Suriya’s latest Jai Bhim has been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It has become the most controversial Tamil movie of the year so far. Yet, it is also a movie that has received the highest rating on IMDb occupying the first position with a rating of 9.5. It has surpassed The Shawshank Redemption, a 1994 film, which remained in the first position for years together with a rating of 9.3. That’s a bit too much. 

Before we understand how Jai Bhim reached these heights, let us understand how IMDb works. 

IMDb or Internet Movie Database, is the largest online database for information related to movies, television series, etc. It contains information regarding cast, production crew, personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, and along with the film’s rating. 

The database was started by Col Needham, an English movie buff and a computer programmer, back in 1990. Amazon bought the database in 1998. IMDb allows registered accounts to rate movies on its platform. In fact, most data in the database is provided by volunteer contributors. For easy understanding, we can say that IMDb is similar to Wikipedia; both platforms can be edited by anyone. 

Now, although IMDb came into being only in 1990, it has ratings and information for movies that came before 1990 as well. For example, The Godfather, a 1972 movie has a rating of 9.2 and makes it to the top 5 rated movies on the database. Similarly, as mentioned earlier, The Shawshank Redemption has remained as the top rated movie for so many years with a rating of 9.3. 

As of today, the top 5 movies on IMDb are, Jai Bhim, The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Soorarai Potru and then The Dark Knight. This very list makes us doubt the credibility of the database, because we really doubt if those who have voted for these two movies to make it top 5 are actually credible movie critics. 

To understand better, let us have a look at The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather. The former was nominated in 7 categories in the Academy Awards of 1995. Now, the Academy Award or the Oscar is considered the highest accolade a movie and its crew can receive, and even a nomination is considered a huge success. Similarly, The Godfather actually won Best Picture in the 45th Academy Awards and was nominated in several other categories. So, when we compare Jai Bhim and Soorarai Potru with movies like these two, it is very evident that the chances of them actually surpassing these movies’ ratings are very unlikely. 

So, what could have actually happened? How did Jai Bhim actually reach the top? As of today, 26th November, 1,39,855 people have rated the movie. Out of this, 6,208 (4.4%) have given 1 as the rating. 1,22,023 (87.2%) have given 10 out of 10 as the rating. 6,774 (4.8%) have given 9 as the rating. The ratings of 2 to 7 have been given by a minor chunk of voters. The statistics of the rating itself seems fishy because those who have rated have either considered the movie too good, or have considered it so bad that they have left a rating of 1. 

Jai Bhim with a total voting of 1,39,855 has still managed to reach the top with a rating of 9.5. The Shawshank Redemption comes second with a rating of 9.3, in spite of having 2,495,234 as the total voting. 

Now, let us have a look at a few other Indian films that were released this year on OTT platforms. Last month, Vicky Kaushal’s Sardar Udham released on Amazon Prime and received great reviews. The movie was a biography set in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre period, and even made it to the list of 15 films, out of which 1 was to be nominated for Best Feature Film for the Oscars. On IMDb however, this movie only got 30,000 votes approximately and a rating of 8.9. 

Now, neither Jai Bhim nor Soorarai Potru were considered as movies to be sent for India’s submission to the Oscars. Instead, two Tamil movies, Koozhangal and Mandela were however a part of the list and they received ratings of 6.9 and 8.5 respectively. Koozhangal has made it as India’s official entry into the Oscars this year. Isn’t it amusing that the movie has received only a 6.9 as rating from IMDb, then?

Movies that generally release in theatres cannot escape when it comes to criticisms and reviews because the Box Office numbers make it very clear. Even if the box office collection is high, movies that aren’t great still get criticised by reviewers and have poor ratings. But, when it comes to OTT, we have no count of how many people are actually watching the movie, and therefore the chances to actually rig the ratings are high. 

If we notice a pattern, Suriya has opted to release his movies digitally on OTT recently. Kaapaan was the last film of the actor that was released in theatres. After Kaapaan, Soorarai Potru and Jai Bhim released on Amazon Prime. Apart from these two, which were also produced by 2D entertainment, Udanpirappe and Raame Aandalum Ravanan Aandalum, produced under the same banner, also had a digital OTT release. In fact Suriya’s 2D entertainment signed a 3 movie deal with Amazon and they were released one after the other on the platform. 

Movies before Soorarai Potru, like Kaapaan, NGK, Thaana Serndha Kootam, etc. were major failures for Suriya. So, it seems like Suriya turned to OTT to try and bring his market value back and turned to a database like IMDb to improve his market.

Suriya strongly believes that he can redeem his stance as an actor back as before by improving the ratings of his movies, maybe with the help of supporters. It should also be noted that as IMDb ratings for Suriya’s movies get higher, more OTT platforms would want to actually purchase his film for release. 

So, it seems like Suriya started computing these logistics last year itself with the release of Soorarai Potru. The movie received a rating of 9.1 on IMDb and has occupied the 4th position in the top 5, surpassing Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. The last film of Suriya that got a good rating was 24, which has a rating of 7.9 from 20,420 voters. 

Suriya’s fanbase is surely less than that of actors like Rajinikanth, Vijay, Ajith, etc. None of these actors’ movies have reached even the top 10 on IMDb. It is to be noted that actor Sivakarthikeyan has a greater reach, fan base and market today than actor Suriya because of the former’s ability to give a hit. His latest ‘Doctor’ was also received good reviews. Yet, the movie has a rating of only 7.7. In fact, one of the most famous movies of the decade that achieved great success across India is Baahubali. But, even that movie didn’t make it into the top 10 and still has only a rating of 8 on the database. As mentioned earlier, anybody can register and rate movies on IMDb. It looks like Suriya might have just taken advantage of this feature of the database. 

When a movie is released in theatres, if it does not get enough viewership, it is a box office failure. However, when a movie is sold to an OTT platform, the platform takes care of the promotion of the movie. The producers of the movie receive payment when they sell it to the OTT platform itself and therefore don’t have to do anything to improve viewership. Even then, if there is a way to improve viewership for a film, then it is still a win-win for them. So, Suriya might have undertaken the idea of proxy-rating to ensure that the movie is more viable. 

Speculations are that movies like Soorarai Potru and Jai Bhim have gotten high ratings because he has taken the help of his fanbase and those who have help through Agaram Foundation, etc to give high ratings to his movies. Not to forget the cybercoolies of the ruling DMK and their friends in the media who have been doing promotion for this movie. The rating for this movie prima facie seems like a proxy-rating. 

As mentioned earlier, Suriya has failed to produce hit movies in theatres and has therefore turned to OTT to make profits. Established movie-critics like Bharadwaj Rangan from Film Companion South, criticised the movie for its screenplay and making, even before the controversies came up. As Suriya cannot rely upon real movie-critics for his success, he might have had an entire team work to give Jai Bhim and Soorarai Potru high ratings on IMDb. 

(With inputs from Vels Media)

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