'Janaawar' web-series review: Bhuvan Arora impresses the most in this atmospheric whodunit

Cast: Bhuvan Arora, Bhagwan Tiwari, Atul Kale, Vaibhav Yashvir, Eshika Dey, Vinod Suryavanshi

Director: Sachindra Vats

Language: Hindi

The title of a new web-series that’s streaming on Zee5 is Janaawar. It stars Bhuvan Arora of Farzi fame. If I had to count all the small-town whodunnits on the streaming landscape ever since the pandemic has begun and ended, I would be a millionaire by now. There’s one more that’s coming next month that stars Konkona Sensharma. There have been others starring Manoj Bajpayee and Shefali Shah. But seeing Bhuvan Arora take center stage feels instantly likable. He plays SI Hemant Kumar whose wife is heavily pregnant and he wishes to spend some time with his family. We don’t need movies anymore to make us realize how the forces are unable to give time to their loved ones since they always have to choose Vardi over their wife.

So the moment Kumar decides to commit himself completely to the lady he loves, a headless body in his hometown quickly spoils all the plans. Life is what happens to you when you’re planning other things after all. The bodies begin to pile up. And so do the orders. But as the title suggests, it’s not your regular police procedural that hinges on finding who the killer is. Even when the cinematography and atmospherics reek of repetition, the visuals carry a been there done that feeling, there’s some thrill to be had in how it all ultimately unfolds. You would expect the moniker to have a literal meaning where we have a beast doing all the misdeeds. But metaphors soon take over.

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Templates have now become tropes. And Janaawar is no different. Before you reach the finish line to see who did it and why it all happened, you have to go through all the drills that are familiar by now. What’s also peculiar is how the makers constantly use small town stories and heartland horrors to craft a narrative. It’s been a while since Mumbai or Delhi or even a metropolitan city like Bangalore was used as a backdrop for a whodunnit. Maybe these lesser known landscapes add another dimension or depth or visual appeal to the experience.

And as mentioned above, Bhuvan Arora gets a role he can chew upon. A role he can sink his teeth into. The same holds true for almost all the actors who blend into the intensity of the idea. Don’t be fooled by the title. It’s not another Stree or Bhediya. It’s also not as urgent or breathless as Delhi Crime. It’s somewhere in between but also a show that has a language of its own. And Arora, a third wheel, right at the centre and deservingly so. Let the Janaawar be unleashed!

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Janaawar is now streaming on ZEE5