The storyline, and thus the series, lacks the material that was a key ingredient of Special Ops, and so, Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, works on the whole but is a tad too lengthy (50 minutes on an average of 7 episodes). It thus follows the trend of the 2022 flagship show, Khakee: The Bihar Chapter. Friday Storytellers, as producers of all three series, should introspect on where to curtail length and where the length seems too less for the gripping and exciting material at hand!

Having mentioned this flipside, Khakee: The Bengal Chapter works well. A clean (as in honest) police officer (Parambhrata Chatterjee) is called in to grab a notorious don, Bagha (Saswata Chatterjee) but is killed (without Bagha’s consent) by his goons Sagor (Ritwik Bhowmik) and Ranjit (Aadil Zafar Khan). The ruling political party, which includes Barun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee), a kingmaker of sorts, is being constantly targeted by Nivedita Basak (Chitrangada Singh), and the next option is to bring in IPS Arjun Maitra (Jeet) to investigate the whole lawlessness.

But Arjun gets uncomfortably close to the truth, and the ruling party led by Barun and the CM (Subhasish Mukherjee) clip his wings by making him the security chief for the CM. But Arjun, who senses what is fishy, has a plan. With his loyal lieutenants Himel (Mahaakshay Chakraborty) and Aratrika (Aakanksha Singh) and others (who have all gained immense respect for him), he engineers a way in which Sagor and Ranjit (who have now killed Bagha) are provoked into turning enemies instead of the bosom friends they always were. What happens next and how the criminal-corrupt cops-political nexus is finally smashed by Arjun and his team forms the rest of the saga. And of course, there is the well-concealed twist in the tale about the mole in the police team, besides the chief (Joy Sengupta), who is openly in cahoots with the politicians.

The script is kept as real as possible. Creator Neeraj Pandey has always had a great bond with real-life law enforcers and national security personnel of every level and must have fashioned this story from one or more real bases. The emotional angles are kept in relevant proportions. And a major plus point comes from the authentic casting, with most Bengali characters essayed by Bengali actors.

Technically upscale with some great work in the dialogues department, the series marks the confident debut of cinematographer Tushar Kanti Ray as a director along with Debatma Mandal, with Ray handling the camera expertly along with three others. The songs (Jeet Gannguly) do not register, while the background score (Sanjoy Chowdhury) is decent on the whole.

Jeet (Jeetendra Madnani, a Sindhi actor-and-more based out of Bengal), who looks every inch a tough-as-nails-yet-straight cop, is the high point of this web series. His expressions are the perfect blend of a soft-hearted man who is ruthless when his job priorities come up.

Two star-sons are cast in important roles: Prosenjit Chatterjee is the utterly unscrupulous politician and Mahaakshay Chakraborty is the police officer Himel, who could be the black sheep as he is around at occasions where the police go one step behind because their plans become known in advance to the ‘baddies’.

An interesting performance comes from Subhasish Mukherjee as the harangued CM. Chitrangada Singh as leader of the opposition is alright, but Aakanksha Singh at SIT officer Aratrika Bhowmick makes a solid mark.

Full marks go to Ritwik Bhowmik as Sagor and Aadil Zafar Khan as Ranjit. Shruti Das as Sagor’s wife also deserves mention. Saswata Chatterjee is his usual competent self as Bagha, and Tenzin Bodh as Cheena, Bagha’s son, impresses. The rest of the cast does well.

Rating: ***1/2

Netflix presents Friday Storytellers’ Khakee: The Bengal Chapter Created by: Neeraj Pandey Produced by: Shital Bhatia Directed by: Debatma Mandal & Tushar Kanti Ray Written by: Neeraj Pandey, Debatma Mandal & Samrat Chakroborty Starring: Jeet, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Mahaakshay Chakraborty, Saswata Chatterjee, Aakanksha Singh, Ritwik Bhowmik, Chitrangada Singh, Aadil Zafar Khan, Subhasish Mukherjee, Pooja Chopra, Nyra Banerjee, Shraddha Das, Joy Sengupta, Nilanjan Datta, Chhandak Chowdhury, Pratim Ganguly, Shruti Das, Sumit Ganguly, Sweta Mishra, Tenzin Bodh, Amika Shail & others Sp. App: Parambhrata Chatterjee

(Used with permission from NIT)

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