PaatalLok
Creator : Sudip Sharma
Directed by : Avinash Arun/Prosit Roy (9 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9680440/
Yeh system jo hai, dur se sadha gala kachde ka dher lagta hai.. lekin andar ghuske samjhoge na, well oiled machinery hai.. har purje ko maloom usko kya karna hai, aur jisko nahi pata hota uss purje ko badal diya jaata hai.. lekin yeh system kabhi nahi badalta.
Four suspects are arrested on the highway while on the run and later its found out that they were planning to assassinate popular head of a leading News Channel, Sanjeev Mehra (Neeraj Kabi). The case is assigned to Haathi Ram Chowdhury (Jaideep Ahlawat), a cop from the outer Jamuna Par police station who has been looking forward to get one such high profile case that could change his career, but little does he know how everything is not what it seems and the further he investigates the more he finds himself lost. Its adapted from Tarun Tejpal's book 'The Story of My Assassins' which I haven't read.
Haathi Ram is on the lookout for proofs and past history of all 4 suspects, with a newly joined junior Ansari (Ishwak Singh) helping him out. Their camaraderie goes through ups and downs, sticking for each other with their developing friendship. PaatalLok works as a slow-burn thriller, as we slowly learn about every character. Was interesting to watch Sanjeev Mehra's character that is trying to stay in news and not be ethical while disclosing news, he very much resembled all the news anchors we see in real who only care about money. In one scene he aptly tells how the journalists and news people were heroes once and now they get trolled and killed. All the flashback scenes of the 4 arrested guys had tragic incidents happening, everyone had interesting stories but Mary Lyngdoh (played brilliantly by Mairembam Ronaldo Singh) one specially appealed to me with that emotional court-room last scene and her constant cry in prison, as she plays someone pretending to be a girl in the narrative to help the other 3 guys in the mission when she was actually a transgender.
There's plenty of scenes that are hard to watch, whether its rape of an elder lady, child abuse or a guy beaten for eating beef. The social commentary over our country is told at many instances which I assume didn't go well with a particular wing as they rated the show so low. One of the most hard-hitting scene for me was when the father of one of those 4 suspects tells Haathiram 'jisse maine musalmaan tak banne nahi diya, usse aapne jihaadi bana diya', his pain could be really felt in there. Then there's Ansari who is Muslim cop, a minority among rest police force resulting in some verbal attack at times.
Jaideep Ahlawat completely steals the show, though in last few years ever since that Gangs of Wasseypur character he did, I have always enjoyed watching him in most of the films. Even at the toughest of situations, his character Haathi Ram is hell bent on finding the truth, sometimes breaking laws to get the information. And Abhishek Banerjee was other highlight from the series, very less dialogues but those eyes full of menace and yet been soft with his love for the dogs! The female actresses get less screen time but Gul Panag as HaathiRam's wife (Renu) and Swastika Mukherjee as Sanjeev's wife (Dolly) do leave a mark. Renu's brother track was probably only boring thing in the series. While Dolly's love for dog despite knowing Sanjeev has allergy for it plays a very important and good part when we learn later that the dog is what that actually saved Sanjeev's life.
PaataalLok deals with many themes like greed, dirty politics, Islamophobia, caste, gender oppression and ofcourse dogs. The finale wasn't hard-hitting but lets put it this way that I very much bought the realistic appeal they give with nothing changing about the system and ofcourse the ending had to happen over a dog scene. If excessive abusive language and slow pace don't bother you then this a series for you. I would rate it quite high among other Hindi Series that I love like Mirzapur, Asur and Delhi Crime. Another season of Hathi Ram solving a new case would be fun to watch.
My Rating : 8/10
Betaal
Directed by : Patrick Graham/Nikhil Mahajan (4 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10651790/
Pehle hamara desh churaya, phir hamari naukri churayi, sona churaya, zameen churaayi.. ab kutte ki jaat, hamare bhoot bhi chura gaye, behanchod!
Vikram Sirohi (Vineet Kumar Singh) arrives at a tribal village to demolish it and take the villagers to a safe new place which they deny to go to. The idea is to develop a project with the contractor, Mudhalvan (Jitendra Joshi) bribing the CIPD squad leader, Commander Tyagi (Suchitra Pillai) who then instructs Vikram and his team to do the needful by filling in wrong information that the villagers are dangerous naxals, knowing Vikram is an honest soldier. Vikram and his team is stopped by Puniya (Manjiri Pupala) who warns that the place is cursed by Betaal/Colonel Lynedoch (Richard Dillane) a leader of 1857 British regiment. But Vikram and his co, ofcourse don't listen or we won't get the zombie episodes that follow. Inspite of very few jump scares, and fact that its only 4 episode series, Betaal still finds a way to fail and the search for a very good horror indian series continues.
Why would zombies beat drums, wait for almost entire episode and then attack the barrackhouse. And since when zombies got the features of Demons who can talk and also scare with slow turn of head. Then the funny sequences, one where Tyagi hairs turn white and reason told is 'shock' or dialogues like 'Hard Brexit' or a game of numbering so Sirohi can keep track of his team in the dark or a soldier killing the zombies while mouthing 'yeh bhagat singh ke liye, yeh jallianwala bagh ke liye' like seriously? or a bitten human soldier that spits out motive of Betaal. What works are the flashbacks Sirohi keeps getting about a small girl in his last mission as we are kept in suspense if he did kill her or not. The faces of the Undead army (Colonel and his team) with those big red eyes was another turn-off, and also some scenes were so dark it was hard to see what was happening. When Tyagi and few soldiers go inside the tunnel, or the 2 dead bodies that make noise of turning into zombies, were the only scenes that have scare element in the series. They do find a way to end series on a note of next season to come but they will have to really work on the writing. Even Vineet Kumar Singh act isn't satisfactory. Aahana Kumra acting was good who played Ahu Ahluwalia. Betaal is watchable only because its a short series and things do happen quickly enough, if only the story and horror was on right lines too.
My Rating : 3.5/10
Creator : Sudip Sharma
Directed by : Avinash Arun/Prosit Roy (9 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9680440/
Yeh system jo hai, dur se sadha gala kachde ka dher lagta hai.. lekin andar ghuske samjhoge na, well oiled machinery hai.. har purje ko maloom usko kya karna hai, aur jisko nahi pata hota uss purje ko badal diya jaata hai.. lekin yeh system kabhi nahi badalta.
Four suspects are arrested on the highway while on the run and later its found out that they were planning to assassinate popular head of a leading News Channel, Sanjeev Mehra (Neeraj Kabi). The case is assigned to Haathi Ram Chowdhury (Jaideep Ahlawat), a cop from the outer Jamuna Par police station who has been looking forward to get one such high profile case that could change his career, but little does he know how everything is not what it seems and the further he investigates the more he finds himself lost. Its adapted from Tarun Tejpal's book 'The Story of My Assassins' which I haven't read.
Haathi Ram is on the lookout for proofs and past history of all 4 suspects, with a newly joined junior Ansari (Ishwak Singh) helping him out. Their camaraderie goes through ups and downs, sticking for each other with their developing friendship. PaatalLok works as a slow-burn thriller, as we slowly learn about every character. Was interesting to watch Sanjeev Mehra's character that is trying to stay in news and not be ethical while disclosing news, he very much resembled all the news anchors we see in real who only care about money. In one scene he aptly tells how the journalists and news people were heroes once and now they get trolled and killed. All the flashback scenes of the 4 arrested guys had tragic incidents happening, everyone had interesting stories but Mary Lyngdoh (played brilliantly by Mairembam Ronaldo Singh) one specially appealed to me with that emotional court-room last scene and her constant cry in prison, as she plays someone pretending to be a girl in the narrative to help the other 3 guys in the mission when she was actually a transgender.
There's plenty of scenes that are hard to watch, whether its rape of an elder lady, child abuse or a guy beaten for eating beef. The social commentary over our country is told at many instances which I assume didn't go well with a particular wing as they rated the show so low. One of the most hard-hitting scene for me was when the father of one of those 4 suspects tells Haathiram 'jisse maine musalmaan tak banne nahi diya, usse aapne jihaadi bana diya', his pain could be really felt in there. Then there's Ansari who is Muslim cop, a minority among rest police force resulting in some verbal attack at times.
Jaideep Ahlawat completely steals the show, though in last few years ever since that Gangs of Wasseypur character he did, I have always enjoyed watching him in most of the films. Even at the toughest of situations, his character Haathi Ram is hell bent on finding the truth, sometimes breaking laws to get the information. And Abhishek Banerjee was other highlight from the series, very less dialogues but those eyes full of menace and yet been soft with his love for the dogs! The female actresses get less screen time but Gul Panag as HaathiRam's wife (Renu) and Swastika Mukherjee as Sanjeev's wife (Dolly) do leave a mark. Renu's brother track was probably only boring thing in the series. While Dolly's love for dog despite knowing Sanjeev has allergy for it plays a very important and good part when we learn later that the dog is what that actually saved Sanjeev's life.
PaataalLok deals with many themes like greed, dirty politics, Islamophobia, caste, gender oppression and ofcourse dogs. The finale wasn't hard-hitting but lets put it this way that I very much bought the realistic appeal they give with nothing changing about the system and ofcourse the ending had to happen over a dog scene. If excessive abusive language and slow pace don't bother you then this a series for you. I would rate it quite high among other Hindi Series that I love like Mirzapur, Asur and Delhi Crime. Another season of Hathi Ram solving a new case would be fun to watch.
My Rating : 8/10
Betaal
Directed by : Patrick Graham/Nikhil Mahajan (4 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10651790/
Pehle hamara desh churaya, phir hamari naukri churayi, sona churaya, zameen churaayi.. ab kutte ki jaat, hamare bhoot bhi chura gaye, behanchod!
Vikram Sirohi (Vineet Kumar Singh) arrives at a tribal village to demolish it and take the villagers to a safe new place which they deny to go to. The idea is to develop a project with the contractor, Mudhalvan (Jitendra Joshi) bribing the CIPD squad leader, Commander Tyagi (Suchitra Pillai) who then instructs Vikram and his team to do the needful by filling in wrong information that the villagers are dangerous naxals, knowing Vikram is an honest soldier. Vikram and his team is stopped by Puniya (Manjiri Pupala) who warns that the place is cursed by Betaal/Colonel Lynedoch (Richard Dillane) a leader of 1857 British regiment. But Vikram and his co, ofcourse don't listen or we won't get the zombie episodes that follow. Inspite of very few jump scares, and fact that its only 4 episode series, Betaal still finds a way to fail and the search for a very good horror indian series continues.
Why would zombies beat drums, wait for almost entire episode and then attack the barrackhouse. And since when zombies got the features of Demons who can talk and also scare with slow turn of head. Then the funny sequences, one where Tyagi hairs turn white and reason told is 'shock' or dialogues like 'Hard Brexit' or a game of numbering so Sirohi can keep track of his team in the dark or a soldier killing the zombies while mouthing 'yeh bhagat singh ke liye, yeh jallianwala bagh ke liye' like seriously? or a bitten human soldier that spits out motive of Betaal. What works are the flashbacks Sirohi keeps getting about a small girl in his last mission as we are kept in suspense if he did kill her or not. The faces of the Undead army (Colonel and his team) with those big red eyes was another turn-off, and also some scenes were so dark it was hard to see what was happening. When Tyagi and few soldiers go inside the tunnel, or the 2 dead bodies that make noise of turning into zombies, were the only scenes that have scare element in the series. They do find a way to end series on a note of next season to come but they will have to really work on the writing. Even Vineet Kumar Singh act isn't satisfactory. Aahana Kumra acting was good who played Ahu Ahluwalia. Betaal is watchable only because its a short series and things do happen quickly enough, if only the story and horror was on right lines too.
My Rating : 3.5/10
 and Betaal (Netflix)){kind=link}
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