Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein review: Tahir Raj Bhasin, Shweta Tripathi in a tiring morass of clichés

Language: Hindi Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein begins with a deceptively, explosive opening. Vikrant ( Tahir Raj Bhasin ), armed and in hiding, is ambushed by the security forces in the middle of nowhere. Worn, dishevelled, the actor also introduces himself with a voice over. “Ek aadmi ko sirf teen hi cheezein barbaad kar sakti hain. Paisa, Power ya aurat,” he says. You can gauge from this soapy introduction that you are in for a story set in some mofussil hinterland, featuring filter-less characters spewing high-decibel dialogue. Though that isn’t necessarily a put-off because if done smartly, as Mirzapur has already proven, intense yet animated small-town chaos is a thing of linguistic beauty in itself. But for that, you must at least have a decent story at hand, and a bunch of semi-intriguing characters to sell the grunge and bluntness that comes with life on the margins of urbanity. Netflix’s Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein instead, is a tiring morass of clichés and poorly written characters who never rise above the genre’s enforced push and shove. The eight-episode series stars Tahir Raj Bhasin as Vikrant, a college graduate on his way to his dream job and a decent life outside the trappings of small-town India. His plans to leap into this new life, however, are unexpectedly foiled by the reintroduction in his life of Purva (Anchal Singh) a succubus-like diva, who also happens to be the daughter of the city’s most powerful politician, a vile yet largely wasted Saurabh Shukla. Vikrant, obviously, has a love of his own, the rather out of place Shweta Tripathi, typecast here as some version of the character she played in both _Mirzapur_  and _Masaan_ . Purva is a Zumba trainer, for some reason, who has been infatuated with Vikrant since childhood, we are told but has waited all these years to act upon it. This pursuit, mind you, is neither subtle nor elegant bordering on lunacy that fits well in the world of saying an Abhishek Chaubey film. But here these ideas sag like the unclaimed fat of a bad script that neither believes in its premise, nor shows the conviction to follow its own path. [caption id=“attachment_10281891” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Image courtesy - Netflix India[/caption] The show’s creator Sidharth Sengupta has done some intriguing projects, especially some spectacular underdog work that has quietly lit up some of the humbler OTT platforms. _Undekhi_ on SonyLiv was a well-crafted meltdown of a toxic family conferencing over a marriage. Whereas Arunoday Singh starrer Aparahan on Alt Balaji, is the kind of pulpy, over-the-top small-town thriller that cracks you up with sparkling, almost enviable set-pieces. Some of this dialogue writing – courtesy Varun Badola – features here as well, especially in the exchanges between Bhasin and his overbearing father, the terrific Brijendra Kala. There is a fiery underbelly to every character in this story, but the show slides too easily into the envelope of the sound pots make when they hit pans. It’s edgy and chaotic almost all the time and it doesn’t help, that no one, neither the creators nor the actors it seems have paused to think if they are actually telling a story, or the greatest hits from some crime riven corner of the country. In trying to ignite the screen with their tongue-slashing dialogue, the creators forget there has to be a sense of the underdog in a protagonist cornered by forces bigger than his own will.

The problem with the series is that none of its characters, with the exception of Kala perhaps, are consistently written. Vikrant is simultaneously weak and brave while Shukla is savage and soft at the same time. The women are placeholders for typifying what women in a pulp story would be – plain, unreasonable and guilty. Even the usually dependable Shwetha Tripathi is asked to launch into some of her old roles via the same wardrobe mind you, for a character that could really should have gone to an unrecognisable face. Pulp fiction demands that its protagonists at least be fascinating, but Bhasin struggles to fit the mould of a small-town careerist desperate to make a life. Neither his polite diffidence nor his blunt outbursts land, nor does he boast any charisma that would explain a woman’s obsession for him. In a show that massive underachieves you could say, Bhasin’s Vikrant punches well below his potential.

Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein you can sense, wants to be in the _Haseen Dilruba_ space, but neither has the self-belief nor the actors to pull off a thinly layered script.

On some level, it’s a love story told through the lens of pulpy degradation, with elements of violence, corruption and candid brutality thrown into the mix. It provokes in portions but it is, after a point, a noisy end-of-the-night drunken dance of men who believe their groping and fumbling of the basics of storytelling will itself be a farce worth watching. Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein, unfortunately, isn’t even as bad, as pulp that done bad can become to feel good. It is instead a self-serious, exercise in wobbling across the tightrope of entertainment and value. Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein is streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer here:

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.