Ashdoc's movie review---Inferno

by ashdoc Sat Oct 22, 2016 5:35 am

One of the reasons for me watching this film was the inclusion of Irfan Khan , an Indian Bollywood actor in the cast . And I belong to the same country . When I watched it I found one more 'Indian' thing about the movie . The movie gives us a tour of Florence and it's tourist attractions and in the end adds the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul to be watched in the climax . This is similar to Indian movies like 'Love in Tokyo' and 'An evening in Paris' that were made in the sixties to show Indian audiences the wonders of those cities .

Tom Hanks plays a professor who wakes up in Florence to not remember what he went through in the last few days , but having visions of earth being converted into hell . He has by his bedside Felicity Jones , who says she is a doctor and helps him by tagging along with him for the next few days . And help is needed , as he is promptly attacked by a female assassin and he has to escape .

Among his belongings Tom finds an image projector which projects a modified version of Sandro Botticelli's Map of Hell, which itself is based on Dante's Inferno . This is a clue among a series of clues that were left by a brilliant but deranged geneticist to the location of a virus he had created to decimate much of the world's population as he believed it was growing far too much , but had to commit suicide because armed agents were hounding him . The virus is named inferno .

Obviously other people are after the virus too , some to release it and some to not let that happen . This leads to a chase up and down Florence and some real action . Tom is repeatedly targeted and is repeatedly helped by Felicity . Except for problem of the age difference between the two , it would have been a fine chance to fall in love along the way....

It becomes difficult for Tom to distinguish between the good people ( those who want to stop the virus from being released ) and the bad people ( those who want to release it ) . Who is who ? And why has Tom been chosen to be presented with clues ? Tom has to find out the answers before catastrophe beckons .

The movie is fast paced enough , but I found the action to be disjointed . Surprises do strike in between the movie keeping you in suspense throughout , but I wondered if there were too many of them . Acting by everyone is decent enough . Colours are decent , and photography is touristy and spectacular it you like to see the wonders of famous architectural and artistic marvels from both inside those marvels and also from vantage points .

How is Irfan Khan ? He does have a role of substance in the movie . But his Indian accent stands out like a sore thumb while speaking english . I was not too impressed by his acting . He does look suave though . On the other hand Tom looked harassed throughout the movie while Felicity looked more confident essaying her role .

Verdict---average movie .

two and a half stars