Cast: Jeet, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Chitrangada Singh, Ritwik Bhowmik, Aadil Zafar Khan, Parambrata Chatterjee & others
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Creator: Neeraj Pandey
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Streaming On: Netflix
Language: Bengali & Hindi
Runtime: 7 episodes of 50 minutes each
“Agar har corrupt politician ko sazaa milne lag jaaye to jail ke baaki qaidiyon ke liye jagah nahi bachegi, so I am going with the lesser evil here,” tells IPS Arjun Maitra, posted in Kolkata, to politician Nibedita Basak, an opposition leader in West Bengal. This is probably the strongest line in the entire 7-hour-long web series Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, summarizing the root cause of the problem and the fact that the solution lies in the roots itself!
The web series created by Neeraj Pandey is a standalone story but modeled around the same cobweb of his other work, Khakee: The Bihar Chapter. While that was a true story outlining the life of SP Amit Lodha, this one is a fictional tale involving the maze of politics, power, police, and gangsters, all united to create hell and rule it!
The story starts on a fine day in Kolkata where a police officer, played by Mimoh Chakraborty, nabs his own co-officer, trying to identify who is the mole in this entire Bhool Bhulaiyaa of crime and politics! The story immediately launches itself in the city of Kolkata, ruled by a powerful henchman played by Saswat Chatterjee and DCP Parambrata Chatterjee, trying to nab him and his men! But this chor-police gets too bloody too quickly, but is all the bloodshed intriguing enough for your attention worth 7 hours? Read our review to find out!
The seven-episode series is very calculative in its writing, dissecting the entire maze of police – politics, and gangsters in Kolkata one backstory at a time! The episode dives into the center of this nexus – Bagha, played by Saswata Chatterjee and his two men, Sagore Talukdar and Ranjit Thakur! While Parambrata Chatterjee seems to struggle, and we do not understand why, his exit by the end of episode one actually launches the web series properly, and it escalates rapidly as the Asli hero – Jeet arrives as IPS Arjun Maitra!
The constant struggle between police acting as the ‘Cuttputli’ of the politicians and politicians acting as the god of the gangsters is a storyline that has nothing new to offer. But what sets Khakee: The Bengal Chapter apart is the execution and the writing part. Director Debatma Mandal makes sure to keep the episodes as raw as possible and Kolkata as real as possible despite delivering a larger-than-life story!
Guns and goons are ruled by the gangsters in this web series, and despite Jeet playing a sharp and suave police officer, it takes almost 7-hour episodes to finally let him strategize and win! Amidst these strategies, the two boys who rule this web series are Ritwik Bhowmik and Aadil Zafar Khan, as Sagar and Ranjit live a journey from being a Gunda to a gangster, snatching the reigns from their leader.
It is almost like Baahubali might have been the hero of the film, but it was Rana Daggubati who ruled the kingdom until Prabhas arrived with a well-strategized plan in the climax! Ritwik and Aadil are the Bhalladevas of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter until Jeet switches his Baahubali gears, with, of course, Prosenjit Chatterjee as Barun Roy being the ultimate Rajmata but upside down!
Everything in this web series falls into place: the music, the characters, the backstories, the plot twists. But what rules this Netflix web series is Jeet, the IPS officer, not playing a larger-than-life hero in this larger-than-life web series! His plans get butchered and slaughtered because of a mole; before running for the goons, he has to focus on finding the Vibhishan of his group; his plans are not fool-proof, so he falters and strategizes a better plan!
What works more is the very easy divide-and-rule plan used by Arjun Maitra. Clearly, it is the easiest and the simplest trick in the book, but it has been written and adapted in a brilliant way – kudos to the team of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter for envisioning it! Despite being a bloody battle, the web series focuses on the characters rather than putting gory shots and bloodshed unnecessarily, and honestly, it is a breath of fresh air not to see another chunk of meat from a human body lying on the road, just for the kick of it!
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Despite having a brilliant cast, the web series lacks in building some of the backstories and characters that are a strong part of the narrative. While it started very slow for the first two episodes, it starts gasping for breath by the sixth episode and sometimes winds up things way too fast! Probably because of the pressure of being a standalone web series!
Khakee: The Bengal Chapter brings raw cop drama, which is far away from the glitz and glamor of the billions of cop worlds of Indian Cinema. Be it a Chulbul cop officer or a fiery Cop acting like a fierce lion! The cops in Neeraj Pandey‘s Cop Universe are probably living up to the image of cops and the serious business involved because when it is about gunshots, then cops might not have the time to say, ‘Aata Maajhi Satakli!’
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4 star
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