Beware! In ‘97 Minutes’, Your Life Could Change in Midair!

By JawaHar malHotra

Houston: This city usually doesn’t have a rush of movie premieres, especially after the disastrous two COVID years that hurt attendance at the theatres. So it was a big splash when the movie “97 Minutes” premiered over the past weekend on Sunday, June 11 at the Star Movie Grill in the far western suburb of Richmond. And it was an even bigger event as the movie was written by one of the Desi community’s most passionate filmmaker, Dr. Pavan Grover.

Some of the movie’s key players were out to mingle with the cream of South Asian society at the glittery event held in the lobby of the movie theatre where they could express themselves at two backdrops with camera crews recording their sentiments.

It was mini-Hollywood meets mini-Bollywood, as the clapper board said that Grover’s 14-yearold nephew Amit posed with. Befitting the occasion, there was champagne and hors d’oeuvres in the social hour before the premiere at 7pm.

“We actually did this for all our supporters and close friends”, explained Nimi Grover, Pavan’s mom, as she circulated. What was slated to be a screening in auditorium 1 got bigger very quickly. “We actually had to open up another auditorium”, explained Pavan, “and eventually a third one too! Over 500 people came for the opening night!”

They came to see the latest movie produced from the mind of Pavan Grover, who is as passionate about the cinematography and entertainment business as he is about his steadily expanding spinal surgery and pain management practice in west Houston. He has had stars in his eyes for years, which led him to write several scripts, one of which became the 2002 movie “Unspeakable” that he produced and acted in, opposite veteran ac- tor Dennis Hopper. Next came the 2013 movie “Odd Thomas”. The opportunity to make “97 Minutes” came about after Pavan was able to shop his script to Hollywood producers and his company finally connected with Lighthouse Pictures.

It is a relatively low budget, $7 million movie about terrorists who hijack a plane, and relies on two sets – the interior of a plane and the NSA headquarters – with plenty of CGI to make tell the story. Two big name actors – Alec Baldwin and Jonathan Rhys Meyers – carry the cast, and Pavan even plays a bit role as the head of the terrorist group. Pavan did the final edits and directed and worked on the sound design and music himself.

Pavan insisted on having Baldwin, who is in his first movie role since he was charged with involuntary manslaughter in 2021 on the sets of the movie “Rust”, charges which were later dropped.

He plays the part of the NSA director, a role he reprises from a similar role in two “Mission Impossible” movies. The bulk of the film stands on the performance of Meyers as an Interpol agent. The Swedish actress MyAnna Buring plays the other lead role as a doctor onboard the plane, who volunteers to save lives.

“97 Minutes” has had a limited release, opening up in theaters in 10 major markets across the country. Next week it will become available on demand through Amazon and Apple TV, with a debut on Hulu in the fall.

Pavan is already looking to his next project, a sci-fi TV series reimagining of “The Wizard of Oz” which he has already written and is currently negotiating with various studios. He expects other spinoff projects too.

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‘Bloody Daddy’: Predictable Plot, ‘Been There’ Thrills

Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

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By sHuBHra Gupta

More than anything else, an actioner unfolding over 24 hours needs to gallop along at break-neck speed. Bloody Daddy, a remake of the French language Nuit Blanche, which in turn was adapted in Tamil as ‘Thoonga Vanam’ starring Kamal Hasan, has all the ingredients of a pacey thriller. But, despite the occasional burst, it slumps back into a been-there-seen-this category, and that’s got a lot to do with its run-time of over two hours, flattening a plot that isn’t as unpredictable as it thinks it is.

fusion with those working on the other side of the law. There’s Ronit Roy, flaunting a scarlet designer jacket, lording it in his den conveniently located in his own ‘seven star hotel’. And Sanjay Kapoor, in matching red glares, accompanied by a right-hand man who aces both the sniff-and-tell and loyalty test. Other assorted goons periodically march through the hotel, where a big-ticket wedding is taking place, and where the guests are waiting for the singer Badshah to take the festivities a notch higher.

nating between a leather jacket and a formal black suit, goes through his paces. The few moments where Shahid appears vulnerable and in pain stand out, and Roy gets some scenes he makes his own. A couple of running jokes – the young lad’s insistence on ‘lactose-free milk’ and ‘gluten-free bread’ causes mild amused horror among his daddy and the mobsters alike — raise their head and then lie back. Just like the film.

At stake is a bag of cocaine worth Rs 50 crore, and a bunch of cops and crooks are after it, chasing each other through Delhi and Gurugram. The film makes it a point to tell us that it is set after the second phase of the pandemic, when things had started opening up. After months of forced abstinence, people want to get back to partying hard, and that, of course, translates into a surge in demand for drugs. The suspense of not knowing which cop is a crook takes the film only that far, because all the signs are visible from the beginning, when an early morning shoot-out leaves two drug runners dead, and the two people who recover the bag, on the run.

So who amongst the narcotics cops are working for the bad guys? Could it be Sumair (Shahid Kapoor), who acquires a bullet wound within the opening five minutes, and nurses it through the film, as he plays buddy with his young son who is, of course, going to be used as bait in short order? Or Samir (Rajeev Khandelwal) who keeps getting mysterious calls on his phone? Or Aditi (Diana Penty) who ricochets between the two, trying to be tough and on-point?

There’s no such con-

It is we, the viewers, who are left waiting for the excitement to ratchet up, as Sumair-Shahid, sporting a spiffy hair cut, and alter-

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