Undekhi Review: A promotional poster of the show. (Image courtesy: edge.storm)
Throw: Harsh Chhaya, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Abhishek Chauhan, Surya Sharma, Anchal Singh, Sayandeep Sengupta, Ankur Rathee, Apeksha Porwal, Vaarun Bhagat
Director: Siddharth Sengupta
Evaluation: 2.5 stars (out of 5)
Streaming platforms are full of heinous criminals, overwhelmed cops and unsuspecting innocents caught in between. At the first rinse, SonyLIV Undekhi offers more of the same. The criminal thriller pits a buzzing police officer Hemant Kumar against an ostentatious Manali family looking to get away with murder.
Undekhi has no superstars. But it has a solid history, actors who breathe life into the characters and a scenario that offers a normative cuisine with a semblance of style and seriousness.
The general construction is as follows: a criminal clan abuses the power and indifference of collateral damage. A Bengal police officer arrives in pursuit of a murder suspect for another murder committed by an alcoholic patriarch during a major Punjabi marriage. The cop proposes to thwart a brazen concealment.
The policeman’s raids on the wedding site – a sprawling seaside resort – put him in direct conflict with the Atwals, timber merchants who happily bind the local police and forest officials to pursue their infamous ends.
Impunity and crime go hand in hand in this fast-paced, moderately striking tale of a fierce battle of attrition that involves sex crimes, blackmail, threats of murder, clandestine agreements, complete disregard for property moral and a marriage threatening to derail.
A serious videographer is in possession of incriminating footage. A tribal girl is forced to flee. And a couple about to get married are caught in a split. The first four or five episodes resonate at a reasonable rate. Thereafter, the series takes a few detours – and a little dive.
The key flash point of Undekhi is derived from a recent real incident in which a dancer was shot during a celebratory shooting by a drunk man during a wedding ceremony. The series, created / written by Sidharth Sengupta from a concept by Mohinder Pratap Singh and directed by Ashish R. Shukla, generates a good level of tension, intrigue and energy.
At a raucous deer party before the wedding, a dancer is shot at close range by the lustful and intoxicated father of the groom (Harsh Chhaya). The crime is shocking but the disruption is minimal. The festivities continue unabated. The dead girl disappears in the blue. The killer’s nephew, Rajinder ‘Rinku’ Atwal (Surya Sharma), the family’s main convenience store, goes into action to keep the law at bay.
Rishi (Abhishek Chauhan), part of a five-member video team led by Saloni (Ayn Zoya), has evidence of the crime on a memory card. He is naturally in great difficulty. The younger sister of the murdered dancer Koyal (Apeksha Porwal) is also in great danger. They rush for freedom and security but are never safe from danger.
DSP Barun Ghosh (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) shakes things up. Alarmed, Rinku throws all caution to the wind. The hatchet man has to reckon with his own cousin in conflict Daman (Ankur Rathee), who intends to return to the United States after marriage because he hates his family’s criminal activities; his future wife Teji (Aanchal Singh), the daughter of an Air Force man who smells the truth; and the selfish Saloni, a budding filmmaker who makes wedding shoots for quick money.
The police officer is not an action hero. One month before retirement, he wants to go out in a burst of glory. But he plays by the book. He is humiliated, jostled, even slapped. He does not lose his temper. He is called an inspector and a thulla. He takes the ignominy on the chin. Not that his stoicism makes a difference to the Atwals and their henchmen.
Hemant Kumar’s songs are the anti-stress of DSP Ghosh. He hums Yeh Nayan Darre Darre and Na Tum Humen Jaano Na Hum Tume Jaane to improve their setbacks in a part of the country more comfortable with Main Jat Yamla Pagla Deewana.
In one scene, while DSP Ghosh waits for the fax machine to deliver a crucial research mandate, he meets RD Burman’s timeless Bengali coup
Mone Pore Ruby Roy, the mukhda plus a suit antara. The language we hear outside is coarse and the atmosphere is heavy, but this unusually silent cop thrives by retiring in a shell that cuts off the offensive surround sound.
If the vulgar words that fly thick and fast are intended to establish how terribly rude the Atwals are, the excess makes fun of the objective. The expletives are placed on so thick that often they seem to have been grouped only to hide the gaps in the dramatic graph.
Undekhi is supported by a handful of solid performances. Dibyendu Bhattacharya, who, for a change, obtains an extended role that his talent deserves, is formidable. The actor brings balance and power to the representation of the unpretentious and soft-spoken policeman.
Bhattacharya is restraint personified when he delivers his lines. But his measured and meaningful breaks – especially when the cop is in a place or facing a provocation – are what define his control over performance.
Model turned actress Apeksha Porwal, in the guise of a girl uprooted from the swamps of the Sunderbans and thrown into a hell in the hills, and Surya Sharma (last seen in the series Hotstar The hostages) also make a strong impression despite being faced with roles that could have been more nuanced and varied.
The meat around the heart of the show is sometimes thin. Some of the arcs of key figures are riddled with inconsistencies. The main antagonist, so sure that he is never assailed by self-doubt or in danger of succumbing to ambiguity, does not have the psychological depth that separates an ordinary villain from a completely rounded sworn enemy.
Papaji, the character of Harsh Chhaya, is a noisy and ridiculous caricature. The actor does not help things – he follows the current and transforms the obstinate old man into a grotesque figure in the process.
Furthermore, the analogy of the “law of the jungle” that Undekhi evokes via the character of the tribal girl trapped in hostile urban terrain, caged and treated like an animal remains a shallow and laborious device even when the woman finds herself alone after finding her back in the wild.
With the exception of the cop and the goon (and, to a lesser extent, the forest girl, whose background story takes eons to appear in the foreground), none of the other characters in this densely traced series n is psychologically consistent. In fact, the videographer who knows too much and the future bride who hesitates to marry in a family of crooks are engraved erratically.
As for the series as a whole, it can be difficult to close your eyes to its faults, but it is not inaccessible either. Undekhi more than compensates for what it lacks in terms of star power with its twists, turns and suspense traps.
((Undekhi aired on SonyLIV from July 10)
