My ears are literally buzzing.
Like, physically vibrating. I can feel it in my jaw. I just finished *Banger* on Netflix and I think my small apartment speakers have been permanently recalibrated to assault mode. I had to pause it halfway through because my cat, Gus, literally fled the room. The bass from that club scene… it wasn't just sound, it was a physical presence in the room. A hostile entity. My couch was shaking.
I'm just pacing now. I can't sit down. My heart is still doing that fast, jittery thing it does after my third espresso, but I haven't had coffee since this morning. It's the movie. It's just… pure adrenaline injected directly into the brainstem. I feel like I could run a marathon right now. Or maybe just fight a reflection of myself in a mirror. Not sure.
There's this one shot that's just… stuck. Looping in my head. It's not one of the big, loud car chases or the shootout in the rain. It's after all that. The main guy, Leo, is back in his crummy apartment. The place is trashed. He's just sitting on the floor, and the camera does this slow, almost imperceptible push-in on his hands. They're shaking. Not like, movie-hero shaking, but like, actual, exhausted, can't-control-it trembling. And he's just staring at them like they belong to someone else. No music. No dialogue. Just the hum of his refrigerator and the sound of his own unsteady breathing. I leaned forward so hard I think I pulled a muscle in my neck. It was so quiet after two hours of pure noise, and it was the loudest moment in the whole damn film.
It made me think of this one time I tried to fix my own motorcycle engine. A '78 Suzuki I bought for a hundred bucks. I thought I was so cool. I had the manual spread out on the garage floor, grease everywhere, tools scattered like I was a surgeon. And I got to this one part, this one specific nut, and I just could not get it loose. I tried for hours. My hands were raw, my back was screaming, and I finally just… stopped. And I just looked at my greasy, useless hands and felt this wave of… defeat. Just total, complete failure. I ended up paying a guy three hundred bucks to fix it. He did it in twenty minutes. I remember that feeling in my gut so clearly and this movie just… yanked it back out of nowhere.
And the ending! God, the ending. He's walking away from the final, explosive confrontation, and he just melts into this crowded marketplace in Marrakesh or somewhere. The camera stays put, and we just watch him become another anonymous face in the chaos. And then cut to black. A single, distorted piano note hangs in the air. I was like, YES. That's the way to do it. So cool. So final. But now that I'm typing this… was it actually kind of dumb? Did they just not know how to wrap it up? Is it just a pretentious way of saying "the end"? I don't know. My gut said "brilliant" but my brain is starting to whisper "cop-out." I'm so confused.
Watching it at home was… weird. I feel like I cheated it a little. This movie BEGS for a massive screen with earth-shattering sound. Instead, I had my laptop propped up on a pillow, Gus glaring at me from the armchair, and the constant temptation to check my phone during the slower parts. (I didn't. Mostly.) The stream glitched for a second during a crucial dialogue exchange and I almost threw my remote through the TV. Netflix, get your act together, some of us are trying to have a life-altering cinematic experience here.
Honestly, I feel drained. But in a good way? Like I just ran a mental marathon and my brain is made of jelly. I need to listen to some ambient bird noises or something for about six hours to recalibrate. I can still feel the bass in my teeth.
8/10. I think. Ask me again in an hour.
-Alex
Trailer English - https://youtu.be/l5HGb3pQoSg?si=H9H2TJKiX0Rrijw7
Trailer Hindi - https://youtu.be/9_s8KdhxbsM?si=XBruaWjqrVoOh_3h
Review Hindi - https://youtu.be/HP0PRF5SsYM?si=qYb0FpMHqwANUOn3
Review English - https://youtu.be/QKDcUbYHn3g?si=vnzeg1rhODywjyeV
