Psycho Raman (April 5th and 7th at the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival)

[PSYCHO RAMAN screens Wednesday April 5th at 4:35 pm and Friday April 7th at 9:20 pm at Tower City Cinemas as part of the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

The Indian film industry is best known for their vibrant "Bollywood" musicals. Indian writer/director Anurag Kashyap makes very different kinds of films. His 2012 film GANGS OF WASSEYPUR was an epic (5 hours-plus) tale of generation-spanning crime that drew from Scorsese and Coppolla for inspiration. It won numerous awards and made it onto many "best of the year" lists.

PSYCHO RAMAN (original title: RAMAN RAGHAV 2.0) is a crime film of a different sort. It's a wallow on the dark side that focuses on serial killer Ramanna (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and the coke-addicted, misogynistic cop Raghavan (Vicky Kaushal) pursuing him. The solitary Ramanna sees his soulmate in the corrupt policeman, a man cloaked in the respectability of the law who, deep down inside, may be just as evil as his quarry. Maybe even moreso. Comparisons to Abel Ferrara's BAD LIEUTENANT and Jee-woon Kim's I SAW THE DEVIL are not unreasonable, but ultimately RAMAN is its own brutal beast.

Court (opens in Akron September 25th exclusively at the Nightlight Cinema)

[COURT opens in Akron on Friday September 25th exclusively at the Nightlight Cinema.]

Being a long-time metal head, I still remember vividly the ludicrous charges brought against the band Judas Priest for allegedly driving a pair of young fans to attempt suicide. This was supposed to have been accomplished via subliminal messages included on one of their songs, never mind that it makes no sense for a band to intentionally try to kill off their own fan base, or the fact that the album containing the song in question had been out since 1978 without incident until a couple of teens decided to put shotguns in their mouths in 1985. While it seems absurd that such a case would even go to trial, it did indeed make it before a judge in the summer of 1990. The proceedings lasted a month, and the band was acquitted of all charges.