RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Hater (Hejter, Polish; 2020) It is not something that we do not already know. The cyberspace has become where everything is made possible; a false narrative can be oft-repeated the gospel truth. Truth can be bent to suit the flavour of the day. A non-issue can be made the next game-changer. Deepfakes can change the path of one's career or fate. Destiny is determined by the trolls and influencers. There is a concerted effort by news spreaders to mould one's thought process in sync to the agenda of their paymasters.  The modern world, it seems, is divided into the right conservatives who yearn for the good old times when the world was a place of milk and honey, where politicians were honest, policemen cared for the public (not look at them as perps) and outdoors were healthy. At the red corner is the leftist who basically plays devil's advocate aim for anarchy and pushes the boundary to the point of entropy.  The leftists, outwardly seem to have the dow...

Raat Akeli Hai (A lonely night, Hindi; 2020) Netflix Everyone enjoys a delightful whodunnit every once in a while. The problem with most Indian movies is that the said story eventually becomes too outlandish as the movie drags on for over two hours and the screenwriters rushing to tie all loose end into a jumble. But not this one. It has Agatha Christie's trademark storyline written all over it. It goes on round and round, shifting the suspicion from one character to another. In the midst of all these, some subplots give the story more punch.    A dead body starts the narration. No one is beyond suspicion, and everyone has something hidden in their proverbial closet. Everyone has a valid reason to be the murderer but an alibi as well. Good old detective work solves the case at the end. A wealthy tycoon is found dead on his bed on the night of his second wedding to a girl younger than his daughter. The tycoon is a nasty chap who had lost his wife to a highway robbery cu...

Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP' Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's 'WAP ' It seems that this song is the latest one to play earworm in every Gen-Z and even millennials. It is said to have smashed many records and currently the most-streamed song. Streaming is said to be the true assessment of its popularity, uninfluenced by the interferences of the recording giants. It is also the talking point of many, saying that this song defines female-centred sexual empowerment. To others, however, this is all just noise - a cunning way to exploit the female body to gyrate to obscene lyrics in scanty outfits. The dance moves are no work of art but mere abuse of freedom of expression to showcase pornography to the public eye in the name of democratisation of oppressed black females. The moves are not sexual innuendos but outright vulgarity. Defenders of this type of expressions rebut that no one objected when male rappers made these type of sexually explicit v...

Sufiyum Sujathayum (Sufi and Sujatha, Malayalam; 2020) It started with a slow but discernable sporadic increase in reported cases of Hindu girls eloping with Muslim boys. Then came in the honour killings. The media picked it up. Everyone else then came out with their experiences of so-and-so female members of their families ex-communicating from the rest in pursuit of true love. To these girls, it finally meant embracing a new religion, new name, erasing themselves of their past lives and age-old traditions. People started calling this phenomenon as 'love jihad' -  a supposed form of religious warfare by  Muslim boys to e ntice Hindu girls into conversion through marriage. It was a numbers game. They allege that that was another modality to increase their representation in the community. In 2009, it garnered national attention   with claims of widespread conversions in  Kerala  and  Karnataka . There were also similar accusations by British Sikhs an...

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (Hindi; 2020) Netflix This film was stream via the OTT (over-the-top) media with a bang. First, the Indian Air Force (IAF) objected to the film depiction of the force being one filled with masculine toxicity and bullying of its officers of the fairer sex. Next came the netizens' loud call for the boycott of movies made by offsprings of movie stars. This follows the alleged suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput and the accusations hurled against the Bollywood mafias of nepotism involving children of stars. In my opinion, this offering is just riding on the wave of nationalism that seems to have hit the world over. With the power of artistic licence, the story writers have given masala to spice up the saga of a lone wolf, or rather lamb, in a sea of wolves. As predicted in tales of this nature, the protagonist, despite all the barrage hurled along her path, she comes out smelling of roses. From this angle, the story seems to motivate young girls with am...

R Arumugam @ Spiderman in action I remember a time in primary school when Malaysia was playing hockey in the World Cup, and we were hosting them. One of my friends, ignorant that he was, predicted that Malaysia would lose, not because India is a good team but because Malaysia had too many players of Indian ethnicity. The Malaysians would not play with as much zest due to allegiance to their ancestral roots. Of course not, I told him. It was like the national goalie Spidey R Arumugam letting in a few goals during Merdeka tournament to India for old times’ sake. No way that was going to happen. In the same way, I fail to see why many individuals of the Indian diaspora are getting all excited, ad nauseam, after the announcement of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. For the record, Kamala is half Indian on the maternal side and Jamaican on the other. Kamala @ Momala with hubby and stepkids. Kamala Harris is an American true and true. She was born in America, read in t...

Life in a... Metro (Hindi; 2007) Thomas Sowell, an American economist, surmises that the main reason behind the disparity between the blacks and whites as depicted by the Black Life Matters (BLM) movements is the destruction of the family unit and the libertarian policies of the US governments in the mid-60s. Two-thirds of black children born in America today are out of wedlock. 90% of inmates of correctional facilities in America had grown without a father if that is telling something. Sowell himself uprooted himself from the shackles of poverty, growing up in Harlem without a father, dropping out of school at 16, only to eventually become a prominent academician in Stanford. He recently entered his 10th decade of existence. The implementation of liberal economic policies in tandem with changing social norms seems to reward the sluggards. He posits that minimum wage actually discourages high achievers. Having social policies favouring single parents actually encouraged single-paren...

Afsos (Regret, Hindi/English; 2020) Amazon Prime Video The human race is the way it is because we are mortal beings. We know we have a shelf life and we want to finish all our humanly possible achievements within our lifetimes. Since our existence is finite, we yearn to immortalise it via discoveries and inventions. Our zest to explore the world we are born into pushes us to yonder to foreign shores and new frontiers.  Without the fear of death, we would probably be fat blobs, uninitiated to pursue any endeavours. Everything would seem purposeless. Relationships are meaningless as there is nothing to expect anymore. We know what happens and how it will end. The diseases that we will get will give us the pain of illnesses but not relief from the distress. We will regress to our primal state; engaging in purposeless activities with impunity, knowing that nothing awaits us at the end. The seven deadly sins of Man will have a field day. With the fear of death and hope of a comf...

Diriliş: Ertuğrul (Turkish, Resurrection: Ertuğrul; 2014-19) Season 1-5, Netflix. They say it is all planned. Work has been on ever since the sick man of Europe crumbled at the might of the West. When the enemies stabbed their coup de grace into the heart of the pinnacle of their laurels, they knew they had to take matters into their own hands. The fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 heralded the Khalifat movement in India which subsequently saw the development of an Islamic State, Pakistan. But work was not complete, until and unless the glory of their past is resurrected. Leaders came, and leaders went. The world saw them all shrivel up and cosy up to the swaggering fingers of the enemies. My realisation into this topic was triggered way back 40 years ago. I had just read about Mustafa Kamal Ataturk in my Std 6 history books. Yes, there was a time when the Malaysian Education Ministry actually thought that students need to be exposed to more things than just Islamic history. Dis...

With the single click of the cleat, I knew we had taken our relationship to the next level. After a year of trying to tame the shrew, I had taken a plunge deep in the unknown, rightly or foolishly, smitten by the latest craze around town. Drawn into the quicksand of recreational road cycling by a group of mad friends, who, as if by fate, happened to live just a few doors from each other, it has been quite a journey thus far.  Getting up as early as 4.30am on almost every Sunday to cycle in the misty countryside of Hulu Langat and Genting Peras is not 'ride in the park'. It also took the group traversing the 633km track in the heart of the Korean peninsula. And not to forget the handful of cycling competitions in Penang, Cameron Highlands, Putrajaya and Lekas Highway. I guess I must have listened to my mother when she used to say, "Choose your friends wisely!" But then, she also said that not everyone who is clad in saree is a lady. I wonder what she really ...

Mumbai Police (Malayalam, 2013) When one thinks of a commercial Indian police drama or a police procedural film, the first thing that comes to mind is the gravity-defying stunts. Thankfully, this movie does not have any of those, but there is the blatant abuse of power and the idea of one man singlehandedly manning the whole is still there, nevertheless. A police officer, Anthony Moses, is seen informing his superior, Farhan Aman, over the phone that he had solved the case they were working on and on his way to discuss it. A freak accident happens and he has selective retrograde amnesia. He does not remember his investigation but Farhan pushes him to finish what he had begun. The problem is that he does not remember even things about himself, his subordinates or who his siblings are. He learns many things slowly just by observing.  Anthony realises that his previous self must have been quite a nasty character. His co-tenants had it enough with his previous antics and want hi...

Piku (Hindi; 2015) Are human beings innately wired to know what the right thing to do is? Do people do the right thing because it was is expected of them? Deviation of what is accepted as the right thing by consensus may lend an average in collision with the law. Alternatively, he may be doing it to avoid future repercussions. More often than not, we make our decisions using our emotions, not reason. Peer pressure, fear of the unknown and unquestioning obedience to the herd all form ways of our response to a situation. Are our actions paved with personal motivations or remunerations rather than altruistic intents? Sadly there is no universal law for all our dilemmas. We make up rules as we go on. Just when we think we have seen it all and have all the answers, pop comes a different scenario just to mock us.    If simply existing as a human being is a boon itself, then every human owes a moral responsibility to other humans and in turn in another; what more to...