The White Tiger and I Care a Lot

Like them or not, don’t watch either film late at night.

Both The White Tiger and I Care a Lot have one thing in common, namely being devoid of one likeable character. So, if you base entertainment on not caring who lives or dies, keep both on your “To Do” list.

The White Tiger

This film, directed by Ramin Bashrani, belongs to Adarsh Gourav. He plays a young Indian living in poverty who escapes his desolate existence by being a driver for a wealthy family. He suffers brutal treatment and no task is too degrading to embrace.

Mr. Gourav gives a brilliant performance as he learns the devilish necessities of succeeding in life. He adopts the sinister qualities of those that he must chauffeur at a moment’s notice, and in the process, he morphs from a decent young man into a goon. If that means killing, so be it.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of fine performances beginning with Priyanka Chopra and Rajkummar Rao as the married couple functioning as Gourav’s immediate supervisors. You like both of them right up to the point where they wake up as if bitten by a nasty vampire.

This film, while widely praised, has no room for kindness, be you rich or poor. While most of the dialogue is in English, you who hunt it down will find out that subtitles would have immensely helped understanding this dark story.

I Care a Lot

Let me just say that I hated this movie. While I have great respect for Rosamund Pike (see Hostiles (2017)), her role as an unethical legal guardian made me wince every time I saw her sickening smile and chopped off blonde hair.

She and her lover/partner Fran, played by Eiza Gonzalez, bilked the elderly by using a callous judge to send them to some treatment facility. Things go horribly wrong when she does the same to a rich client played with a nasty edge by Dianne Wiest. Turns out that Ms. Wiest, who previously won a Supporting Actress Oscar in Bullets Over Broadway (1994), is the mother of a Russian mob boss played by Peter Dinklage with a bad beard.

However, if you want to see something monstrously absurd, watch Fran become a killer angel when pursued by Dinklage. The title of this film should be changed to “Gone Girl on Meth”!