Neeraj Pandey’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter would have been the perfect crime thriller were it not for a couple of incongruous performance which impede the other-wise pitch-perfect crime thriller, arguably the best we have seen in ages. Khakee: The Bengal Chapter boasts of razor-sharp writing and unexpected twists and turns all through.
A coiling-recoiling raga of rage plays itself out in the combustive length and breadth of the lengthy parable on crime and violence in the ‘City Of Bhoy (fear)’, as a character (all set to become the, ahem, chief minister of Kolkata) describes the crime situation in Kolkata.
The series kickstarts in a stunning swirl of bloodshed and deceit when an honest cop, Saptarishi (Parambrata Chatterjee), is slayed by the goons of a gangster, Bagha (played by tonally attuned Saswat Chatterjee). The ensuing bedlam in the City keeps up the cops all night, as we, too, sleepless until the lengthy but never dull episodes are done.
Embracing the underworld violence of Kolkata at the beginning of this millennium, Neeraj Pandey, the showrunner, and his very surefooted team give us a series that is splendidly wry and rippling. Flab-free in spite of its inordinate length Khakee: The Bengal Chapter resonates with a very sophisticated sliver of storytelling at every crevice in the bumpy ride,although there are no really sophisticated characters in the broadly brutal, slyly tactile series.
Oh yes, Chitrangda comes across as sophisticated. But that’s because she is incapable of conveying the crudity of her character’s political ambitions. It’s like Zeenat Aman playing a sweeper in Paapi(yes, that actually happened!).
Chitrangada’s Nivedita is meant to be a bit of a social climber. Her love for her comatose student leader boyfriend deserves a chapter of its own (Nivedita: The Nadaaniya Chapter?) Everyone except the protagonist, Arjun Maitra (Jeet), is a bit of a pushover, posturing as a bully. Jeet’s cop act is so bang-on that I didn’t miss the compassion that it somehow misses. Jeet makes the grittiest, most non-nonsense cop since Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer.
Prosenjit Chatterjee, as a creepy politician, gets the frightened-bully act by its tail. His Barun Roy controls the chief minister (and in one shocking moment, Barun takes the CM aside and slaps him hard, without batting an eyelid). But Barun knows he is riding a rudderless tiger. He is an opportunist, but he is not a fool.
This is where the series’ two primary antagonists come in. Sagor and Ranjit, friends for knife, and I do mean knife, two criminals with different ideologies on crime, played by actors who are as different to their approach to characterization as their characters are to crime. While Ritwik Bhowmik as Sagor is bridled, reined-in, Adil Zafar Khan as Ranjit is an out-of-control bull.
I am not sure Khan gets it right: his accent and body language are way too hammy. However, for better or for worse, the Sagor-Ranjit equation bathes the plot in a bloodied quicksand of buried hostilities, surfacing to the top with the force of Nature.
The series is inexorably riveting. It sucks us into its world of crime and betrayal and doesn’t let go for even a moment. Episode 5 is especially a killer, a classic of crime and punishment played at a bitch of a pitch.
Bhowmik’s transition from the sweet, refined singer in Bandish Bandits to the steel-edged criminal in this series is worthy of a standing ovation. Prosenjit Chatterjee and almost every actor, even Mahaakshay Chakraborty in a relatively small role, soar in unison to give Khakee: The Bengal Chapter the cutting edge that the Bihar Chapter lacked. Miraculously, the female characters, especially Sagor’s wife Manjula (Shruti Das) and the cop Aratrika (Aakansha Singh), leave a lasting impression.
