thousand-year Roman ruins to her own life. What a mess it was. She pitied herself. Then she traveled to India to learn meditating from the Guru and met Richard from Texas, who taught her to forgive herself and love herself again. Then she traveled back to Bali to meet with the smart fortune teller, Ketut, who taught her the life balance and to love again. In Bali, she also fell in love with Felipe, who almost ran her off the road who fell in love with her.

I like and enjoy this movie and recommend this movie to anyone gripping with life balance issues. You don’t have to pray and meditate but sometimes it’s the wondering mind that tricks us into thoughts that steer us away from our true life meaning. Julia Roberts acts so well in this movie, very believable. The beautiful scenery of Italy and Bali is a big treat. Makes you want to travel too.