CAST: Karan Tacker, Avinash Tiwary and Abhimanyu Singh, Ashutosh Rana, Anup Soni, Vinay Pathak and Ravi Kishan
DIRECTOR : Neeraj Pandey
Created by Neeraj Pandey and directed by Bhav Dhulia, Netflix’s seven-episode crime drama is a shallow take that does not travel beyond the surface.
Each episode has a runtime of around 40-60 minutes and is based on the book Bihar Diaries: The True Story of How Bihar’s Most Dangerous Criminal Was Caught by Amit Lodha.
Karan Tacker plays the wet-behind-the-ears rookie cop Amit Lodha, a highly-qualified young man who is posted in a lawless new land that he neither understands nor particularly likes. But he is driven by duty, and almost comically upright.
As Amit climbs up the ranks over the next few years, as does a lowly goon named Chandan Mahto, played by Avinash Tiwary in a performance so transformative that it makes his brownface makeup more redundant than problematic. Women are forgotten, bodies are slain, and more testosterone than in any shades of Gray could contain is spent, as show pits Amit and Chandan on an action-packed collision course.
Amit is an idealist, and over the course of the season, he’s hailed as the police force’s brightest new talent, ‘shunted’ for some time for rocking the boat, and then reinstated as a potential fall-guy in the force’s manhunt for Chandan Mahto.
A third character, however, is given the responsibility to narrate this story. Abhimanyu Singh is a station house officer who eventually joins forces with Amit as they form a rogue team of sorts to nab the elusive Chandan, whose power and influence over Bihar politics is formidable. Veterans Ashutosh Rana, Anup Soni, and Ravi Kishan drop by as supporting characters on either side of the law, while Vinay Pathak’s politician is so badly ignored that he might as well not have been there
Performances are solid throughout the series. Tacker and Tiwary are excellent in Khakee and feel like they are made for their respective roles. All of the actors bring reality to their roles and are at the right place at the right time.
With too many sub-plots and characters to justify, Khakhee leaves us frustrated. The series does not have time to dwell into its own main characters and breezes past its own narrative while the audience waits for sense.
Potentially interesting ideas such as systemic corruption and encounter killings are flirted with, but never fully committed to. On the whole, this is Neeraj Pandey’s storytelling. The same guy who gave us a riveting Special Ops.
