Neeraj Pandey's fame baffles me. After directing "A Wednesday," "Special 26," and "Baby," he has repeatedly failed as a writer, director, and producer to deliver anything barely watchable. Audiences were slow to catch on, but after the double feature of "Auron Mein Dum Kahan Dum Tha" and "Sikandar Ka Muqaddar," he was forced to collectively say enough was enough.
The same cannot be said of his time on the small screen, where, with each new release, his storytelling becomes increasingly jingoistic and boring, and people seem to like it equally. That's okay; everyone's taste is different. However, he has made things personal by bringing his bland style to West Bengal. He had the audacity to adapt Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club" into the form of "The Royal Bengal Tiger." Then he produced "Chengiz," which is an insult to cinema in general. And now he's here with Khakee: The Bengali Chapter. Will he stop after this or try to improve? I don't think so, but let me talk about his Netflix series.
Creator: Neeraj Pandey
Stars: Jeet, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Parambrata Chattopadhyay
Khakee: The Bengali Chapter, from creator Neeraj Pandey, co-written by Debatma Mandal and Samrat Chakraborty, with episodes directed by Mandal and Tushar Kanti Ray, tells the story of IPS Arjun Maitra's efforts to catch the infamous gangster Bagha. This cat-and-mouse chase is triggered by a botched kidnapping. In an effort to make a name for themselves, two low-level criminals, Kulfi and Chondon, decide to kidnap someone.
They assume they've captured some random rich kid, but it turns out to be the grandson of a senior minister, Hajra. CM Shirshendu Chatterjee's right-hand man, Barun Roy, is an old friend of Bagha. So he calls the man and tells him to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Bagha orders his most trusted aides, Sagor Talukdar and Ranjit Thakur, to find out who has the child. In the midst of all this, IPS Saptarishi Sinha is hired to find the child, and he begins his own investigation. However, when he is unable to do anything, the kidnapped child is returned to Hajra. Nevertheless, Saptarishi continues his crusade against crime in Kolkata, thus irritating people like Barun and Bagha. To appease their masters, Sagor and Ranjit shoot Saptarishi dead. It is then that Arjun enters the scene as Saptarishi's replacement, vowing not to stop until Saptarishi's dream of a clean Kolkata is fulfilled.
The one positive aspect of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is that, unlike some of Pandey's recent films, it does not become completely bigoted against the police and politicians. Arjun is described as an "anti-establishment" cop. Almost all the politicians have criminal records, and the top brass of the police department are under the thumb of said politicians and gangsters. It's not much, but since realistic Indian entertainment is rare these days, I'll highlight any crumbs of relevant content I can find.
Unfortunately, that's not enough to make the rest of the story compelling. The main problem the writers run into is that they first reveal what happened and then spend the next few hours re-explaining it without a hint of surprise or intrigue, even though the audience is aware of what happened. When they don't, they obsess over the identity of the mole in the police force, as if that were the point of the show. Since the writers basically put two characters at the center of attention, even if you try to guess who the traitor is, there's a 50/50 chance of getting it right. But I guess what makes the show truly implausible is its politics and its stance on sexual assault.
I can't explicitly comment on the politics of Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, as Pandey and his team are very vague with their insinuations. If he and his team, with all their lawyers and such, are so afraid of taking names and pointing fingers, why should I, of all people, take it upon myself to be brave and do Pandey's work for him? But yes, the series features a 2000s-era political party whose slogan is red, and which has been in power for decades, but is in decline due to its rising criminal activities.
That political party has a very old Chief Minister, but the real mastermind is the middle-aged monster who sits next to him. And this patriarchal nexus is about to be overthrown by a female politician, thus making her the first and perhaps only female Chief Minister of West Bengal. I think it's enough to have a cursory understanding of this state's politics to understand what Pandey and his team are implying. As someone who hates all politicians, I'm perfectly fine with it. It's just that Pandey and his team go to such lengths to hide the parallels between these fictional characters and their real-life counterparts.
Now, let's talk about the issue of sexual assault in Khakee: The Bengal Chapter. Many will probably think that the recent incidents of crimes against women are the reason why subplots or mentions of rape have been included in the script; you know, to give it more relevance. But I don't think so. Regardless of the party in power, women's safety has always been questionable in West Bengal. No matter how many times these heinous cases have made national and international news, the situation here has barely improved. And since real-life justice is impossible, Pandey and his team mete out extrajudicial punishments to fictional rapists to give viewers a sort of catharsis.
Incidentally, the series features Mimoh Chakraborty in the cast. Again, because I value my life and my work, I won't go into detail about why this is an issue. Feel free to research the actor's controversies on your own. I must say, however, that it's odd that Pandey, his writers, and directors have made Mimoh, precisely, the central focus of the narrative, while simultaneously making grand pronouncements about what to do with criminals. For this very reason, I don't even want to analyze the cast's work. With the exception of Jeet, they're a talented group, but I think they should all reflect on the projects they choose, who they share the screen with, and strive to improve.
On a technical level, Khakee: The Bengal Chapter is okay. It's neither groundbreaking nor denotes total incompetence. The same can be said for the story. If you're familiar with police procedurals, there's nothing in this series to impress you. If you're used to Neeraj Pandey's blandness, especially in his Bengali releases, you'll probably even enjoy this mediocre film. However, aside from the aforementioned issues, the reason I don't recommend watching this series is its blend of Bengali and Hindi. I don't know who started this trend of having Bengali characters speak to other Bengali characters in Hindi, and I don't know why this practice hasn't died out yet.
I understand Bengali characters speaking to non-Bengali characters in Hindi or another language. But, like many other non-Bengali productions starring Bengalis, this series has Bengali characters, played by Bengali actors from the Bengali film industry, speaking to other Bengalis primarily in Hindi. It's a strange, anti-immersive phenomenon. Have you ever seen a Bengali person speaking to another Bengali person in a language other than Bengali? Will Hindi-speaking audiences feel like they're speaking only in Bengali? Does the Hindi dubbing not hold their attention? Can't they read the subtitles? What's wrong, folks? Well, as long as writers and directors continue to have Bengali characters and actors speak primarily in another language, with only a few lines in Bengali, these projects won't receive even a decent rating. Accept it.
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