Strangely forgetting or not realizing the importance of this new potential opportunity of content creation and its airing without any censor restrictions in the country, RANGBAAZ is yet another gangster drama retelling an all familiar tale wasting a great cast ensemble in plain routine roles.
Interestingly where earlier we had gangster based web-series inspired from the superior Hindi films of the genre, now we have a web-series inspired from a web series using a similar kind of narration inserting actual news-footage of the country’s political past (of UP/Bihar in particular) as recently seen in Netflix’s SACRED GAMES.
Directed by Bhav Dhulia, based on real life events, the nine episode long RANGBAAZ has frankly got nothing new to offer either in terms of content or storytelling but has a few positive points that don’t let you reject it completely as yet another casually made gangster thriller.
To name them all, firstly moving ahead of Prime’s MIRZAPUR and Netflix’s SACRED GAMES, this is a series on a real Indian gangster who actually existed in the past decades in the region of UP and thus is not entirely fiction revolving around the wanted criminal.
Secondly the makers here have not deliberately stooped down getting into forced sexual scenes or adding unnecessary abuses in the dialogues. Yes, at times the language does become bold with strong cuss words used but they don’t look like added intentionally and work according to the characters and their onscreen persona.
Lastly neither the actors are forcibly loud desperate to grab your attention, nor the background score goes on screaming as seen in the other series made in this particular genre. The entire talented cast is quite natural in their respective acts, which honestly remains the key reason you keep on watching the episodes without anything novel or unpredictable happening on screen led by names such as Tigmanshu Dhulia, Ranvir Shorey, Ravi Kishen, Yogendra Tiku and more. Saqib Saleem shows the spark playing the lead role of a politically connected gangster and so does Aahana Kumra as his love interest.
In straight words, it’s a pity that a talented team of such caliber chose an entirely repetitive subject to make a web-series wasting a given opportunity. Ending on an exciting note, its very last shot has a text displayed on the screen which actually should have been the basic plot of the entire series as I strongly felt. And the text says,
“A diary was found after Shiv Prakash Shukla’s death naming all the politicians he had worked for. ……….The Diary never saw the light of the day.”
THAT in reality should have been RANGBAAZ’s key plot fictionally disclosing the possible secrets of the diary that was never found.
Rating: 2.5 / 5
