Genre: Crime Thriller, Mystery
Language: Hindi
No. Of Episodes: 8
Based On Novel: Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Novel Adaptation By: Varun Grover, Dhruv Narang, Pooja Varma, Nihit Bhave
Director: Anurag Kashyap, Neeraj Ghaywan
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saif Ali Khan, Pankaj Tripathi, Surveen Chawla, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Amruta Subhash, Neeraj Kabi, Jatin Sarna, Luke Kenny, Elnaaz Norouzi, Aamir Bashir, Anupriya Goenka, Samir Kochhar, Chittaranjan Tripathy, Saurabh Sachdeva
Theme Music & Background Score: Alokananda Dasgupta
Introduction:
Sacred Games is the first Netflix original series in India based on Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel of the same name. It's first season was released on 6 Jul 2018. Sacred Games 2 is the name of it's second season, which got released approximately a year later, on 15 Aug 2019. Both the seasons comprise of 8 episodes each.
Two forces primarily work on people in blinding them from all forms of logic and self check and turn them into zombies, who perform heinous crimes, in the garb of being righteous, on do-as-directed basis by their taskmaster(s).
These forces are greed and faith. While the first season of Sacred Games was woven around the sentiment of greed - for money and power, it's second season unravels the plottings of an apocalypse, called upon by faith!
The Plot:
"A link in their pasts leads an honest cop to a fugitive gang boss, whose cryptic warning spurs the officer on a quest to save Mumbai from cataclysm."
The first season started with the reveal of annihilation of Mumbai in the following 25 days. This reveal was made by the local, powerful and fugitive gangster, Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) to police officer, Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), followed by the suicide of the former, in front of the latter, leaving him all alone and clueless and sending him and other government officials on a spree of unraveling layers upon layers of organized and intertwined crimes.
The second season starts with Sartaj Singh's continued search for the tool and venue of the aforesaid annihilation. It also continues with the parallel autobiography of Ganesh Gaitonde in the past mode, accompanied with his narrations in both past and present modes!
The abducted Ganesh Gaitonde eventually finds himself usurping the throne of the most powerful drug lord of Mombasa in Kenya and working under and in conjunction with Kusum Devi Yadav (Amruta Subhash), a RAW agent, who eventually gets shot in the head and becomes bed ridden and kind of brain dead for life.
A series of mish-mash involving other anti socials and ISI, intelligence agency of Pakistan, finally lead to Khanna Guruji (Pankaj Tripathi), the main planner and puppeteer of Mumbai annihilation and his right hand Batya Abelman (Kalki Koechlin).
Guruji plans to bring back Satyug i.e. the era of honesty and truth, by terminating the ongoing era of Kalyug i.e. the era of animosity and crime, in a planned step-by-step method, which involves annihilation of most of the world's population and recall of the Satyug era with a protected and selected set of Guruji's followers who will be following the lifestyle teachings of Guruji, which also advocates free sex and and eating of bland food and a customized narcotic!
To bring about the aforementioned annihilation, Guruji's modus operandi is to act as catalyst between two warring nations. To start with, it would be India and Pakistan. The idea herein is to motivate and assist Pakistan based terrorist, Shahid Khan (Ranvir Shorey) to plant and activate a nuclear bomb in Mumbai, which would kill lakhs of Kalyug infected Mumbaikars at one go.
Also, it would incite India to meat out a similar attack in Pakistan, which would result in similar casualties on the latter's soil. This action-reaction chain would continue and aggravate with each passing day.
Eventually, other warring nations like North Korea-South Korea and Israel-Palestine will be brought into this apocalyptic fold, and so on and so forth, till the whole world would turn against each other and self destruct itself!
Sartaj Singh in his obsession to solve the case ends up into the bad books of his superiors, joins Guruji's ashram and even gets addicted to Guruji's customized narcotic capsules. Feeling all alone, beaten and tired, he wishes and requests his ex-wife Megha Singh (Snupriya Goenka) to return back to him in vain, but still carries on his solitary pursue. He also finds out the link between Ganesh Gaitonde and himself.
Government officials, like Inspector Majid Ali Khan (Aamir Bashir), ACIO Markand (Samir Kochhar) and others carry on the aforementioned same pursue, using the relatively conservative methods.
Finally, Sartaj Singh and his peers are able to find out and locate the tool of annihilation, which happens to be a nuclear bomb with the capacity of eradicating around eight lakhs people at one go!
See the series to know what follows next.
Series Analysis:
As mentioned above, the entire series is depicted in both past and present modes, via Ganesh Gaitonde and Sartaj Singh and life around him respectively. Alongside, the series comprises of dreams, nightmares and illusions, brought upon by fear, guilt and effect of narcotics.
As compared to the first season, the intensity of crass language and vividness of copulation scenes, whatever few are there, is much less. Also, unlike the first season, there is no nudity.
However expletives like m*#$@c*# and g*#*u are used extensively in all kinds of situations, more like catchphrases than abusives. These words are mouthed by characters - out of camaraderie, as customary greeting, as rebuke, as reference and even when they are thinking alone.
The storyline is relatively new and the display of the series of sequences is quite interesting.
Cast Analysis:
Without an iota of doubt, Nawazuddin Siddiqui comes out as an extremely seasoned actor and if we combine both the series and if it is permitted, then he is surely the 'baap of copulation scenes' of Indian screen. As per the demand of such scenes, he effortlessly instills within them, the facial expressions emitting - hate, habit, love, indifference, punishment, addiction and appreciation!
Saif Ali Khan looks fitter and more in control than he looked in the first season. Also, the states of mental desperation and pain of withdrawal symptoms of narcotics are well enacted by him.
Though not present in the first season, Pankaj Tripathi emerges as a complete surprise package in this season. Already well appreciated for his perfect portrayals of roles of pimp, politician, gang lord etc. and immaculate dialogue deliveries in assorted dialects in Bollywood movies, Pankj Tripathi herein, for the first time is seen sans any beard or moustache. He has well played the character of a cool, calm and soft spoken Guru, who speaks chaste Hindi and in the name of Pankaj Aasan, copulates in a pond, with one or other of his favorite disciples, irrespective of his/her gender!
Rest of the cast has also performed quite well, specially Amruta Subhash, who looks quite effective in her brain dead scenes.
Conclusion:
Sacred Games 2 is a well made series with - relatively new screenplay, amazing acting and sleek editing. It's an all encompassing display of lives of assorted people whose lives happen to be interlinked within the premises of the storyline.
Unlike season one, it is global in it's approach.
Language: Hindi
No. Of Episodes: 8
Based On Novel: Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Novel Adaptation By: Varun Grover, Dhruv Narang, Pooja Varma, Nihit Bhave
Director: Anurag Kashyap, Neeraj Ghaywan
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saif Ali Khan, Pankaj Tripathi, Surveen Chawla, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Amruta Subhash, Neeraj Kabi, Jatin Sarna, Luke Kenny, Elnaaz Norouzi, Aamir Bashir, Anupriya Goenka, Samir Kochhar, Chittaranjan Tripathy, Saurabh Sachdeva
Theme Music & Background Score: Alokananda Dasgupta
Introduction:
Sacred Games is the first Netflix original series in India based on Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel of the same name. It's first season was released on 6 Jul 2018. Sacred Games 2 is the name of it's second season, which got released approximately a year later, on 15 Aug 2019. Both the seasons comprise of 8 episodes each.
Two forces primarily work on people in blinding them from all forms of logic and self check and turn them into zombies, who perform heinous crimes, in the garb of being righteous, on do-as-directed basis by their taskmaster(s).
These forces are greed and faith. While the first season of Sacred Games was woven around the sentiment of greed - for money and power, it's second season unravels the plottings of an apocalypse, called upon by faith!
The Plot:
"A link in their pasts leads an honest cop to a fugitive gang boss, whose cryptic warning spurs the officer on a quest to save Mumbai from cataclysm."
The first season started with the reveal of annihilation of Mumbai in the following 25 days. This reveal was made by the local, powerful and fugitive gangster, Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) to police officer, Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), followed by the suicide of the former, in front of the latter, leaving him all alone and clueless and sending him and other government officials on a spree of unraveling layers upon layers of organized and intertwined crimes.
The second season starts with Sartaj Singh's continued search for the tool and venue of the aforesaid annihilation. It also continues with the parallel autobiography of Ganesh Gaitonde in the past mode, accompanied with his narrations in both past and present modes!
The abducted Ganesh Gaitonde eventually finds himself usurping the throne of the most powerful drug lord of Mombasa in Kenya and working under and in conjunction with Kusum Devi Yadav (Amruta Subhash), a RAW agent, who eventually gets shot in the head and becomes bed ridden and kind of brain dead for life.
A series of mish-mash involving other anti socials and ISI, intelligence agency of Pakistan, finally lead to Khanna Guruji (Pankaj Tripathi), the main planner and puppeteer of Mumbai annihilation and his right hand Batya Abelman (Kalki Koechlin).
Guruji plans to bring back Satyug i.e. the era of honesty and truth, by terminating the ongoing era of Kalyug i.e. the era of animosity and crime, in a planned step-by-step method, which involves annihilation of most of the world's population and recall of the Satyug era with a protected and selected set of Guruji's followers who will be following the lifestyle teachings of Guruji, which also advocates free sex and and eating of bland food and a customized narcotic!
To bring about the aforementioned annihilation, Guruji's modus operandi is to act as catalyst between two warring nations. To start with, it would be India and Pakistan. The idea herein is to motivate and assist Pakistan based terrorist, Shahid Khan (Ranvir Shorey) to plant and activate a nuclear bomb in Mumbai, which would kill lakhs of Kalyug infected Mumbaikars at one go.
Also, it would incite India to meat out a similar attack in Pakistan, which would result in similar casualties on the latter's soil. This action-reaction chain would continue and aggravate with each passing day.
Eventually, other warring nations like North Korea-South Korea and Israel-Palestine will be brought into this apocalyptic fold, and so on and so forth, till the whole world would turn against each other and self destruct itself!
Sartaj Singh in his obsession to solve the case ends up into the bad books of his superiors, joins Guruji's ashram and even gets addicted to Guruji's customized narcotic capsules. Feeling all alone, beaten and tired, he wishes and requests his ex-wife Megha Singh (Snupriya Goenka) to return back to him in vain, but still carries on his solitary pursue. He also finds out the link between Ganesh Gaitonde and himself.
Government officials, like Inspector Majid Ali Khan (Aamir Bashir), ACIO Markand (Samir Kochhar) and others carry on the aforementioned same pursue, using the relatively conservative methods.
Finally, Sartaj Singh and his peers are able to find out and locate the tool of annihilation, which happens to be a nuclear bomb with the capacity of eradicating around eight lakhs people at one go!
See the series to know what follows next.
Series Analysis:
As mentioned above, the entire series is depicted in both past and present modes, via Ganesh Gaitonde and Sartaj Singh and life around him respectively. Alongside, the series comprises of dreams, nightmares and illusions, brought upon by fear, guilt and effect of narcotics.
As compared to the first season, the intensity of crass language and vividness of copulation scenes, whatever few are there, is much less. Also, unlike the first season, there is no nudity.
However expletives like m*#$@c*# and g*#*u are used extensively in all kinds of situations, more like catchphrases than abusives. These words are mouthed by characters - out of camaraderie, as customary greeting, as rebuke, as reference and even when they are thinking alone.
The storyline is relatively new and the display of the series of sequences is quite interesting.
Cast Analysis:
Without an iota of doubt, Nawazuddin Siddiqui comes out as an extremely seasoned actor and if we combine both the series and if it is permitted, then he is surely the 'baap of copulation scenes' of Indian screen. As per the demand of such scenes, he effortlessly instills within them, the facial expressions emitting - hate, habit, love, indifference, punishment, addiction and appreciation!
Saif Ali Khan looks fitter and more in control than he looked in the first season. Also, the states of mental desperation and pain of withdrawal symptoms of narcotics are well enacted by him.
Though not present in the first season, Pankaj Tripathi emerges as a complete surprise package in this season. Already well appreciated for his perfect portrayals of roles of pimp, politician, gang lord etc. and immaculate dialogue deliveries in assorted dialects in Bollywood movies, Pankj Tripathi herein, for the first time is seen sans any beard or moustache. He has well played the character of a cool, calm and soft spoken Guru, who speaks chaste Hindi and in the name of Pankaj Aasan, copulates in a pond, with one or other of his favorite disciples, irrespective of his/her gender!
Rest of the cast has also performed quite well, specially Amruta Subhash, who looks quite effective in her brain dead scenes.
Conclusion:
Sacred Games 2 is a well made series with - relatively new screenplay, amazing acting and sleek editing. It's an all encompassing display of lives of assorted people whose lives happen to be interlinked within the premises of the storyline.
Unlike season one, it is global in it's approach.
