RIFLE RANGE BOY

Naalu Policeum Nalla Irundha Oorum (4 Policemen and a peaceful town, Tamil; 2015) Directed by N. J. Srikrishna This full-length comedy came and went without creating much of a storm. Naturally, it received little rave review. All the actors were very green, except for Yogi Babu, who did not play a vital role here, anyway. The story is a comedy of errors, poking fun at how the police's assertion of their importance screws up the peace of an already peaceful village. The small township of Porpandhal is so peaceful that it has received Best Village awards for years. There is no crime, and the police station sees no need to open on Sunday. The four policemen there lead cushy lives, working from 9 to 5 and playing board games all day. The police HQ takes notice. It plans to shut down the station and transfer its staff to Ramnath, an area notorious for serious crimes. The policemen panic. They try to justify their presence by creating petty issues here and there. Little did they expect ...

American Fiction (2023) Screenplay & Direction: Cord Jefferson It seems that we have not changed much since our days as cavemen. Imagine living exposed in a world so hostile we would have tried to understand the unusual things around us. We continued compartmentalising the living and non-living things amongst us even when we became hunter-gatherers, farmers or city dwellers. By compartmentalising everyone in boxes, we thought we had our defences up to remind us which one of them was friends and which were potentially harmful. Gone are club-carrying or sabre-rattling days, but these classifications helped somewhat. The Chinese viewed anyone non-Huns as barbaric. So did the Greeks, Persians and Arabs. During the mercantile era, the dark-skinned were labelled as God-sanctioned slaves.  In the USA, post-Civil War America assumed that the emancipated slaves were ill-prepared to fit into modern society. They expected them to remain the subservient ones. They were prevented from getti...

Emergency (2022) Director: Carey William Sikhism is professed by 25 to 30 million worldwide and is the fifth-largest religion in the world. Even though Sikhs constitute only 1.72% of India's population and 1.02% of the world's population, they are instantaneously recognised, not only by their unique appearance but also by their industriousness and successes. In India and the rest of the world, wherever they migrate, their proportion of poverty, as compared to other groups, remains the lowest. Outside Punjab, some minorities still excel without political assistance. Reaching foreign shores as economic migrants, they generally prosper and outperform other immigrants. They blend well into society and have the tongue to learn to speak the local lingo swiftly. Pretty soon, they will be sitting in professional bodies. The Sikhs are often seen by community leaders as a shining example of how societies should progress. Someone toyed with the idea that lack of political representation a...

Descendants (Documentary; 2022) Written and directed by: Margaret Brown We often tell us to put the past behind us and use the past as lessons to propel us forward. Refrain from brooding over the past, but look at the future, which is within our means to write. The past is a done thing which cannot be rewritten.  Is there any merit in prodding the past and trying to write the wrong that our ancestors did by omission or commission? This documentary makes one thing of this very point. Can we blame all our misgivings on how our ancestors were treated? Is transgenerational PSTD justified enough to be the reason for the current generation to be dysfunctional, economically backward and in a quandary? Is validation of the deeds of our forefathers needed for us to prosper in life? Or is the mere lack of their recognition just an excuse to remain as sluggards? It is good to put the facts straight. As history is written as dictated by the victors, their version is just one aspect of what rea...

Aftershock (2022) Director, Producer: Paula Eiselt and  Tonya Lewis In the 70s, active labour management was the craze in the Obstetrics circle, especially amongst the countries that looked at the UK as their point of reference. This kind of treatment was first tried out at the Royal Dublin Hospital, promising short labours, lower caesarean section rates and safer outcomes. It soon became the golden standard of managing parturient mothers in most labour rooms. There had been debates on whether Dublin's figures and definition of labour were only agreeable to some. Many argued that the system tends to over-medicalise something quite natural that people have been doing for aeons. Medical intervention tends to involve surgical intervention, it is alleged. Unfortunately, with eyes constantly scrutinising for clues to stir dirt when a medical outcome is not to their liking, medical practitioners tend to practice defensive medicine. Better be safe than be bogged by handling complications,...

  King Richard (2021) Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green By now, everybody would have heard about the movie 'King Richard', not because the leading actor, Will Smith, won the Oscar but the slapping of the host, Chris Rock. Many are arguing whether the showdown was staged. Will Smith, walking up to the stage to smack Rock for cracking an off-colour joke about her alopecia, was really uncalled for. Behavioural specialists and body language experts have been working overtime to analyse, frame by frame, the demeanour of Smith, his wife Jeda and Rock to surmise that it was not staged.  This movie is a biopic about the untiring efforts of Richard Williams to make world-class tennis stars out of Venus and Serena. Richard, a pushy father, steamrolled himself to get trainers for his daughter. A slave driver, he did not want his daughters another statistic in the sea of black children with social issues. He abhorred violence and was bullied by the local hoodlum. It is ironic that Will Smit...