Voot Web Series: The Raikar Case (9 Apr 2020)

Genre: Crime Thriller Drama
Language: Hindi
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 7
Running Time: 25-34 minutes

Writer: Karmanya Ahuja, Brijesh Narayan, Chinmay Mandlekar, Anitha Nair
Director: Aditya Sarpotdar

Cast: Atul Kulkarni, Ashwini Bhave, Kunal Karan Kapoor, Parul Gulati, Reena Wadhwa, Honey Kamboj, Manava Naik, Prakash Ramchandani, Vaishnavi Kadam, Neil Bhoopalam, Lalit Prabhakar, Saloni Khanna

Music By: Aditya-Nayantara
Editing By: Kathikuloth Praveen
Cinematography By: Manoj Soni

Introduction:

Woven around an affluent Goan business family, with a powerful and politically connected patriarch, The Raikar Case web series is about the murder investigation of one of the aforesaid family's members, a sixteen years old lad whose father and sister are already dead due to a car accident four years back.

Plot:

The series starts with an assumed suicide scene of Tarun (Honey Kamboj) with his cousin cum favourite person Etasha (Parul Gulati) on spot. But in reality, as per a severe and clotted gash found on the side forehead of Tarun's corpse, the investigating police officer John Pereira (Neil Bhoopalam) declares that his death was caused by murder and not suicide.

As the series unfolds, different variations of the assumed murder scene are played on screen, covering almost all the living members of the Raikar family!

The Raikar family comprises of the following members - Yashwant Naik Raikar (Atul Kulkarni), his wife Sakshi (Ashvini Bhave), his son Mohit (Kunal Karan Kapoor), his daughter, his son's fiancee, his late brother's widow and the murdered lad's mother Lily (Reena Wadhwa), his sister Anandi (Manava Naik), her husband Jagdish Apte (Prakash Ramchandani) and their daughter Manika (Vaishnavi Kadam).

Other people closely associated with their lives are their business lawyer, his wife, a local politician, his son Eklavya (Lalit Prabhakar) and his fiancee Mini (Saloni Khanna).

In regards to the murder, John Pereira establishes the following facts -

- the murder spot was a cliff overlooking the shoreline with the straight view of the lighthous.

- the time of the murder was after 10 pm.

-  Tarun placed twelve phone calls to Etasha in vain few minutes before his murder.

- most of the aforementioned family members had visited Tarun around his murder time and had one or the other motive to commit his murder!

- Raikars are a clan with lots of individual secrets and noone exactly speaks the truth at once.

Given the above-mentioned facts at hand, John Pereira enters into a series of interrogation of all the suspects and starts collecting the victim's missing items like laptop, mobile phone etc. to scoop out important evidences.

Layer by layer, a lot of secrets are revealed and a couple of more assassinations and kidnappings take place, till the real killer is finally revealed.

Watch the series to know the real killer and the aftermath that follows.

Analysis:

It's a well made murder investigation series with a lot of family drama filled with instances of - love, betrayal, ambition, incest, blackmail, fear and repentance.

Thankfully, the series is free of the otherwise customary semi clad foreign tourists scenes on the Goan beaches. The entire focus is on the Raikar family and their associates. Also, there is no nudity.

The well maintained and spacious Raikar's household is quite tastefully done in traditional Goa style. It is eye appeasing.

Atul Kulkarni has expectantly performed as a seasoned actor. Ashwini Bhave has made an impressive comeback after a long gap.

Parul Gulati and Neil Bhoopalam share good chemistry.

Everyone in general has performed well.

The editing and cinematography are taut. But the ending is kind of unimpressive with an unnecessary surprise at the end.

Conclusion:

Though not an edge-of-the-seat thriller, but the series is still a well made engaging watch with every episode peeling off a layer of lie and/or mystery.

Zee5 Movie: Bamfaad (10 Apr 2020)

Genre: Romance Thriller Drama
Language: Hindi
Duration: 102 minutes

Director: Ranjan Chandel

Cast: Aditya Rawal, Shalini Pandey, Vijay Varma, Jatin Sarna, Vijay Kumar, Chandan Anand

Editor: Nitesh Bhatia, Parikshhit Jha
Cinematographer: Piyush Puty

Introduction:

'Bamfaad’ - the word is a North Indian slang for an explosion.

'Bamfaad' - the movie is the debut film of Aditya Rawal, veteran actor Paresh Rawal's son and debut Hindi film of Shalini Pandey, the petite actress of 'Arjun Reddy' (2019)', the recent Telugu blockbuster.

Ever since the announcement of 'Bamfaad' being Anurag Kashyap's upcoming directorial release and given it's name, the movie was expected to be as explosive and unique in treatment like 'Gangs of Wasseypur' (2012), the last mega crime thriller directed by Anurag Kashyap.

However, 'Bamfaad' comes across as a well planned but hastily wrapped up project, perhaps because of the ongoing lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic and it's expected repercussions.

Even the director in the credits is Ranjan Chandel, a long time assistant director of Anurag Kashyap and not Anurag Kashyap himself, though the credits state that the movie is presented by him!

Plot:

Nasir Jamal aka Naate (Aditya Rawal) is a UP ishtyle intense and daring but misguided youth in Allahabad, who is always loitering with his friends and often involved in random mischief around his college and other surroundings, but always gets saved by the clout and money of his politically connected father (Vijay Kumar), an experienced and stoic personality with Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.

Instead of pursuing any career, Naate looks forward to meet and join Jigar Fareedi (Vijay Varma), the local gangster. But, by some strange stroke of fate, he bumps and falls in love with Neelam (Shalini Pandey), a cute looking nice girl, housed and frequently visited by Jigar!

Not the one to leave his lady love in lurch or to get scared by Jigar, Naate enters into an open tiff with Jigar.

Jigar being a seasoned game player and power figure, in aid with Zahid (Jatin Sarna), one of Naate's groupmates, creates situations which result into Naate killing a person and exploding an electrical transformer, pulling around half of the city in darkness!

Post committing the aforementioned unintended crimes, Naate escapes to Lucknow with Neelam. But his lady love is caught there by the local police and sent back, which brings Naate back to Allahabad, in spite of the the looming threat to his life therein.

In order to safeguard the upcoming elections, an imprisoned political big wig seeks immediate arrest or encounter of Naate.

SP Nagar (Chandan Anand), an honest officer sees this as an opportunity to pressurize Naate's father to turn witness against the aforementioned political figure, in lieu of saving his son's life.

Naate's father agrees to do the SP's bid, but he is shot dead by Jigar's men, right in front of Naate, causing Naate to visit Jigar's den, wherein he shoots and wounds a couple of persons, including Jigar and runs off with Neelam.

They manage to catch a moving train. But Naate boards down the train to finish off his pending duties and asks Neelam to travel till the last station and not board off in between, may what happen. He promises to find her once he is done with his duties!

Later he is shown burying his father and surrendering to the police.

Analysis:

Upon watching the movie, specially it's senseless ending, it becomes quite evident that the majority of the film was already shot, along with a couple of songs and the makers compiled it all to release the film on a web channel.

The film is not bad, but due to the aforesaid limitations, neither it effectively explores the rustic political scenario of UP, nor the live-together-or-die love angle of the lead pair cause and tug to the heartstrings.

The background sound is loud and clear, but the dialogues at times are inaudible and unclear.

In fact, I had to rewind and see a particular scene thrice to understand a word, which sounded like 'murder', but in actuality was 'bhasad', a North Indian slang for ruckus and confusion born out of anger and frustration between parties involved!

On the brighter side, Aditya Rawal has come across as a promising hero with good diction, body language and acting skills.

Post 'Gully Boy' (2019) and 'She', (2020) much more is expected of Vijay Varma. Both he and Jatin Sarna are quite under utilized in the movie.

Vijay Kumar has well enacted the endearing Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, an almost lost culture both in life and on screen.

Shalini Pandey and other actors have limited timeframe in the movie and all have done justice to their respective roles.

Conclusion:

In spite of all the aforementioned limitations, the movie is definitely a one time watch, for good casting, direction, acting, dialect and art direction.

TVF Web Series: Panchayat (3 Apr 2020)

Genre: Comedy Drama
Language: Hindi
Country of Origin: India
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 8
Streaming On: Amazon Prime Video
Running Time: 25-35 minutes

Writer: Chandan Kumar
Director: Deepak Kumar Mishra

Cast: Raghubir Yadav, Neena Gupta, Jitendra Kumar, Faisal Malik, Chandan Roy, Biswajit Sarkar

Music: Anurag Saikia
Cinematography: Amitabh Singh

Introduction: 

Panchayat repeats the lovable UPite mother-son casting of Neena Gupta and Jitendra Kumar, whose performances were applauded in 'Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan', a recent hit and critically acclaimed Bollywood release.

But Raghubir Yadav, playing the role of the village Pradhan, steals the show, right under everyone's nose, with his all knowing eyes, chaste UP dialect, witty remarks, loving and chiding attitude towards his wife and the overall body language of the village patriarch.

Plot:

Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar) an average engineering graduate, in the scenario of no lucrative high paying or high profile job in his kitty, reluctantly accepts the post of the sachiv or secretary of Phullera village panchayat in Uttar Pradesh.

In the remote village of Phullera, though due to the government’s reservation for women in the previous election, the pradhan or head happens to be Manju Devi (Neena Gupta), her husband Brij Bhushan Dubey (Raghubir Yadav) is the one who actually dons the hat of the acting pradhan. He is blindly supported and followed by his up-pradhan aka deputy head Prahalad Pandey (Faisal Malik).

Abhishek's welcoming team comprises of  the aforementioned men and Vikas (Chandan Roy), the office attendanant, a relatively smart and trustworthy guy, committed to his job and well being of his immediate boss aka Abhishek.

Expectantly, during his first year at Phullera, Abhishek comes across myriad idiosyncrasies of the villagers and gets frustrated with the slow pace of life, loneliness and stark difference in the biological clock, as the entire village goes off to sleep by 7:30 pm and considers 9 am as late noon.

But mostly, he is disillusioned about his non-happening life. Unlike his city friends, he has no fun times to post or brag about on social media.

To pass off his extra time and to fulfill his ambition, he asks his best friend Pradeep (Buswajit Sarkar) to courier him the CAT (entrance examination for MBA) courseware and studies for around four hours everyday after the office hours.

Amidst all the comedy and drama around him, eventually he appears for the CAT examination.

You need to see the series to know his result, his decision thereafter and whether or not something happening happened in his life.

Analysis:

Preceeded by Uttar Pradesh based series like - Mirzapur, Rangbaaz and Bhaukaal, which showcased high end usage of abusives, criminal activities and dirty politics in UP, thankfully and refreshingly Panchayat is a far cry from the aforementioned series.

It focuses on the simplicity, illiteracy and the state of non awareness of the people and the government aids and guidelines issued to combat them. In Panchayat, no one is a criminal or harbinger of dismay and unhappiness.

As mentioned in the beginning, Raghubir Yadav is just perfect in his portrayal of the acting pradhan and patriarch. In fact, many a times his style of acting and contemplation resembles that of Amitabh Bachchan!

Neena Gupta has well portrayed the role of hard-working and wise but bossy and illiterate homemaker, who is quite confident of her husband's wealth and power, but keeps both his generosity and over confidence in check.

Chandan Roy is a glee to watch in all his earnestness and obedience.

Jitendra Kumar comes across as a decent but disillusioned city guy who generally believes in bottling up and keeping quite in the face of ridicule that surrounds him.

Rest of the cast has also performed well. The casting is quite apt.

The background music is upbeat and interesting. In the limited given scope, the cinematography is good.

Conclusion: 

If you love to see the comedy and drama ensued out of the following scenarios -

- someone getting a better office chair
- a thief returning the mistakenly stolen article with a sorry note
- a groom in tears and his marriage on the edge of being cancelled because someone called him an 'asshole'
- villagers finding a particular family planning slogan on the wall to be insulting to their child(ren) that took birth after their second child

then Panchayat is your to-watch out series.

Panchayat is also a must-watch for those who enjoy the simple tales of rustic India.

Hotstar Specials Web Series: Special Ops (17 Mar 2020)

Genre: Espionage Thriller
Language: Hindi
Country of Origin: India
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 8
Running Time: 44-55 minutes

Writer: Neeraj Pandey, Deepak Kingrani, Benazir Ali Fida
Director: Neeraj Pandey, Shivam Nair

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Vinay Pathak, Parmeet Sethi, Kali Prasad Mukherjee, Karan Tacker, Meher Vij, Saiyami Kher, Vipul Gupta, Muzzamil Ibrahim, Sajjad Delafrooz, Sana Khan, Sharad Kelkar, Divya Dutta

Composer: Advait Nemlekar
Cinematographer: Sudheer Palsane, Arvind Singh
Editor: Praveen Kathikuloth

Introduction:

Special Ops is an engaging espionage thriller, constantly shuffling between flash back and present time, to show the years long tedious process involved in locating and nabbing a dangerous terrorist, responsible for masterminding the Indian Parliament attack in 2001, followed by 5 subsequent attacks all over India.

The web series also justifies the need to grant elaborate espionage budgets by demystifying the usage of the same.

Plot:

The series starts with Himmat Singh (Kay Kay Menon), a senior analyst at Research And Analysis Wing (R&AW) being questioned by Mr. Abbas (Parmeet Sethi) and D K Banerjee (Kali Prasad Mukherjee), the two officers handling the inquiry commission established to probe the reasons behind 28 crores worth of expanses incurred by Himmat to establish and run R&AW's UAE desk, ever since there was terrorist attack on the Parliament of India in 2001 by five armed terrorists who got killed on spot.

During the inquiry, at first Himmat flatly refuses to divulge the identities of his 5 hand picked agents and any explanation about the aforementioned expanses, all of whom he had put under the category 'miscellaneous'!

But when the inquiry officers delve deeper into the accounts and case at hand and ask him about his theory behind the Parliament attack and his following discoveries and actions, Himmat re-lives and speaks about his last 19 years, wherein -

- He was the only official with the theory that the Parliament attack was carried out by not 5 but 6 people, the sixth one being Ikhlaq Khan, considered to be a progeny of Himmat's imagination by most of the officials around him.

- He had recruited 5 different agents, 2 ladies and 3 gents and placed them in different middle eastern countries with fool proof identities. These agents were Farooq Ali (Karan Tacker), Ruhani (Meher Vij), Juhi (Saiyami Kher), Bala (Vipul Gupta) and Avinash (Muzzamil Ibrahim) and they were placed as businessman, homemaker, traveller, chef and shooter respectively.

- His quest covered the wide arena of the following locations for the last 19 years - India, Turkey, Jordan, Azerbaijan
Dubai, Tehran, Tbilisi, Istanbul, Amman and Baku.

- Even after meticulous planning and putting their respective lives on risk, his agent(s) missed Ikhlaq Khan by a hair's breadth more than once!

- Alongside, he was also living the simple life of a husband and father, constantly trying but unable to give sufficient time to his family and undergoing the usual perils of a clueless father with a growing-up daughter.

You need to see the series to see how Himmat and his team continue with their quest of catching Ikhlaq Khan and terminating his future terrorism plans, amidst the ongoing inquiry and it's final decision to release no more funds to Himmat and his team.

Analysis:

It's a wonderfully made series with good script, casting, direction, acting and cinematography.

Kay Kay Menon shines throughout the series with his brilliant acting, both as a committed and shrewd RA&W agent and as a worrisome and guilt struck family man.

Rest of the cast has also performed well.

Conclusion:

If you are an espionage thriller enthusiast, then do watch the series for it's brilliant take on solving a mammoth puzzle with the minutest of clues and mildest of links available