 "‘Kull’ web series review: Nimrat Kaur and Amol Parashar shine in a show that’s mostly hit and miss")
Cast: Ridhi Dogra, Amol Parashar, Nimrat Kaur, Gaurav Arora, Rohit Tiwari, and Rahul Vohra
Director: Sahir Raza
Language: Hindi
Traditional families are no longer as pious as Teju used to be in films and now web series. Sooraj Barjatya has milked the kindred sentiments long enough till the time crime and grim took over in the streaming landscape. Which is why every other web show is either about lust or a murder mystery. The new show on Jio Hotstar is titled Kull and rightly so because it’s about the Kull and Maryada of a modern traditional family that’s not only obnoxious but the complete opposite of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. It’s not easy to unearth the evil in them the way the conversations unfold and the way the screenplay unfolds. What works is the ensemble playing their respective characters.
Nimrat Kaur adds a brooding and beautiful aura to her character that suggests something suspicious and secretive. Amol Parashar is your hyper aggressive and over zealous blue-blooded Rajput. And Ridhi Dogra is also a lot of mystery to the already murky narrative. A murder has taken place and we have to find the killer. Who is it? Think of Kull as a hybrid of Amitabh Bachchan’s Mohabbatein and Daniel Craig’s Knives Out with middling results. And because we are going to consume this show on our mobile phones and television, the grandeur never explodes the way it should.
The good thing is that director Sahir Raza gets to explore every character’s arc as he has done all the time in the world. There are long shots of the palace the family owns, stunning attires, sprawling landscapes, and tried and tested dialogues about honour and horror. The only thing that stops this show from being a breakout one is the familiarity with the story. It will be interesting to see how the viewers receive it. It has everything going for it and yet you feel there is something missing.
But we must talk about the star cast again. All the actors that the director has chosen have shown immense potential in their previous performances. Kaur in The Lunchbox and Parashar in Sardar Udham are two of the most memorable choices an actor has made in recent memory. They truly deserve to be much busier than they are. As for Kull, it’s mostly hit-and-miss. If there’s a season two, it should be more engaging, complex and compelling.
Rating: 2.5 (out of 5 stars)
Kull is now streaming on Jio Hotstar
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