RIFLE RANGE BOY

Jailer (2023) Director: Nelson Dilipkumar This is a Thalaiva movie. Period. Nobody else matters. A trip down memory lane of what stunts he could do and how he managed to maintain a fanbase after all these years is all that made the difference. It did not matter that the services of all the great Indian actors from all char dhams of Indian cinemas had made a cameo appearance here. It is immaterial that Padaiappa’s arch nemesis, Neelambari, is made to look like a lizard on the wall, clicking occasionally. Who cares about the holes in the fantastical storyline that would make a schoolboy cringe? It is Rajnikanth. Superstar is back! This is what I missed wondering why everyone was praising Rajni’s latest release to high heaven. Even the usually level-headed ones are also pulled into the merriment. It is not about the story or realism. It is an experience, an immersion, and something entrenched in the psyche. Blame it on Tamil Nadu’s early politics and the involvement of screenwriters, musi...

Darbar (2019) Are we living lives that are so unfulfilling? Are we trapped in a quagmire of hopelessness and pessimism that destined us to be forever confined in a sticky web of doom and gloom? Are we resigned to the fact we are too intellectually bankrupt to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps? Are we waiting for that imaginary knight in shining armour to magically hoist us out of our rabbit hole of melancholy? Is it possible? Or are we imagining another realm where all our aches, pains and attachments would be magically dismantled?  Perhaps we had fought our fights and had given up. All the power and wealth of the powers that be have disarmed us from the shield of resilience. We have crumbled and wilted to pressure. We are numbed to our addiction to our devices that have sapped our juices to think. Maybe it is not a new phenomenon. For ages, we of the human race have suffered under the tyranny of dictators and power-hungry madmen. And we have seen saviours in the...