RIFLE RANGE BOY

Thalavii ( தலைவி,   Female Leader, Tamil, 2021) That is the problem with biopics, primarily if the script covers a big chunk of their lifetimes. In the desire to capture as much of the story as possible, the filmmakers will lose much and not do justice to the legacy they intended to show in the first place. It may end up as a documentary instead. So many things keep happening that it appears like a speeding bus. We notice neither the destination of the bus nor the passengers seated it.  No one is saying, but it is as plain as day that this biography is of former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalitha. This is also another problem in Tamil Nadu, where people are equally maniacal about their movie stars as they are with their political leaders. Hence, the scriptwriters walk on eggshells to ensure the storyline does not hurt the sentiments of viewers at the expense of messy court cases and the burning of screening halls. They are careful not to delve too deeply into somethi...

Queen (Web series, S1, E1-11, Tamil; 2019) MX Player It is no secret. Even though there is a declaration at the beginning of each episode that its story is a work of fiction and that any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental, it is as plain as day. There is no doubt that this web series is a fictionalised version of the former Chief Minister's life and times and a one-time highest-grossing actress in the Southern cinema, J Jayalalitha. The give away signs are the characteristic vermilion pottu with a vertical extension, the similarity in the protagonist's familial and educational backgrounds, the fact that the 'Queen' aka Shakthi Sheshadri was a state top scorer like Jayalalitha and that both were of Brahmin ancestry. It does not take much imagination to realise that GM Ravichandran (GMR) is a plagiarisation of MG Ramachandran (MGR). The story is told as flashbacks from an interview which is reminiscent of the classic bare-it-all interaction betwee...