Khaakee - The Bengal Chapter : Overdose of Violence Undercut by Brilliant Acting

The title Khakee – the Bengal Chapter is a misnomer because the police of West Bengal wear khakee uniforms or white depending on the police stations they are posted in and also, on their designations and departments. Director Neeraj Pandey seems to have been confused a bit because you get to see the police staff often in khakee and also in white but who wears what is not clear at all. And the top brass are almost always in mufti. Why? This is not justified as he had two true-blooded Bengalis to help him with the script.

Pandey must be commended on his ability to control a big cast, a happy mix of box office heroes, veteran character actors and relative newbies. The whole whodunit police story spans the period between 2002 to the present day forgetting that the state administration changed in 2013.  Some logical detailing of the changes in the police administration over this period appears confusing at times.

The series begins with the state government trying to control the power of Bagha nee Shankar Barua (Saswata Chatterjee) who heads a huge, (underground) mafia gang with the solid support of one of the state ministers Barun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee) whose underhand dealings he is made in-charge of. Roy uses Bagha to crash, torture, kidnap and kill any potential opponent and more importantly, to hide his own shady deals and corrupt practices that include some of the most heinous crimes in the state. Roy does not hesitate even once to order the killing of Bagha when he turns too ‘hot’ for Roy’s safety and security.

IPS Officer Saptarshi Sinha (Parambrato Chatterjee) is called in to nab Bagha and his gang red-handed when he discovers with as shock through an anonymous call of a huge “collection” of human skeletons. The anonymous caller and her father are both killed in their homes. Saptarshi rightly smells some backing by Roy to shield his own back. But Saptarshi is gunned down which finally signals the anger of the existent police staff and augurs the entry of the new, honest and very courageous IPS officer Arjun Maitra (Jeet) who brings in a lot of action, gumption and violence. This is quite uncommon in most Bengali films and serials that begin and end with family melodramas spilling over with soppy, tearful sentimentalism and sudden changes. So, in this sense, Khakee – The Bengal Chapter, takes on a new genre.

Bagha is shot down by one of his two leading henchmen Sagar (Ritwik Bhowmik) the other being Ranjit (Adil Khan) who then take over the entire mafia kingdom together as they were getting quite uncomfortable with Bagha’s dictatorial terms though Bagha was democratic in the sharing of the booty and in seeing that his boys were unharmed.

Arjun Maitra takes on from where Saptarshi left off. He soon smells the secret nexus between the two underworld kingpins and the entire police top brass headed by Barun Roy though the ministry he heads is never mentioned. There is a very strange scene which shows Barun Roy give the CM Shirsendu Chatterjee (Subhashish Mukherjee) a stinging slap behind closed doors which is perhaps to point out who the real leader in the ministry is.

After a dozen or more blood-soaked scenes of arson, murder, betrayals, and great action scenes, chases over bridges, towers and so on, Maitra who has been strictly ordered off the case of finding the mole in the police force, finds his own way of driving a wedge between Sagar and Ranjit with Ranjit killing Sagar under the instructions of Borun Roy. But Arjun wins finally in exposing not only Barun Roy but also the mole within the police they were looking for.

Khakee – The Bengal Chapter intended for an OTT release, packs in as much violence, brutal killings, one rape, one bomb blast and too much gore to keep the viewer-interest sustained from beginning to end. But what sustains viewer interest are the electrifying performances of all the actors beginning with Saswata Chatterjee as Bagha who is fast getting typed in similar roles, going through with Prosenjit as the sophisticated, soft-spoken and polished Barun Roy, a manipulative politician, and an absolute delight. Subhashish Mukherjee as the timid CM who is just a face put up to play the role, relative newbies Ritwik Bhowmik and Adil Khan, all of who have kept our adrenalin in a constant state of heightened suspense right through the electrifying moments of which there are many.

But the highest marks go to our own Jeet who gives the most outstanding performance in his entire acting career in his debut in this OTT series. His dialogues are full of punch and so are his action scenes probably done by a double. The actors are so good that they all are like sharpened knives cutting into every scene never mind the dialogue, the action and both put in together.

The bits of Bengali used in the dialogue add a sense of reality to the geographical ambience of this police thriller and also add a bit of sweetness to this bitter-gourd-filled fare. Chitranganda Singh as Nibedita Basak, is convincing except that she appears stiff in some scenes. She is presented as the leader of the main opposition. She keeps busy tending to her male friend (brother or lover or husband is not clear) who was shot down and turned into a living vegetable during a police shoot-out at a morcha by the opposition in the beginning of the series.

Though Neeraj has taken very good care of distancing this character from a real woman political leader, the ‘period’ this series is placed in makes her real identity obvious without turning it into political slander subject to legal action. Joy Sengupta is completely wasted as the police commissioner who keeps warning Maitra of stepping back for his own ulterior motives. And the real surprise is discovering Mithun Chakraborty’s eldest son Mahaakshay Chakrabrty donning the police uniform in a brief cameo as a member of the SIT team, Himel Majumdar. The editing is slick but there are just too many top angle panoramic views of high-rises dotting the reducing skyline which resembles every metro in India today including Kolkata. Jeet Ganguly’s musical score fits the bill of suspense well.

Set in a period when the Communist Party was ruling the roost and Mamata Banerjee was emerging as a strong challenger to the red fortress, the series seeks to expose a symbiotic relationship between politicians and criminals in the State for the Bengali-speaking-quickly-turning-cosmopolitan environment. The clincher comes when Jeet, having gained access to the much-sought-after pen drive which holds secrets to Barun Roy’s clandestine ‘industry’ of corruption, hands over the pen drive to Nibedita and she asks, “why me?” his answer is “You are the lesser evil.” A clincher if ever there was one.

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