‘Khakee: The Bengal Chapter’ series review: Cop onslaught in the red and green bastion feels contrived-OxBig News Network

Jeet in ‘Khakee: The Bengal Chapter’

A good student of cinema, creator Neeraj Pandey keeps revising chapters that eulogise the exploits of men in uniform and fatigues. This is a syllabus where he scores well. After an engrossing Bihar file that took us to the vortex of caste and crime in Bihar, Pandey and his creative team travel further east to open a window on the games politicians play for power in West Bengal.

Barun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee), a powerful politician and businessman, uses criminals and policemen to remain ahead of the opposition, led by Nibedita Basak (Chitrangada Singh). Ganglord Shankar Barua (Saswata Chatterjee), who has risen from poverty to gain popularity among the deprived, does a dirty job for the kingmaker. However, in the politics of fear, Baruah alias Bagha loses control over his den when his two enterprising acolytes, Sagar (Ritwik Biswas) and Ranjit (Adil Khan), let their egos and ambition get the better of them and they shoot down two police officers. To clear the mess, Roy brings in an honest police officer Ajay Mitra (Jeet) for whom ends are more important than means. But, as expected, the plan backfires.

Set in a period when the Communist Party was ruling the roost and Mamata Banerjee was emerging as a strong challenger to the red fortress, the series seeks to expose a symbiotic relationship between politicians and criminals in the State for the Hindi belt. The names and situations are fictitious but the purpose is prosaic. To get over the limitations of ideas and imagination, OTT platforms these days cook the same Bollywood dish in a regional pan to create a credible taste. And when writers feel words are not enough, they cover their limitations with blood, gore, and a few expletives.

Following the success of Rana Naidu, Netflix has cast stars of the Bangla film industry to create this pan-Indian experience from Bengal. The series has a distinct flavour but the ululation of Hindi doesn’t work. Like how chanting Maula Maula doesn’t necessarily make a creation Sufi, visuals of yellow cabs and Howrah Bridge don’t lend a Bengali soul to a body of recycled ideas. And dim lighting doesn’t lend depth to a dilettanteish situation.

Moreover, Jeet is not the best choice to lead a pan-India series that has three winsome Chatterjees—Prosenjit, Parambrata, and Saswata—in its ranks. Jeet is not bad but is too straitjacketed amidst players who revel in layers. In the role of a manipulative politician, Prosenjit is an absolute delight. Alongside Saswata, he shows how to underplay without getting reduced to a piece of furniture in the frame. They lift the opening stanzas of the series in the Bengali-flavoured Hindi and are, perhaps, responsible for making us expect too much mileage from a vehicle that is designed for an average rider happy with a few kicks in the gut.

Curiously, the series carries its tactics of shock and awe in storytelling to its casting choices as well. While the seasoned players fade out, the relatively fresh faces are allowed to flex their muscles. It would have worked had they brought some panache to match the grace of the seasoned players. Ritwik and Adil impress with their rendering of the tenuous bond between the fire and the ice but fail to make themselves indispensable to the story. Adil has the voice and the presence that the big screen demands and appeared like the find of the series till the writers let him down.

Saddled with a sketchy character, Chitrangada struggles in the Bangla milieu. Nibedita is the source of fear for the ruling party but instead of giving her character a proper arc, the makers keep dropping her now and then as per convenience to state the obvious.

Eventually, the series leaves one feeling that with Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh proving no-go areas for streaming giants, they are opening chapters in the east and the northeast and selling them to log a book on diversity of content.

Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is currently streaming on Netflix