Bhagwat Chapter One - Raakshas review: An over-familiar crime thriller that lacks any depth, intensity and emotional grounding!

Helmed by Akshay Shere, the crime-thriller fails on every front with Arshad Warsi and Jeetendra Kumar's performance being the only saving grace of the film.  

It’s always exciting to see some of your favourite actors doing projects that let them explore various shades, breaking away from years of forced typecasting and showing their true mettle. Hence,  Arshad Warsi and Jeetendra Kumar coming together for a crime thriller, a genre that the Indian OTT space has been nailing lately, looked promising however, Bhagwat Chapter 1- Raakshas, despite a meaty premise fails to impress in totality.

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Inspired by true events, Raakshas sees Arshad Warsi’s Vishwas Bhagwat (Arshad Warsi) up against the calm and intelligent serial killer Sameer (Jeetendra) in a case involving the mysterious disappearance of several women in Uttar Pradesh from 2005-2009. The film looks heavily inspired by Prime Video’s Dahaad sans the layers, nuance or details. The film starts well and manages to keep you intrigued for the first 30 minutes, but fails to build on the momentum, offering nothing but an underwhelming viewing experience courtesy of its poor writing, uneven screenplay, and over-familiar plotlines.

We were introduced to Bhagwat as a short-tempered cop who is sent to anger-management sessions, given his extreme ways of handling criminals in police custody, and Sameer as a murderer who is charming and smart-witted in equal parts. However, the details about their characters are barely explored in the exhausting two-hour run-time of the film, or have any relevance as the story moves forward. Yes, the scenes where the two are together during police interrogation are interesting, but not enough to save the film. The courtroom proceedings, too, are haphazard and lazily written and fail to provide any interesting twists or turns. The film falls under the crime thriller category, but only features some convolutedly presented crimes without any moments of edge-of-the-seat thriller! The second half wastes a lot of time exploring how Sameer wooes women and proceeds to violate them, yet fails to evoke anger, discomfort or any other strong emotions that would have added to the efficacy of the film. Bhagwat’s investigation, however, injects some much-needed interesting moments that help you sit through the tiring film. 

Performances by leads are the only saving grace of the film as Warsi and Kumar pack a punch with their portrayals of a no-nonsense cop and a hard-to-break, super-confident serial-killer, respectively. Their performances are convincing and embody whatever little depth and detail the script allowed them to, with sincerity. Besides that, the film fails on every front and lacks the intensity, drama, and emotional depth that make a crime thriller worth watching!

Bhagwat Chapter One - Raakshas is now streaming on ZEE5!

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