The fusion of crime, politics, police work, family dynamics makes it a must watch
In Shehar lakhsA neo-noir crime drama series laced with dark humor and atmosphere that evokes the heat and dust of the location, director and showrunner Navdeep Singh (NH 10, Lal Kaptan) returns to the fictional town of Rajasthan where his critically acclaimed 2007 debut, Manorama was set six feet below.
The long-format exercise is a far cry (both in substance and style) from the thriller Singh made 16 years ago, but it pays substantial dividends. However, there is so much going on in the series that the messy, untidy history of the marble mining town that the script wants to dive into often gets lost in a thick haze of obscurity.
Shehar lakhs Neither possesses the depth and range of Dahad or Kohra, but the show creates a character that immediately commands attention as Singh and Devika Bhagat’s script is able to carve out for them.
The eight-part Amazon Prime Video show revolves around a man who claims to be a negotiator (he’s not a fixer, he insists) and has a past he’s determined to live with. But circumstances conspire to make him face the reality he wants to run away from.
The dashing hero Devendra Singh Tomar (played with poise by Priyanshu Painuli), reluctantly returns to his hometown in an SUV gifted by his boss to a demanding young mistress who wants his car back in one piece. He left Lakhot a decade ago and isn’t sure it’s a good idea to return.
The vehicle Dev drives, the family he tries to reconnect with, and the terrain he’s sent to Lakhote for – ending a siege of a marble mine by an angry local tribe that inhabits the land. Shatabdi – there is no end to his and others’ suffering.
A local activist Vikas Kachdar (Chandan Roy) – he has a doctoral thesis on the social impact of mining under his belt – leads the protesters. He is the man with whom Dev talks. But progress is painfully slow because Vikas refuses to abandon the cause he supports or the people he leads.
Lakhote is on the brink of a development boom – a road from the city to Kota is being built and the opening of a new marble mine promises to open up avenues of growth for its residents – but its small-town atmosphere is hard to shake off.
Shehar lakhs Begins with the discovery of the body of a white woman buried in a dry, dusty, desolate field. Pallavi (Kubra Sait) of the Lakhot police station’s women’s cell is scrambling for clues even as officer-in-charge Rajveer Rangot (Manu Rishi Chadha) wants her to close the case and move on. But the only woman in the male-dominated police station, she remains steadfast.
Every episode of it Shehar lakhs About an hour long, the last one clocks in at over a minute and 70 minutes. The series inevitably feels stretched and taxing at times. Writers are under constant pressure from sticking to less effective passages too clearly and diminishing the impact of the series as a whole.
But the parts and elements of the twisted story that work – especially a few characters and complex relationships with her father (Gyan Prakash), elder brother Jayendra (Kashyap Shangari), sister-in-law Vidushi (Shruti Jolly) and Dev. Sandhya (Shruti Menon), the girlfriend he left behind without so much as a buy-your-live – creates intrigue and suspense.
Shehar lakhs There are three characters outside of Dev’s immediate orbit who add layers to the narrative – apart from the smart police officer Rajveer and the diligent Pallavi, there is the inept villain Kairav Singh (Chandan Roy Sanyal).
Kairov owns a marble mine that he claims will change Lakhot forever. He lives in a sprawling castle that doubles as a traditional hotel where many unpleasant secrets are buried.
Fraud and treachery, the scheming of politicians and policemen, deceit and deadly conspiracies, conspiracies and betrayals flow thick and fast as the series gathers steam and plunges into the abyss of immorality.
The male protagonist stands his ground despite being repeatedly roughed up. A tragedy forces him to evade the law and evil henchmen, including Bhai (Manjiri Pupala) and Bho (Sanjay Shiv Narayan), who work for Kairav.
Vi, who wields a bow and arrow as deftly as she wields a firearm, is one of the many women in Shehar Lakhot whose survival instincts border on abnormality, resting as cruelly as the stems of toxic masculinity. But not every woman in the series is her counterpart.
Like Sandhya and Vidushi, Pallavi and V represent two different worlds. Pallavi and Vidushi are good friends. The former is anything other than feminine—a reflection of who she is in a male world; The latter is a meek, soft-spoken housewife who comes into her own when secrets begin to leak out of her husband’s closet.
Evening troubles are the worst. He is caught between two bickering, estranged brothers and one man who wants to keep Lakhot to himself and the other a prodigal who wants to get away from it as soon as possible.
Alternating between impressive and mechanical, Shehar Lakhot throws a few punches that land but it would benefit greatly from a shorter runtime. Is it good enough for a binge? Because there are many things in the series that transcend the genre.
Effectively a first-rate performance by Priyanshu Painuli, an unexpectedly bewildering Kubra Sait, a consistent Manu Rishi Chadha and a supremely good Chandan Roy Sanyal (Fantastic), the combination of crime, politics, police work and family dynamics in an environment where nothing seems, and a lawless The emergence of the city makes Shehar Lakhot worth visiting for the most part.
It would have been a different story if the series hadn’t demanded such a huge chunk of our time. A lean structure will make a huge difference in the overall impact of the show.
