Local Times Series Review:

Cacophony does not fuel change, be it in any form. And the decibel levels, more often than not, do not contribute to idiosyncrasies of a person or a story unless there are genuine efforts made at the grassroots level or here from the time the pen touches the paper. In Prime Video’s latest web series Local Times, a newsroom drama focused on a group of youngsters trying to keep a legacy newspaper afloat, cacophony takes centre stage and humour has the last laugh. But that is an aspect that we can let slide for now. Tamil cinema has rarely seen newsroom-based films/series compared to the West, which has created several gripping series based on journalism. Sitting at a goldmine of an opportunity, the creators decide to give it all away, just like the characters in the film when they get even the tiniest amount of money.

Cast: Rishikanth, Abdool Lee, Maurish Dass, Adwitha Arumugam, Pandiarajan, Chinni Jayanth, Rini, and Nandhitha Sreekumar

Director: Naveen George Thomas

Rating: 1.5

Streaming on: Prime Video

Local Times starts off by educating the audience on the power of good journalism but also quickly explains how it is never rewarded either. Hence, the team members Veera (Rishikanth), Azhagu Sundaram (Abdool Lee), Srivalli (Adwitha Arumugam) and Muthu (Maurish Dass) resort to calling people for placing ads in their weekly daily ‘Namma Seidhi’, a Tamil newspaper left behind by Veera’s grandfather, Aasiriyar Chelladurai (Chinni Jayanth). So far, so good. But beyond its first few minutes, the screenplay starts to shred due to the lack of a novel premise. The comedy sequences too offer no respite from the drab scenes, and every time a character tries to break into a comedy or two, the results lie somewhere in between eyerolls and time travel to the 2000s. For example, when Muthu starts interacting with an unknown internet user called Shakthi and starts developing romantic feelings for them, he starts uttering the classic dialogue, “Naan unna virumbala, un mela aasa padala… aana idhellam nadandhurumo nu bayama iruku." A few scenes later, we get the rip-off from Vadivelu-Ramesh Khanna-Vijay and Suriya-Charle chase scene from Friends.

Enter the loving mama-cum-sort-of-loan shark Vallal (Pandiarajan), whose efforts to spin some interesting elements into the storyline mostly run on empty paper with no ink. Despite having the potential to spin the screenplay with his acting and comedic prowess, the writing provides him with a pedestrian character, incapable of making madness into memorable scenes. Instead, we continue to get tropes of four friends struggling to make money and keeping ‘accounts’ at tea stalls and being chased by people to whom they owe cash. Then comes Aasiriyar Chelladurai (Chinni Jayanth), who serves as the narrator through a frame on the wall and is a fly on the wall to several events unfolding in front of him. At many times, his dialogues remain restricted to sharing comments like "Ivangala Kadavul dhan kaapathanum” and “Ivan yen inga vandhaan?”, reducing his character to nothingness.

However, we do get an interesting character by the name of Rani (Nandhitha Sreekumar), an OCD-affected woman who’s suffering from empty nest syndrome after her only son leaves her for the sake of his family. For a fleeting moment, I was convinced that we were about to witness a woman who might probably fling forks and knives to threaten goons and use her role to create a long-awaited high moment for the show. But alas, ambition in this show seems to exist largely in theory. Rani is promptly given the stereotypical mother-figure label and moved to the sidelines, as if the show suddenly remembered it prefers its drama neatly arranged and undisturbed.

A newsroom drama thrives on the adrenaline of breaking news and accessing elusive sources, while simmering sometimes in its mundanity, but Local Times only places most of its emphasis on the financial mechanics of running a local daily. The compelling issues—tackling misinformation, finding reliable stringers, reportage by influencers, media acquisitions and the shift towards a digital-first ecosystem—arrive late in the narrative and are diluted by their own potent colourful inks.

At a time when the media landscape is in a flux, journalists often turn to content like this to inject hope into their systems before fighting back, especially with the arrival of a monster like AI. Yet, Local Times never quite captures that urgency. But for this show, maybe the dangers and humour of the newsroom remain too far out of reach to form an instant connection. A nostalgic trip to the 2000s may not be enough, let alone publishing blank pages to spark a revolution.