A bold cop story
A fearless police officer’s fight against the criminals of an entire city calls for chaos. ‘Bhaukaal’, an MX Player original web series is a story inspired from the life of SSP Navniet Sekera, IPS. It showcases real-life incidents that happened in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
Story
Set in 2003, Mohit Raina plays the role of a police officer, SSP Naveen Sikhera, who is on a mission to cleanse Muzaffarnagar of all crime. Dangerous gangs led by powerful people wreck havoc everywhere and not even the local authorities question them.
Shaukeen (Abhimanyu Singh) is one such ruthless gang lord who rules the east and the Dedha Brothers, Chintu (Siddhanth Kapoor) and Pintu (Pradeep Nagar) who are equally cruel, rule the western region of Uttar Pradesh with Muzaffarnagar as the hotbed for all crimes.
There is no proper communication network and no modern weapons but Sikhera launches the fight against the two main gangs by setting up his own team of encounter specialists.
He also installs a mobile surveillance system to track the movements of these criminals. Moreover, he ushers in a change of mindset among policemen by motivating them and driving them to fight against this nuisance.
Performances
It is a Mohit Raina and Abhimanyu Singh show all the way. Raina is impressive both in appearance and performance. He has done complete justice to the role of an upright, courageous and fighting cop. He dives into the character and grasps the necessary nuances required to portray an important real-life figure.
Abhimanyu Singh is well known for these kind of roles and he sleep walks through Shaukeen’s character with ease and style. The highlight of his performance is his effortlessness with which he maintains a menacing presence on screen.
Other noteworthy performances are from the policemen Ravi Pandey (Salim Khan alias Iftekar), Upen Chauhan (Rajesh Pandey), Digambar Prasad (Jitendra Bhaati) and Vinod (Amit Singh) who have done quite well to spruce up the narration with their wit and sarcasm.
Bidita Bag as Nazneen is promising and Sunny Hinduja leaves his mark in an important role as Shaukeen’s loyal son Farukh Qureshi.
Positives
There are many cop stories churned out every year but what makes Bhaukaal different is its dedication to do justice to a story that is based on true events.
It is a real morale booster for the entire police force as it showcases the actuality of their lives. The makers have portrayed the undeterred fight carried out by them amidst sacrifices laden with a series of hurdles and brickbats with great passion.
Writers Akash Mohimen, Jay Sheela Bansal and Rohit Chauhan along with director Jatin Wagle deserve special mention for their effort in these aspects.
Negatives
Talking about the flip side of the coin, Bhaukaal is no stranger to cop story clichés. It suffers from the fact that this true story is not original when it comes to similar pieces of media. Therefore, it feels a little repetitive and predictable more times than one would like.
OTT gives creators enough liberty to create story-lines that do not have to cater to the masses and have a much more raw and grounded narrative. This web series however, gets lost somewhere in the middle.
Even though it is not overly laden with cringe worthy dialogues and death defying stunts, it feels a bit generic and lacks that impactful storytelling aspect which one would crave from a plot of this calibre.
Worth it?
It is worthy of your time and deserves a watch. It will be especially enjoyable if you are into police action stories and plots based on real people and events. Bhaukaal will entertain but may not succeed in making a long lasting impact.
