Rudra review: Ajay Devgn’s OTT debut is elevated by moody atmosphere, weighed down by lacklustre writing

Language: Hindi Ajay Devgn is back as an aviator-donning super-cop, this time in Applause Entertainment’s new Hotstar Specials show, Rudra. But his Rudraveer Singh is markedly different from the testosterone-shooting Bajirao Singham of the Rohit Shetty Cop Universe. For one, he prefers deploying brain over brawn. And even by Devgn’s standards, this guy is a brooder. When he isn’t staring into the darkness, he’s talking about scouring the dark for the worst of humanity - violent criminals of the extremely grotesque kind. Based on the BBC thriller-drama series _Luther_  which stars Idris Elba in the titular role, Rudra is a show brimming with visual chops - pun fully unintended. Director Rajesh Mapuskar and cinematographer Sanjay K Memane create some artfully gloomy moments and frames. The city of Mumbai, in particular, looks a lot more like the deceptively cruel pre-dystopia it is. Devgn’s morose persona adds to the gloom, as he goes about solving gruesome crimes for the Special Crimes Unit under his no-nonsense boss, played by the excellent Ashwini Kalsekar. This might be his first streaming show, but Ajay Devgn gets a filmi entry nonetheless – walking towards the camera, out of the blurry shadows and slowly into focus, before taking a bad guy down. Still, this would rank among Devgn’s better recent work, primarily because this particular character suits the single-note tenor that the talented actor seems to have adopted lately. Aided by some colourful characters around him, the show is consistently watchable because of its moody atmosphere. It isn’t without its hiccups though, caused primarily by some insipid writing.

With a total of six different writers – three for dialogue and three for screenplay – the cases and situations the show deals with seem all-too-familiar. Everyone’s a manic serial killer, for some reason. In fact, after watching this Hindi adaptation of Luther, it feels like the Zee5 show Abhay starring Kunal Khemu was loosely based on the same source material. Troubled titular cop in a strained marriage because he’s also married to his demanding law enforcement job; vicious killers indulging in monstrous violence driven by peculiar motivations; different cases in each episode with larger connections staying through the series; not to mention the overall lurid vibe – the similarities are too many to be a coincidence. Abhay manages to differentiate itself just enough with diverging details so as to remove any instant connections. Rudra is an official adaptation though, so it stays largely faithful to the plot summary of the first season of Luther. I haven’t watched the original, so I wonder if that show has the same fundamental issue that this one has – how easily Rudra makes connections and solves the freakish murder cases he encounters. There’s hardly any real ‘investigation’ going on. Rudraveer just stares at crime scene photographs or thinks out loud for a bit, before making some huge assumption or implausible connection that reveals something about the crime or the killer. He reads body language, can speak to the intent of people through pop-philosophy and makes improbable leaps of faith with unabashed confidence. He shouldn’t be getting it right as often as he does, but there you have it. It means that while the cases are intriguing, they’re also largely unfulfilling. There’s a well-connected artist who paints with blood; a serial killer obsessed with the purses and personal possessions of his young female victims; and even a genius sociopath named Aliyah Choksi (Raashi Khanna) who kills her own parents just to show that she can do it and get away with it. Aliyah, who he meets in the first episode, becomes obsessed with him. Khanna’s turn as the cool, collected criminal genius is an intriguing one, but her presence on the show is a bit of a burden to the say the least, because she adds nothing apart from being a wildcard that keeps possibilities open. [caption id=“attachment_10429121” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Raashi Khanna in a still from Rudra[/caption] It also makes no sense that Rudraveer just stops trying to get her behind bars even when he knows she’s the killer. What’s to stop her from going out and committing more crimes? Instead, he turns to her for ultimately vague advice on a later case. In fact, the general meaninglessness of the dialogue is another consistent trait of the show. They sound like filler lines to connect one scene to the other while much of the plot unfolds visually. I’m sure you could watch the show on mute and still follow a significant portion of the goings-on.

Thankfully, six episodes seem about the perfect length, and the episodes are largely brisk in nature. Make no mistake, despite the weak writing, there’s enough to appreciate in Rudra, particularly if you’re into the genesis of ultraviolence by screen characters.

The identities of the various killers through the cases aren’t a mystery for very long. It’s more about what the killer does and why they do it. The whats and whys are diverse, if nothing else. Props in particular to the excellent KC Shankar, who plays the bloody artist I mentioned earlier. A fine actor who it’s hard to take your eyes off, in 2022 alone Shankar has been seen in Looop Lapeta , Rocket Boys and _Mithya_ before this. I look forward to seeing more of him. Atul Kulkarni, fresh off his cop character in _A Thursday_ , plays a police officer yet again. While there aren’t any histrionics on display, he’s still always fun to watch. With these Indian adaptations of foreign shows, it’s hard to tell if they’ll stick around as long as the original. Luther had five seasons, so the makers have enough time to iron out those writing chinks and make it truly gripping going forward. In the meantime, hopefully Ajay Devgn won’t drop it like the A in his name. Rudra is streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

Pradeep Menon is a Mumbai-based writer and independent filmmaker. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.