Web Series ‘Hush Hush’: A Promising Plot Peters Out to a Morbid Melodrama!

The Web Series Hush Hush Season 1 started streaming on Prime Video from the 22^nd of September 2022. It has at least three very important reasons for being watched eagerly by a lot of viewers. First, filmmaker Tanuja Chandra whose intense flick Dushman (1998) is still remembered by movie fans features as one of the directors and producers in a clearly women-oriented story with mostly women in the crew too. Second, the cast is tremendously interesting and exciting with two of the most beloved babes of Bollywood since the eighties Juhi Chawla and Ayesha Jhulka coming back/appearing on the OTT Platform for the first time, and joined by the immensely talented Soha Ali Khan, Shahana Goswami, Kritika Kamra and Karishma Tanna. Third, the story begins on a very taut and promising note, seemingly doing justice for a mature series in the Suspense genre. But unfortunately, that lasts only till the third episode, and then, rather inexplicably, the storytelling breaks up and meanders to a morbid melodrama with all the focus on domestic affairs while we ardently expected it to roar to a shattering climax.

The story basically consists of four close friends—Juhi as Ishi, Soha as Saiba, Shahana as Zaira and Kritika as Dolly. While Saiba has an established family with husband and two kids Dolly is into a three-year-old unhappy marriage and the other two are supposed spinsters with Shahana having suffered a breakup previously. The story opens in Kolkata in 1978 establishing Ishi as an orphan having a close sister-like ties with the younger Meera (played by Ayesha in the older role) who is among others in the same orphanage. Then, the story cuts to 2019 in extremely posh environs in Gurgaon or Gurugram in Haryana showing Ishi as a high-end mover & shaker, the role almost inspired by the controversial real-life Niira Radia, and a huge scandal just breaking out in the media involving Ishi. Meera reappears much later in the plot. As per the time-period Ishi should be in her late forties, Saiba and Shahana possibly in early forties with only Dolly most probably in the late twenties.

 

The overwhelmingly female-cast is joined by Karishma as the tough cop Geeta who starts her investigation in a very promising note too as the four friends land up in a shady mess with Ishi dying a violent death the same night when the anniversary party of Dolly’s parents-in-law was going on. The plot moves intriguingly till the third episode and then, as we mentioned earlier, it falls flat. Instead of going into the detailed storyline that could possibly lead to spoilers we’ll just point out the main disappointments that mar the suspense elements that could have been built up in a telling manner.

 

·       The biggest disappointment is with Juhi Chawla’s comeback to the OTT. She dies in the very first episode and then appears only momentarily in various flashbacks or revelations. She apparently has no solid stuff to prove her towering performance-related abilities, because the makers do not allow her or us to know how she moved up in her career as the most upmarket influencer Ishi and what had been the pros and cons in her success ride. The only point of reference as regards flashback is the consistent ‘five years ago’ which does not help anyone—performing or viewing.

·       The ‘five years ago’ reference also applies to Ishi’s extremely close three friends and we hardly know anything about how their friendship started and grew and bloomed over time. Matters are not helped at all by the age-differences that we pointed out going by the time-period revealed in the story between the four fast friends.

·       Karishma Tanna as the tough cop Geeta hardly does anything that proves her ‘toughness’ and never tries to go deeper into the shady affairs of a violent death, a missing person and the three clearly nervous friends. No doubt, she must’ve been hampered in her investigations by her obstinately unreasonable, unnecessarily foul-mouthed and apparently ignoramus lady boss ACP Madhu played by Vibha Chhibber. While we kept on expecting Geeta to excel as an honest and bold cop she gets more and more into a frame of mind to let go of the three ‘implicated’ friends, perhaps a tad more ardently than the writers-directors who’d really want to protect them for future use, and in the supposedly climaxing seventh episode we get treated only with Geeta’s lesbian leanings.

·       Of course, being an out and out women-oriented story, the male characters have to be sketchy at best. However, it does create more roadblocks for the storytelling, because the seemingly important husbands of Saiba and Dolly and the photographer-friend of Shahana have been rendered clueless about what to do and how effectively to contribute toward the story.

·       The reappearance of Meera in later episodes only adds to the melodrama rather than building up the tension. Anyhow, Ayesha Jhulka is able to do some justice to the insufficient role give to her.

·       Finally, the makers of the web series Hush Hush should essentially have done much more to present a mature suspense series than indulging in endless hugging cum teary-emotional outbursts cum domestic-affair scenes of the most upmarket kind between the three friends in the glaringly disappointing last four episodes of the Series.

 

Hush Hush fails to live up to the suspense genre primarily because of not being able to give enough meat to the star performers and of trying to cover the whole matrix of the degenerating system of powerplay, corruption, criminality and human trafficking clearly prevailing in the society, as per the story of course. Perhaps, this is being done to have more Seasons in the coming months. This suspicion gets more emboldened by the ominous dialogues between the main villain (gets revealed much before the supposed climax) and the main associate in the last minutes leading to two more murders which are promptly taken up by the CBI as indicated earlier by Geeta’s abusive cop boss instead of the investigating police team. Well, we definitely expect more maturity and magic touches from Tanuja Chandra in the coming seasons, if indeed.

Web Series Bosch: The Lovable Honest LAPD Detective!

The law enforcers, the police and other related agencies, wield immense power to utilize it for the protection and the betterment of the common people if they want to do so. But unfortunately, such powers are more often misused and so, we keep on hearing stories about police corruption from the petty level of taking bribes on any pretext to the highest level of politician-criminal-underworld nexus. This is a global phenomenon, not just limited to more prone countries like India. Such is the impact of police corruption in society that thousands of fictions in terms of thrillers written or movies or television series have been made all over the world since decades. In most commercial films in India, we see police personnel portrayed as horrendously brazen and sadistic characters. In the US and the West through the franchises of James Bond, Mission Impossible and The Bourne Identity among others we invariably confront a traitorous bad cop within the system. I cannot possibly mention various outstanding movies in this regard so as to avoid giving spoiler alerts to the readers. Therefore, whenever we hear or read reports about a good honest cop and watch movies portraying honest cops, we get elated with the conviction that good brave and honest cops do exist who have the courage to fight the system from within apart from doing their duty in the best possible interest of the victims and the larger public. Harry Bosch is one such cop of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), no matter that he’s fictional.

 

The Amazon web series ‘Bosch’ was premiered on Prime in February 2014 with a 10-episode Season-1 and in 2022 the seventh and final season was released. The Series have been rated very highly, almost 100% for some seasons, by the premiere rating agencies and critics, ‘Bosch’ has been termed as one of the best detective television series ever. I had a sneak preview when ‘Bosch: Season 7’ started streaming on Prime Video and got interested immediately, coming to know that the stories are based on the novels of Michael Connelly, a bestselling author of 31 suspense-thriller books and the creator of the character of Harry Bosch among many other memorable ones, whose books I never read. Sensing an inevitable continuity in the storyline even though every episode features at least one new case, I decided to start at the beginning, that is Season-1. And I got so immensely immersed in the smart plotting and storytelling that I made sort of a world record for myself by completing a total 68 episodes of 7 seasons in less than a fortnight.

 

If you expect a young dashing cop capable of incredible feats then you’re bound to be disappointed. Bosch is an elderly cop, having fighting experience in the Gulf War and then serving the LAPD, Hollywood Division, as a homicide detective for about twenty years; as per the series backgrounder he is 47, and the actor Titus Welliver who has brilliantly portrayed Bosch is about 60 years of age at the moment. However, he has quick reflexes, sharp intellect or insight, is a sharp shooter and is capable of intense physical action whenever required. His response to an escape by a high-security serial killer who was erroneously allowed by the District Attorney (DA) to take a police party to his crime factory; his intense mid-air fight as part of his daredevil undercover antics to investigate an addictive medicine racket; his gun-fights while tracking the killer of his mother and while trying to save the life of his daughter Maddie Bosch (played by Madison Lintz); and many other action scenes are fully at par with the likes of Sean Connery, Tom Cruise, Piece Brosnan, Matt Damon, Daniel Craig and so on.

 

Most importantly, Bosch is honest, uncompromising, brave and always ready to fight with the system or with his bosses as the situation requires. He has deep compassion for child victims, female victims and for that matter any kind of victims of brutal abuse and crimes. His traumatic background always influences his emotions. Bosch was the child of a prostitute and at a very young age his mother was brutally murdered by a young client who later became a very influential personality of Los Angeles. His relentless quest to bring his mother’s killer to justice is a running thread through most of the Seasons till he succeeds in tracking down the killer, to the utter dismay and discomfort of his police chief Irving (played by Lance Reddick) who is very ambitious, not even deterred by personal tragedies to carry on with his career progression.

 

Like the Indian honest cops or that of most other countries Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar (played by Jamie Hector) believe strongly in dishing out full justice to the criminals, often instant justice, which is not possible due to the lingering legal process. In America homicide is a very serious offense and even police officers involved in seemingly justifiable killings face trial and suspension. Every criminal is interrogated without any use of the third degree and has to be allowed to have his/her lawyer. And then the ‘deals’ which reportedly account for more than 90% of the American criminal case settlements. Even offenders of heinous crimes are allowed to make deals with the DA for a lenient sentence in exchange for more information about the crime rackets. Bosch and Jerry detest such practices, have their moments of instinctive actions and the painful mental conflicts that follow. Unlike in India where police officers escape easily enough after dubious encounter killings or extra judicial killings and custodial deaths.

 

The web Series Bosch gives us a very convincing picture too of the rivalries between the cops and top bosses within the department. The ever-present character of Lieutenant Billets (played by Amy Aquino) whose lesbian inclination threatens to impact her career progression adversely, but she always stands by Bosch for all his actions including even throwing a superior crashing through the glass wall to be on the side of the truth. At times, interferences in cases assigned to a particular cop cum his/her partner cause intense rivalries between detectives too. 

Then of course, the bad, corrupt and criminally involved cops within the department that call for most careful handling. Further, as is observed in India too, the coming of the FBI or the CIA into the scenario causes a holy mess, the cops complaining about their own investigations and leads neutralized as they’re always the first to reach the crime scenes. On the positive side the comradery within LAPD in times of crisis, personal or departmental, is heartwarming. Comic interludes are also nicely provided by the lovable veteran duo of Crate (played by Gregory Scott Cummins) and Barrel (played by Troy Evans).

 

All the characters are fully developed and believable. This is being helped by the fact that the plots and the storylines follow Connelly novels very closely with the latter being one of the producers of the Series. As an inevitable result most of the episodes are primarily dialogue based which seems to slow down the pace as regards the usual suspense-detective storytelling. However, this does not hamper the viewing experience, because the interesting dialogues bring out the detailed process of investigation—discovering more and more leads and then tracking these, finally leading to the conclusion. Of course, a bit of criticism can be valid at stages in one or two episodes when the storytelling somewhat loses its steam and personal tragedies have to happen to pace up the tension and the momentum again.

 

Titus Welliver brings out all the mannerisms of the character of Bosch in lovable glory, his expressions mostly convey what he is actually thinking about an issue or his ideas about it—the wry smiles, the smirks, the tilts of his head sideways and so on. Like many of his LAPD colleagues Bosch too has tremendous love for his city, and for the visual enhancement of the viewers his hilltop residence commands a beautiful panoramic overview of Los Angeles. We are treated to some sweet homely scenes in this house involving his ex-wife Eleanor Wish (played by Sarah Clarke) till the 4^th season and his daughter Maddie from season-2 till the end.

 

The 7^th Season is the end of the Bosch story. It has to be the end because in the last episode his confrontation with the Police Chief who is busy planning his second term becomes extremely severe with the enraged Bosch quitting his job on the spot. In the last scene Bosch is shown to apply for a license for a private detective and he smiles sardonically when the counter lady tells him that the FBI has to give the approval after proper verification. Titus Welliver would be missed sorely as the lovable Bosch. However, the good news is that a spin-off titled ‘Bosch: Legacy’ is set to stream on Amazon next month. The adaptations from the Connelly novels have been done expertly by Eric Overmyer in all the Seasons.

Movie Bachchan Paandey: The Comedy Of Horrors!

An out and out formulaic Bollywood movie ‘Bachchan Paandey’ has been theatrically released all over India on 18^th March 2022 and then Amazon Prime Video started streaming it from 15^th April. The movie’s release has been pending since December 2020 due to various reasons including the pandemic. ‘Bachchan Paandey’ is produced Sajid Nadiadwala of the famed filmmaking house of the Nadiadwala that is celebrating 70 years of filmmaking and is directed   by Farhad Samji. The film is reportedly a remake of the Tamil movie ‘Jigarthanda’ (2014) and also supposedly inspired by the South Korean flick ‘A Dirty Carnival’ (2006). The hero or the antihero or the protagonist or the antagonist, whatever you may decipher after watching the movie, of the movie is the immensely popular action-comedy hero Akshay Kumar with the female lead played by the new generation heroine Kriti Sanon. Popular comedian and character actor Arshad Warsi also plays a key role and Jacqueline Fernandez does a cameo.

 

The details of the genre shown about the movie include ‘comedy’, ‘action’ and ‘suspense’ which is rather confusing for the discerning viewers. At the very outset Bachchan Paandey played by Akshay Kumar is shown as the one-eyed brutal killer-goon-villain-or-whatever burning a journalist alive while in the process making facial distortions and caricatures of the most horridly scary kind. The casting of the superstar in this role is thus revealing. Viewers of the normal kind just cannot empathize with a menacing villain, but with Akshay playing it the expectations are set alive and kicking; because, viewers would very naturally expect a ‘justifying’ story behind as to why he is such a monster, and better late than never, the director does deliver a background story of love and betrayal that however turns out to be full of cliches and utter predictability.

 

I just cannot keep my mind away from the ‘genre’ complexities. Thinking it can probably fit in as a black comedy, I did some research by Google search and found that black comedy takes a lighter view of very serious subjects with doses of black or satiric or cynical humor. Unfortunately, we fail to find humor of any of those in the movie, unless gruesome maniacal caricatures and the ‘hero’ and his equally fitting goon-mates going often on a spree of killings while singing and dancing are considered to be humorous in India. So, I put in further efforts and discovered that the movie can somewhat fit in as black comedy of the ‘grotesque’ genre.

 

I also found a quote of Sigmund Freud in a Wikipedia page that says: Sigmond Freud in his essay on Humor (Der Humor) in 1927 puts forth the following theory of black comedy: "The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure." Perhaps this somewhat describes the character played by Akshay Kumar.

 

The poster of the film used here is also misleading, in the sense that the heroine Myra played by Kriti Sanon is not at all a gun-toting one, she is only a rebuffed budding film director who, looking for commercially viable subjects, finally sets her mind on Bachchan Paandey for a biopic. Helped, although reluctantly, her friend Vishu Kant Mhatre played by Arshad Warsi she lands in Paandey’s fiefdom of Baagwa where the law enforcers, somewhat realistic in the context of India, are impotent and unabashed slaves of Paandey.

 

Anyway, through a supposedly humorous and often ridiculous proceedings Myra finally succeeds in starting a film where Bachchan becomes the reel-hero too. However, she makes a comedy movie by capturing some off-script scenes through a hidden camera, contrary to the expectations of Bachchan and his goons that the movie would highlight Paandey’s lifetime principle of ‘fear is the key’. We are shown only bits of Myra’s film in the premiere show and are astounded by the responses of the viewers. Their LOLs and amusement would beat the great all-time comedy hits like ‘Padosan’ (1968), ‘Golmaal’ (1979) and ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ (1983). We are at a total loss as to understand why.

 

The background score and the songs in their die-hard efforts to enliven the ‘comic’ affairs are the most jarring part of the movie and they force you go fast forward if you’re watching on the streaming platforms. Of course, cinematography and other technical details are as per the Bollywood standards. As for the humor or black humor or the lack of it the immensely talented Pankaj Tripathi playing a weird kind of an acting coach makes the sincerest efforts in his limited role to ignite some laughter. Although Myra’s comedy film is supposed to have brought about a change of heart in Paandey, he kills again in brutal abandon his political Guru played by Mohan Agashe. The movie is watchable only for Akshay Kumar, Arshad Warsi and Kriti Sanon. Of course, if you’re an Akshay fan you’re sure to shriek shrill and cheer his ‘change of heart’ at the very end.

Sunday Suspense: Frenzy!

A Still From Hitchcock Classic Frenzy

Dinkar stood hunched, a knife in his hand.

He was agitated and tense. The situation was getting out of hand. He had to do something now—something permanent and final. He could tolerate it no longer.

Everyone has some weaknesses, but at the same time some strengths too, he muses furiously. What to do if one always highlights the weaknesses and makes it a point to ignore the strengths! His has been one such never ending story since all the years of his marriage.

His grip on the knife tightened.

He could still hear the rumblings, the grumblings and the awesomely monotonous cacophony.

First thing on this beautiful Sunday morning he got it again. And what did he do? Were his mistakes so unpardonable or were these mistakes mistakes at all?  He only tried to help as always. That he broke the tea cup was only an accident. He took it to the sink just to make it easier—as a good gesture. Spilling the water in the passage was another little accident when again he tried to help only by carrying the water to the bath.

He could hear his wife still in the bathroom. He felt the point of his knife.

‘Nag…nag…you old hag!’, he muttered to himself with relish not daring though to say it aloud, because that would make her start all over again. Her way of putting it never failed to hit him to the core. She says his daily routine goes like this—sit, sleep and eat while at home; sit, sit and eat the lunch provided while at office and then coming back home to sit eat and sleep again. How so cruel of her!

He could hear her coming out of the bath, meddling with the washing machine and then entering the bedroom still not forgetting to go on with her live demo on his morning mistakes in all its originality and manifestations.

This was his chance! The line was clear! Their son out at a music class. They were alone.

Holding the knife poised Dinkar rushed to the kitchen and bolted the door from inside. He violently took out the vegetables tray and attacked the greens with venom.

He would prove it once and for all that he was no less a cook than her and that he was her equal in all respects.

He was not going to come out till the lunch was ready.

(This story was retrieved from my old files of more than 12 years. More discoveries to continue!)