Koose Munisamy Veerappan Review: A Detailed Study of the Bandit's Contested Legacy

Creators: Jeyachandra Hashmi, Prabhavathi RV, Vasanth Balakrishnan

Director: Sharath Jothi

Available on: Zee5

Duration: Six episodes

There has not been any dearth of content on the life and times of infamous bandit and rebel leader Veerappan in recent times. There have been both fictionalized as well-styled documented iterations of this highly contested figure in various mediums. The new crime documentary series from Zee5 titled, Koose Munisamy Veerappan, is the latest entry to the unwieldy yet captivating life story of one of the most conflicted personalities from Indian history. The show created by Jeyachandra Hashmi, Prabbhavathi and Vasanth Balakrishnan, is true to the form of the true-crime procedural shows that combine the visual aesthetics of a documentary with the visceral energy of a fictional crime saga.

The show is framed as a delicate untangling of the grandiose myths surrounding Koose Munisamy Veerappan, who is a god-like figure to many, but a ruthless tyrant to many others. This innate contradiction of his persona is examined with the juxtaposition of talking heads chewing on his legacy, alongside occasional inserts of additional scenes shot to recreate the events being told to us on screen. 

There is a confessional style in these two strands of the exposition dump in the episodes, condensed through the use of archival footage of one of Veerappan’s own late period interview with journalist Nakkheeran Gopal (whose case file and writings in the magazine ‘Nakheeran’ are the source of this show), where he breaks down his entire history and the reasons why he chose the ways of the jungle. The show starts off with the makers emphasising Veerappan’s complacency and participation in the ‘Palar Landmine Blast Case’, where 22 policemen were killed, followed up by an open shootout with the gangs led by Veerappan.

The officers were enroute a covert mission to capture and de-escalate Veerappan’s tumultuous reign over the forests of Surakkamaduvu and the Kerala- Karnataka and Tamil Nadu Borders. The show recreates many such moments with an ounce of cinematic liberty with a supporting cast play-acting the scenes. This then cuts away to testimonials and out-of-order talking heads in the form of senior officials and social workers, who recall the vicious aftermath of his raging rule. Their tone and cadence suggest an uncomfortable and ever-lasting impact of that mass murder and they directly implicate Veerappan for the death toll, kicking off a recurring moral dilemma that runs throughout the rest of the show: Was Veerappan a hero or a villain?

The filmmaking makes things even more complicated at many points by cutting away to Veerappan’s daughter recounting her experience listening to the news of this massacre on TV as a young child, alongside the villagers who saw her father as a demi-god figure. This switch in perspective is a trick that the show relies on to contradict its own version of the perceived truth, and hence doubling down on the futility of positioning itself in either side of the “Is he a good guy or is he a criminal' debate. There is no definitive guide to traverse the moral dubiousness of Veerappan’s actions in the veneer of the common man’s robinhood status that he still enjoys to this day. 

It's a fascinating exercise, where we get to witness someone dismantle a complicated legacy, one myth at a time, stripping down the layers of passed down generational wisdom and speculation about one of India’s most popular bandit kings. What remains is the mushy, muddled versions of hearsay and mythologising that elevates Veerappan as a complicated historical figure, who somehow stays relevant in our collective conscience. The episodes with interesting titles like “Into the Wild”, “To Hunt For”, “Bait Worms” etc distil his life story through chunks of expository ruminations, and parallels are drawn between his tough childhood and hunter-like instincts that was bestowed upon him at a young age.

The show connects these highlight reels of Veerappan’s early years with senior officials and journalists associated with the case, scraping through the infamous sandalwood smuggling days of Veerappan, trying to make sense of the systemic support. The background score choices in these segments are oddly reminiscent of the sort of grandiose score that underlines dramatic moments in narrative films, aimed to drive home a point. At each point, acquaintances and followers do not hold back in praising their leader and still relish old stories of his bravado and larger-than-life persona that they associate to his legacy to this day.

There is a moment in the second episode, when the talking heads go on a beautifully put-together montage about P Sreenivas, the forest ranger who was the only one to ever to capture Veerappan in his heyday and formed the major foil to the bandit and his gang in their operations. However, the officer was later killed and beheaded by Veerappan, after years of cat-and-mouse games between the two men, as laid out in this short narrative tangent. But the filmmakers make the choice to make a smash cut, slowly drowning out the score, to a shot of Veerappan’s face in a closeup from the interview, with his characteristic smirk, detailing his side of the encounter.

The makers also don't shy away from exploring his political affiliations with the major players from the history of Tamil Nadu politics like M.G. Ramachandran and also his momentary favouring of the DMK party in different phases of his life. There is this clear-cut connection being drawn to the political rivalries and partnerships he was attached to as a major figure in history, whose loyalties wavered depending on the needs of his people. For a six-episode prelude to his legacy, the show does a neat job of compiling years of research and scrutinised material into a captivating document that captures the inherent duality and confounding reality of a figure who is treated with broad strokes in our culture. The series successfully sets up the groundwork for further exploration of the psyche and complicated legacy of an even more complex person, who for a moment, loomed high above our lives.