‘Khakee: The Bengal Chapter’ series review: Neeraj Pandey’s cop drama turns over an old leaf in Bengal

Jeet in ‘Khakee: The Bengal Chapter’

A superb scholar of cinema, creator Neeraj Pandey retains revising chapters that eulogise the exploits of males in uniform and fatigues. This can be a syllabus the place he scores effectively. After an engrossing Bihar file that took us to the vortex of caste and crime in Bihar, Pandey and his artistic group journey additional east to open a window on the video games politicians play for energy in West Bengal.

Barun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee), a robust politician and businessman, makes use of criminals and policemen to stay forward of the opposition, led by Nibedita Basak (Chitrangada Singh). Ganglord Shankar Barua (Saswata Chatterjee), who has risen from poverty to achieve reputation among the many disadvantaged, does a unclean job for the kingmaker. Nonetheless, within the politics of worry, Baruah alias Bagha loses management over his den when his two enterprising acolytes, Sagar (Ritwik Biswas) and Ranjit (Adil Khan), let their egos and ambition get the higher of them and so they shoot down two law enforcement officials. To clear the mess, Roy brings in an trustworthy police officer Ajay Mitra (Jeet) for whom ends are extra vital than means. However, as anticipated, the plan backfires.

Set in a interval when the Communist Occasion was ruling the roost and Mamata Banerjee was rising as a robust challenger to the pink fortress, the collection seeks to show a symbiotic relationship between politicians and criminals within the State for the Hindi belt. The names and conditions are fictitious however the goal is prosaic. To recover from the constraints of concepts and creativeness, OTT platforms nowadays cook dinner the identical Bollywood dish in a regional pan to create a reputable style. And when writers really feel phrases should not sufficient, they cowl their limitations with blood, gore, and some expletives.

Following the success of Rana Naidu, Netflix has solid stars of the Bangla movie trade to create this pan-Indian expertise from Bengal. The collection has a definite flavour however the ululation of Hindi doesn’t work. Like how chanting Maula Maula doesn’t essentially make a creation Sufi, visuals of yellow cabs and Howrah Bridge don’t lend a Bengali soul to a physique of recycled concepts. And dim lighting doesn’t lend depth to a dilettanteish scenario.

Furthermore, Jeet isn’t your best option to steer a pan-India collection that has three winsome Chatterjees—Prosenjit, Parambrata, and Saswata—in its ranks. Jeet isn’t unhealthy however is simply too straitjacketed amidst gamers who enjoy layers. In the position of a manipulative politician, Prosenjit is an absolute delight. Alongside Saswata, he exhibits how you can underplay with out getting diminished to a chunk of furnishings within the body. They elevate the opening stanzas of the collection within the Bengali-flavoured Hindi and are, maybe, chargeable for making us count on an excessive amount of mileage from a car that’s designed for a median rider pleased with a couple of kicks within the intestine.

Curiously, the collection carries its ways of shock and awe in storytelling to its casting selections as effectively. Whereas the seasoned gamers fade out, the comparatively recent faces are allowed to flex their muscle tissue. It could have labored had they introduced some panache to match the grace of the seasoned gamers. Ritwik and Adil impress with their rendering of the tenuous bond between the hearth and the ice however fail to make themselves indispensable to the story. Adil has the voice and the presence that the massive display screen calls for and appeared just like the discover of the collection until the writers let him down.

Saddled with a sketchy character, Chitrangada struggles within the Bangla milieu. Nibedita is the supply of worry for the ruling social gathering however as a substitute of giving her character a correct arc, the makers maintain dropping her from time to time as per comfort to state the apparent.

Ultimately, the collection leaves one feeling that with Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh proving no-go areas for streaming giants, they’re opening chapters within the east and the northeast and promoting them to log a guide on range of content material.

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is at the moment streaming on Netflix