The Village (in Tamil , six episodes on Prime Video)
Starring Arya, Divya Pillai
Rating: ** ½
There are at least three parallel plot tracks running…or shall I say, crawling through The Village. The title is evidently a hats-off to Manoj Night Shyamalan’s 2014 film , which was no great shakes either.
As far as shiver givers go, The Village doesn’t go very far.It loses its way from the start,in more ways than one, when Dr Gautham Subramaniam(Arya) his wife Neha(Divya Pillai) and his daughter Maya take a wrong U-turn and land up in the middle of a godforsaken village Kattiyal.
A group of villagers have a story of their own about a tyrannical zamindar who wants to exploit the villagers and his kindly brother who makes them aware of their fundamental rights.
Elsewhere—yes, there is more happening here than at the recent film festival in Goa—a wealthy nasty man on a wheelchair Prakash(Arjun Chidambaram) sends a rogue squad on a mission to the same village Kattiyal to seek out some kind of a chemical that can make him walk again.
Whether Prakash walks or not,who cares! But the series never gets off the ground.Although The Village has its jolting moments it suffers from a case of chronic silliness. I hope Arya got paid well for associating with this series.Money can be the only reason for a reputed star to fall for this all-bark-no-bite horror show.
