CAST: Richa Chadha, Pratik Gandhi, Ashutosh Rana, Raghubir Yadav, Shashank Arora, Sharib Hashmi, Paoli Dam, Amey Wagh, Jatin Goswami, Mani
DIRECTED BY:Tigmanshu Dhulia
BLUF
Vicky Rai (Jatin Goswami) — a spoilt industrialist with a Casanova lifestyle — is murdered in his own party. His naturally enraged father (Ashutosh Rana) — who happens to be an influential politician — calls for a CBI enquiry.
That brings in two detectives — Suraj Yadav (Pratik Gandhi) and Sudha Bharadwaj (Richa Chadha) — to solve the murder mystery, with six (invited as well as uninvited) guests as main suspects.
The crime drama is based on the 2016 novel called Six Suspects by the retired Indian Foreign Service officer Vikas Swarup, who also authored the book behind the 2008 Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire. Swarup has based Vicky’s character on Manu Sharma, the murderer of Jessica Lal.
THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES
The series, based on Vikas Swarup’s 2008 novel Six Suspects, has multiple subplots that tell us the back story of the suspects who are in the radar of suspicion to have killed Vicky Rai.
Jatin Goswami’s performance as Vicky, the cold hearted, ruthless politician; son is top notch.
In the novel, Vicky’s father Jagannath Rai is the home minister of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India. Jagannath’s political methods as well as Vicky’s homicide impact Uttar Pradesh’s politics.
Andamanese Eketi who has been travelling across India with a social service worker searching for a statue of his tribe’s god which was stolen and brought to Kolkatta by another social worker. Somehow wherever the statue goes, it leave death and misfortune. As Eketi follows the sale and resale of the statue across the country, he reaches Vicky’s party and becomes a suspect for the murder, as does the social worker helping him (Sharib Hashmi)
A retired bureaucrat Manoj Kumar (Raghubir Yadav) has DID and oscillates between being Mahatma Gandhi and his old self is a suspect to the murder too. The entire performance is a roar.
Bollywood star Shabnam Saxena (Paoli Dam) who had an altercation publicly with Vicky is also suspect. And then there is Ritu (Rucha Inamdar), who was raped at 13 by her step-brother Vicky and had motive to kill him.
As the backstory of the suspects unravels, so does Vicky’s sordid past.
His father Jagannath (Ashutosh Rana) goes the whole hog in keeping his son Vicky out of jail. Meanwhile, Vicky is a somewhat successful businessman, and Jagannath needs to keep him close. Once Vicky is acquitted from a case involving rape and murder, he throws a lavish party where he is shot dead.
IN THE KNOW
Dhulia, with co-writers Vijay Maurya and Puneet Sharma, change Uttar Pradesh in the novel to Chhattisgarh (probably to stay away from UP politicking) in the movie but that does not change anything in the story.
The story is most interesting in the episodes that trace Munna and Eketi’s backstory with the revelations of money, power and moral corruption into everywhere that you can think of.
The story has a top-down narrative which starts with establishing suspicion of a character and then traces the backstory and the motive and how each of the suspects are linked to the victim and his sordid past.
The unraveling of the two officers( Richa Chadha and Pratik Gandhi) who are investigating the murder and their teams is the real sauce of the series.
Mani PR as Eketi is brilliant, Shashank Arora as Munna is sweet and powerful all at the same time.
Dhulia is a pro at writing and making films about the nexus between politicians, businessman and criminals and his expertise shows.
WHAT WE LOVED
The story
Actors
WHAT WE MISSSED
too long
