Shane J. Alliew
Post Angels and Demons, Dan Brown churning out similar thrillers, not only for the sake of bestselling but also, most importantly the multi-million dollar film translation, comes as no surprise with Inferno.
The Three Investigators, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys hooked teenagers and Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) seems to be hoping for that same kind of effect. Mr. Brown Sir, teens today find much more delight in supernatural (read vampire) carnal love stories/ plots than ‘find-clue-solve-mystery’ stories.
Langdon, wakes up in an Italian hospital with an ‘induced bump’ on his head and finds an attractive doctor Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) attending to him, when they have to make a hurried exit as the raging female cop baying for blood ‘pushes them to the action of things’.
But wait it’s not only her that’s wanting Langdon, there are a couple of others too for apparently it seems he has one of those modern devices, that contains the clues to a ‘disaster-in-waiting’ which has been created by the multi-billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) to cause one helluva plague that is to wipe out millions off the planet!
Why? As simple as this: the planet is too overpopulated and our resources are running out, hence someone has to play God and get things right. So why not a self-possessed scientist Zobrist, who has quite a fan fare but unfortunately appears for most of the times in camera. We would have loved to see ‘more of him’, especially when he looks that delicious, bearded and all.
So what better way to layer the clues to the whereabouts of the deadly virus than through symbols and lo and behold we have our Professor Langdon hero through the maze, running once again from city-to-city, deciphering the great Dante’s Inferno.
Ranging from escaping from the museum with Dante’s Death Mask to actually being let down by a beautiful woman, so fanatical in her mission, left unto her by her lover whom she actually hero-worships; Inferno does not fall short of the thrills, like its previous predecessors.
There is no new plot here, if you’re looking for one; hence Academy Award winner Ron Horward took seven years to return to the ‘Langdon series’, hoping that some of the viewer’s previous memories may have faded off like Langdon’s amnesia that comes and goes, where at one point of time he says, “Now I see.”
Apart from the WHO representatives, led by Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen) who have caught wind of the virus and so badly want it contained, the other parties are keenly interested too in Zobrist’s master piece- Christoph Bouchard (Omar Sy) for the obvious financial black marketing reasons and our very own Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan), who has had a change of vision-mission and now also sees the light at the end of the tunnel!
What better place than Istanbul, Turkey, for the virus to be slyly but most obviously placed in- for time immemorial the city has been the gateway of the ‘two worlds’, the West and the East; remember the crusades?
Hanks throws in some kind of thrown in performance, I always thought him to be the Amitabh of Hollywood especially when one looks back at his acting career, so it makes one wonder why the hell had he to take up a Jason Bourne wild goose chase series? Come on man, you can do better- remember Forrest Gump, Philadelphia?
Irrfan is wasted. Two bombs- Jurassic World and now Inferno- advice: stay off Hollywood until you get actual meaningful roles!
In sum, Inferno has neither the fires of hell, nor the grip to keep you tempted on; its mere circles and circles, typically Dante style!
2.5/5