Known for his stand-up acts Vir Das comes up with a fictional show featuring himself as a psycho serial killer stand-up comedian who gets his feel or will to perform after killing someone around with his belt.
Taking his clues from Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro’s THE KING OF COMEDY (1982), Vir Das thinks of a great subject mixing stand-up comedy, suspense and thrill of a serial killer film together, but falters in its writing and execution unexpectedly. Besides, looking at so many names credited for the story-screenplay-dialogues (six in total), one wonders that how come not even one of them could realise that there was no humour in the lines which were supposed to be the most humorous in a series revolving around a stand-up-comedian.
In blunt words, if in a series completely focusing on a reality show of stand-up-comedians, spending a big chunk of its time on the stage-show, has to offers all awful and poorly written jokes in the name of comedy or satire then how would you rate it and continue watching it?
Honestly, I am not even interested in mentioning the big loopholes in the murders and investigations shown in the film so casually taking loads of cinematic liberties. Because I am still wondering how could they even smile (forget laughing) on those tasteless lines accepting it as a stand-up comedy while writing, shooting or editing it all and how could Vir Das himself write such stuff and approve it as a professional.
In short, with the above being its biggest downer, HASMUKH (meaning a smiling face/person) is neither funny nor thrilling and I had to make a lot of effort completing its 10 long episodes, especially watching the extremely lousy stand-up sequences. Also, was quite disappointed with the lead act by Vir Das, who looked like doing it as a commitment to be fulfilled missing the zest. However, what still kept me going were the acts of Ranvir Shorey, Ravi Kishan and Amrita Bagchi as the shrewd media expert proving to be the big saviour. So this Netflix series is not recommended, but you can still try watching its first episode and see if you can enjoy its supposed-to-be funny on-stage jokes.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
Tags :
HASMUKH (Netflix) Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, New Web Series Reviews by Bobby Sing, New OTT Releases Reviews by Bobby Sing
