Gyarah Gyarah (Web thriller series) (Hindi)

 Gyarah Gyarah (Hindi thriller web series, Zee 5)

Gyarah Gyarah is a Hindi fantasy thriller, inspired by the Korean drama series Signal. 

It is a thriller that investigates crimes that span three different years in three different decades - 1990, 2001 and 2016.

The three central police characters in this tale :

1. Inspector Shaurya Anthwal (1990), played by Dhairya Karwa
2. Inspector Yug Arya (2016), played by Raghav Juyal
3. Vamika Rawat (1990 to 2016, first as Shaurya's junior and in 2016 as Yug's immediate superior officer)

Set in Uttarakhand, you have Yug Arya, who's a different kind of police officer. He doesn't believe in the police bureaucracy. His north star is justice, rather than following orders by his superiors blindly.

Vamika is the common thread connecting both of them in a sense, but she doesn't know it yet. As Yug's senior, she doesn't know about this magical connection, and plods on diligently to solve cases by the book. She has an unrequited love for her ex-boss, Shaurya, who mysteriously disappeared one day many years ago. Vamika has been steadfastly waiting for him, rejecting all proposals that her mother painstakingly brings her way.

Yug and Vamika complement each other well. He wants to work outside the system, whereas she is very determined to work within it. But both are dedicated to justice.

One day, Yug responds to a call on a very ordinary looking police walkie-talkie. Soon, he discovers that it allows him to establish a connection with Shaurya, across a vast gap in time - at the same time each time. This connection, however, lasts for exactly one minute only. Together they work across the boundaries of time on multiple cases, starting with the kidnapping and murder of a little girl. 

Since the call / connection lasts only 1 minute, and also it cannot be anticipated when the call will happen, both have to plan in advance what they want to say to each other. Especially Yug, since he is solving the cases in the present. 

Shaurya was handicapped by outdated forensic technology of his time - no DNA analysis, fancy instruments that give more detailed or precise reports, etc. Yug has this advantage, and hence is able to prove certain crimes that Shaurya just couldn't in his time. This sends a ripple effect into the future which affects the present.

Time is a major factor in the series. A Cold case unit is set up after successful resolution of the first case. This gang of incorrigible, defiant police officers is given really old cases. Including a serial killer one, which had shaken up the police many years ago.

There's a law that is coming into effect that cases older than 15 years are not to be investigated anymore. So the team has to race against the upcoming statute of limitations in the very first case. 

Messing with time, as expected, has unintended consequences or side effects.

When the relation of the story to the title is made clear, it is a small but delicious moment for the viewer.

Shah Rukh Khan himself has said that he has five standard expressions and he works with those limits. 

By that comparison, Kritika Kamra has two. 

One expression is when her character (Vamika Rawat) is in love, and one for everything else. The "in love" expression is her patent one, reserved for Shaurya Anthwal, and the remainder for the rest of the series. But she delivers her dialogues with the requisite punch.

Shaurya Anthwal (Dhairya Karwa) is a simple character. Lot of action, less thinking. He is brave and doesn't fear to tread anywhere. But detection doesn't come as easily to him. Yug's help takes him in the right direction many times.

The best of the lot is Raghav Juyal (Yug Arya). A troubled back story. A dear one dying by suicide. Being a witness to the kidnapping of the girl as a small child himself. All have left an indelible mark on him and made him what he is today. He is only after justice, by almost any means necessary.

Harsh Chhaya, such a talented actor, is criminally wasted. As the IG of Police, he is keen on doing things that are politically correct or advantageous to him and his unit rather than the right thing to do. 

His philosophy is that someone has to be found guilty of the crime, and the case must be closed. Whether that person actually did the crime or not, is immaterial.

But Harsh is stuck using "b****ch**" as a punctuation symbol in every sentence (comma, full stop, exclamation, etc.). And you can make out that giving gaalis is not his forte. So it seems really forced. 

Ironically his character is the only one giving cuss words, and is the sole reason why this can't be called a family friendly series.

There are flashes of brilliance, though. Brijendra Kala's portrayal of a decent man torn between duty to justice and to his loved one, touches your heart.  Nitesh Pandey gives what probably was his last (or one of his last) performances, and makes you miss him. Gautami Kapoor as the grieving mother fighting for justice for her daughter, who was kidnapped and killed 15 years ago (2001), gives just the right touch to her role.

The direction is taut. Grips you most of the time and doesn't leave you feeling bored. No fancy theories about time are spun, and things are kept simple - mess with time and something else will change.

Right now only Season 1 is playing. Season 2 is strongly indicated.

In short, will definitely recommend.

Rautu Ka Raaz (Hindi) (Zee5)

Slow film, but very nice. Set in a small village (Rautu Ki Beli, Uttarakhand), it shows a slowly deepening murder mystery.

Normally nothing happens here. Very cozy place. Fixed itinerary for everyone, especially the police compared to other places.

But then something happens. The location is a school for the blind. The warden (female) has died. It seems it is a natural death.

But then the autopsy report says - "suspicious death". Now the investigation starts. Everyone has something to hide. And the needle of suspicion starts to point towards the owner / trustee of the school - a local big man called Manoj Kesari.

Nawazuddin as the inspector / SHO ("Deepak Negi - tez hai par ajeeb hai"), who himself suffers from a form of PTSD, is the main character. But all the others are well etched too. All the folks in the police station, the various characters in the school - Principal downwards - are endearing.

The way the dead warden's (Narayani Shastri) character evolves in the viewer's eyes as more information tumbles out is done very well.

There's political pressure, love, complex relationships, greed, etc. It just seamlessly swirls from one scene to another. It manages to keep you engaged till the end.

It's not a top notch mystery at all. But something about it just feels good. Family friendly- a bonus.

https://www.zee5.com/movies/details/rautu-ka-raaz/0-0-1z5577122

Maharaja (Tamil)

A film that starts off looking like a comedy, turns seriously dark and also has a twist at the end.

A salon owner - Maharaja (Vijay Sethupati) comes to the Police station to file a complaint for a missing iron dustbin called "Lakshmi". At first he is not at all taken seriously. Lot of hilarity ensues. 

But when he is willing to pay ₹7,00,000 for it, the police start giving it top priority.

The real reason for his quest comes later. Slowly but surely the movie turns darker and darker with intrigue added to the mix. The end has a twist that few would see coming.

Nithilan Saminathan - the director - has a non sequential approach to story telling. It works for the most part.

Anurag Kashyap as a villainous character does a good job. 

Vijay Sethupati is fantastic. He doesn't let you feel any gaps in the story. Makes it all look easy.

There is violence which is gruesome at times. Definitely not a family friendly one.

All in all, will definitely recommend if you have the stomach for it.

https://www.netflix.com/in/title/81690671?s=a&trkid=13747225&trg=cp&vlang=en&clip=81727943

Anweshippin Kandethum (Malayalam)

Anweshippin Kandethum --> Seek and you shall find. This Malayalam movie lives up to its title. I saw it on Netflix.

The movie is a police procedural drama. Set in 2 parts, it joins both of them quite well.

SI Anand Narayanan (Tovino Thomas) has always thought differently from other police officers. He is more interested in solving a case correctly than sucking up to his superiors. 
Naturally this independent streak gets him into trouble. 

The movie starts with him being suspended, and waiting to meet the SP. In between he starts remembering the case that got him suspended.

Anand was the initial lead into a murder of a young girl, Lovely Mathan. He suspected the hand of someone in the nearby monastery, but is prevented by his superiors from going ahead. The superiors frame a history sheeter and try to beat him into confessing. Any suggestions given by Anand are dismissed. He is sent to get biryani for them instead of taking part in the investigation.

But Anand bypasses them, and uses proper police investigation to arrive at who murdered Lovely. He learns some shocking secrets along the way.

Unfortunately, as the team is taking the killer to the court, he/she escapes. After a chase, the killer is run over by a train and dies.

The team bears the brunt of his/her death. They are suspended for negligence. Not only are they branded killers in public opinion, but also they don't get the satisfaction of having proven in court that they were right.

Flashback ends, present begins. The SP (who is sympathetic to them, unlike the previous superiors) gives them a cold case. 6 years old. Another young girl (Sridevi) was murdered. Multiple teams have tried to solve it, including a reputed officer, and failed.

The team takes it because 

a) They get something to do

b) If they fail, nobody is going to say anything because others have failed before.

The team goes to the village, which is highly antagonistic to them because the previous police had used heavy handed means while investigating. 

But slowly and surely, they make progress. Thread by thread they unravel the mystery. And find the culprit.

Who was the actual murderer comes as a real shock in the end (at least I couldn't guess it). 

The cinematography captures the essence of the village in both cases. The lives of ordinary people, the simmering politics, buried resentments, the tension in the air when people have to deal with police, all are presented well.

The movie never develops a fast tempo. But that I think is deliberate. It is a relatively slow, but not at all boring journey. The emotions in the team, their highs and lows, all are captured pretty well.

There is no gore, no extra bloody scenes. Just plain mystery, and the unravelling of it. It makes this a wonderfully different film, and totally family friendly.

All in all, recommended.

Kadak Singh (Movie)

 Saw Kadak Singh on Zee5 (Hindi).

A man  - A. K. Srivastava (Pankaj Tripathi) apparently tries to commit suicide, and ends up in the hospital. There it is discovered that he now has retrograde amnesia due to the suicide attempt. 

The amnesia is so bad that he doesn't even remember his own daughter. He only remembers his younger son, that too at year 5 (the son is now 17, the daughter is older).

A. K. was investigating a major chit fund scandal as part of his work at the Department of Financial Crimes (DFC). He suspects that his suicide(?) was related to that scandal's investigation. Interestingly, one of his colleagues had earlier committed suicide a few days earlier, and he too was looking into the same case.

His extremely strict demeanour at home has led his children to give him the nickname of "Kadak Singh".

Since he remembers almost no one, he trusts no one. The Rashomon effect method is used well in this movie. There is a daughter Sakshi (Sanjana Sanghi), a love interest Naina (Jaya Ahsan) - his wife died in an accident years ago, a colleague, a boss, a head of the department. Everyone tells their own version of the story. 

It is A. K. who has to put the pieces together, and decide which pieces are correct and which are false.

A. K. may have forgotten people and places, but his procedural memory - he was the top investigator at his department - is intact. In all of this he is helped by the nurse at the hospital - Ms. Kannan (Parvathy Thiruvothu). She is the only one he can trust, because she has no vested interest in him or the events surrounding him.

The supporting cast is good. Sanjana Sanghi is an unexpected pleasant surprise. She showcases all the aspects of being an elder daughter in a house with a dead mother and a "married to his work" father, and a druggie younger brother, well.

Arjun (Paresh Pahuja) as the devoted junior colleague, who has full faith in his boss' ethics, and Tyagi (Dilip Shankar) as A. K.'s boss, do a good job. So does Naina as his love interest. 

The surprise package is the nurse, Kannan. With extremely limited scope, she still manages to show so many emotions as to endear herself to you.

Amidst all of this, Pankaj Tripathi stands tall. His eyes are expressive. His acting is as close to perfect as can be. He is one of my favorites, and proves again how good he is in this film.

Where the film lacks is in pace. It is slow (but steady). And is hampered by the fact that it is shot mostly indoors (hospital), thereby limiting the options for increasing the tempo.

But overall, will definitely recommend.

 

Kannur Squad (Malayalam)

Kannur Squad is a 2023 Malayalam-language crime thriller directed by Roby Varghese Raj and produced by Mammootty. The film is based on a real life police squad who were part of the Kannur Squad, a crime investigation unit, formed by former Kannur SP S. Sreejith IPS.

I watched this on Disney + Hotstar.

The movie starts off with the squad, led by ASI George Martin (Mammootty) finding an apparent suicide in the forest. They suspect murder instead. After investigating, they find the culprit and solve the case. 

But shortly thereafter, one of the members, CPO Jayan is found guilty of taking a bribe. This brings the entire Kannur Squad into disrepute and it is disbanded.

A couple of years later, a rich Muslim businessman, Abdul Wahab, is found murdered in the course of a dacoity at his house in Kasargod. The local police are unable to make any progress. So the SP of Kasargod gets the Kannur Squad formed again, in spite of resistance due to the previous stain on their reputation.

The squad gets into action. Using good old fashioned detective work, they find that a local named Riyas had purchased two SIM cards for someone else. On further investigation, they discover that Riyas found that Abdul Wahab had kept a lot of money at his house. He then involved two more people called Ameer and Zulfiqar, in exchange for a cut. Ameer and Zulfiqar also got 2 goons, Hathooda and Bambiha along for the job.

The job went wrong. Money was not at the house. In anger, Ameer killed Zulfiqar and assaulted his teenage daughter. Then they escaped.

The squad makes an all India chase. First Bhubaneshwar, then Faizabad. There they are given one single constable of the UP Police, Yogesh Yadav. Using his local knowledge, they land up in a village where the criminals' accomplice Pawan stays. And what a village!! Every one united in trying to kill the policemen "who are outsiders", without any morals about their own villager who is a criminal.

Pawan gives them Payagpur as the destination. One more train chase. The squad manages to capture Hathoda and Bambiha on the train leaving Payagpur.

But the main ones, Ameer and Zulfiqar, are going to Babaganj to finally cross over into Nepal. So the squad rush and corner them in their hideout in the jungle. After a fierce fight, the squad manages to overpower them, aided by the Sahastra Seema Bal (our border force for the Nepal - Bhutan border).

In all of this, there is no support from the department. Air tickets are not sanctioned. They have to travel using a standard police SUV for thousands of kms.

In the end, they are asked to turn back. In one of the best scenes of the movie, Mammootty refuses a direct order from his superior. And the chase is still on.

There is no mystery in this movie per se. Everything is pretty cut and dried. It is the grit with which the squad faces a lot of hardships, and their never-say-die attitude, which raises this movie above normal level.

Once they capture the criminals, they are offered plane tickets "to rush back as soon as possible", so that their superiors can bask in the glory of a job where they had no positive contribution. The squad refuses, and comes back by road :-).

The squad fight for the pure nature of being a police officer, which is to capture criminals and bring law and order into society. 

This is what I think cinema originally was supposed to be about. No gimmicks. No special effects. Only pure storytelling.

Mammootty magic backed up by an excellent supporting cast.

A film definitely worth a watch. 

Mumbai Police (Malayalam Film)

 I recently watched "Mumbai Police" (Malayalam) on Disney + Hotstar.

The film starts with a police officer driving and talking on the phone with someone. He says "I have found the culprit". And the next moment, he has an accident.

From there the story begins. Because in this accident, he has had a major memory loss. He not only doesn't remember the culprit, but a whole lot of other things as well. He doesn't remember his friends - in the Police and outside, his own sister, where he lives, etc. He doesn't even remember who he is, in the true sense of the word.

Plus he is again given charge of the same case that he had solved. But for him, this is like a new case due to his unique condition.

ACP Antony Moses (Prithviraj Sukumaran), this policeman, starts all over again. We find that the case is actually the brazen shooting death of a fellow policeman and friend Aryan John Jacob (Jayasurya) . The death (by a sniper's bullet) occurred at a function where tons of policemen were present, ironically for giving a gallantry award to Aryan Jacob. 

Antony's brother-in-law Farhan Aman (Rashin Rahman), who plays the Commissioner of Police) tries to help him get his memory back.

Antony discovers that Aryan, Farhan and he were very good friends. They earned the nickname "Mumbai Police" because all of them had served in Mumbai at a point in time, although Aryan hadn't served exactly at the same time as the other two over there.

The plot dives and weaves among possible suspects. Antony discovers a lot of things about himself. He finds that he was not a good person and has earned a lot of enemies, some of whom try to attack him post discharge. He actually was called "Rascal Moses", such was his reputation.

During this time Farhan is also not his usual self.

Antony finds that his previous investigation was not really up to the mark, which is surprising as he is a competent police officer. So then was he deliberately messing up the case? Was he protecting someone after finding the truth?

There's a sudden twist at the end, and the truth is revealed. It is at a very personal level, and is pretty unexpected.

All the main actors have done a decent job.  All in all, a decent mystery. Worth a watch.