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‘Criminal’: Underrated piece of cinema
Film: “Criminal” (in Hindi); Director: Ariel Vromen; Cast: Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones and Gal Gadot; Rating: ***
Having read the vicious reviews, “Criminal”, which I braved in Hindi, turned out to be as misunderstood and misinterpreted as “The Jungle Book” would be if it was taken literally to be a jungle fable (did someone just say, it is?).
There is a lot more to “Criminal” than the outrageously absurd premise of a ruthless criminal Jericho(Costner, knock-out in his malevolent makeover) whose brain is implanted with a slain CIA agent’s memory to get vital earth-saving information on a terrorist before catastrophe strikes civilisation.
Catastrophe struck this film in angry welters with critics dubbing “Criminal” as one of the worst films in recent times. In brief, a ‘criminal’ waste of time and energy, the critics chorused.
In actuality, “Criminal” has a lot going for itself. The action sequences on the streets of London are among the best I’ve seen in recent times, comparable if not better than what we see and savour in “Captain America”. Then there is Kevin Costner. If you admire this actor as much as I do, his proclivity to transform from his habitually genial roles to an evil violent criminal is beyond admirable.
As Jericho, the venom machine, Costner spreads vitriol across the screen in rippling motions. Then begins his moral and emotional transformation as Jericho begins to think with another, obviously more evolved and empathetic brain. He is bewildered and bitter about losing his psychotic rage. He is a man reluctant to feel.
“They’re called emotions,” explains Jericho’s Frankenstein Tommy Lee Jones, playing the doctor who undertook the brain-transplant surgery.
Lee Jones, one of America’s most versatile actors, wears a constantly worried look. He knows he has unleashed an entity that can go either way. There is a brilliant scene in a medicine store between Costner and Lee Jones which ends with a stumped saleslady offering Costner medicines “on the house”.
She is the audience. We are equally stumped.
Costner humanises Jericho with compelling dexterity. As he enters the dead CIA agent’s home and meets his beautiful grieving wife (the stunning Gal Gadot) and little daughter, his venom alchemizes in unexpected ways, giving to the monster a new window into human emotions he never knew existed.
Israeli director Ariel Vromen exercises firm control over the action drama. While Jericho changes, the narrative remains steadfastly true to the action genre, implanting into the stunts the kind of irresistibly dark and seductive tension that Curtis Hanson once imposed on his cinema.
The script is furiously unapologetic about the implausibilities, pushing through the virile material with unrelenting enthusiasm. Some of the verbal exchanges are decidedly over-heated and unconvincing and stilted. I also wanted to know more about the dead CIA officer’s (Ryan Reynolds) life. What was he like? His absence is the strongest presence in the film.
“Criminal” cuts across the chase to give us an entertainer with brains and a moral backbone to the relentless and sometime reprehensible violence. Most of all, Costner walks the talk with such confident strides that you are with his reformation from monster to human being even as the world all around goes up in flames.
It’s apocalypse unplugged.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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