Shehar Lakhot

Anwar Says: Navdeep Singh has two accredited movies to his belt, NH 10 and Manorma Six feel under but on OTT debut , he has chosen same repetitive story , one small town , one powerful gangster , corrupt police , one protagonist , kind of true love , lot of violence and abusive language . How many times you would eat the same Biryani in different utensils . Even for keeping the interest alive the pace should be good but with myriad characters and too many stories going together , you miss the track and sometimes you feel need to rewind .

Priyanshu as Dev and Kabbra Sait as SI Pallavi played some bizarre characters but ultimately look real . The character really shines is Chandan Roy Sanyal as as Kairav , highly manipulative and fearless and everyone is bound to succumb before him. Others have also played their roles honestly . Background of Rajasthan was not exploited by the cinematographer and Navdeep couldn't resist himself and added some not so relevant songs.

Overall hardly anything new , extremely dark in every sense ( minimum use of lights), very long episodes , so watch if you have lot of time and nothing else to do.

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Watching the first episode and it's trying too hard to be quirky but the story isn't going anywhere. Too slow and boring. The first episode has the younger son returning to a small town and going around from place to place doing nothing in particular. One character breaks a guy's hand and 2 scenes later another character, acting over the top, kills an injured dog. The fat cop keeps on pulling his crotch in every scene and bows down on front of the dog killer. What are these scenes? Is this the best that can be done to introduce characters? Why and how such shows are greenlight, I wonder. They think violence, nasty and brooding characters, abuses is creativity. EDGY is the word used in the industry. Unfortunately they are wrong. They are all rejected film scripts turned into bad webseries.

Went with high expectations after catching the excellently cut trailer, but was hugely disappointed. The series is set in the town of Lakhot somewhere in Rajasthan (though the cars have an RJ27 registration, so I think it was shot in or near Udaipur). It is a sleepy marble stone mining town, where our protagonist Devendra Singh Tomar (Priyanshu Painyuli), a negotiator working for Centre Marbles a supposed giant in the sector is sent (from Gurgaon to Lakhot) to work out a deal with the local protesting Kachdaar tribe, and the company executives of Centre Marble. The fight is over a slain deer on the mining land of the company, reminding us of the Bishnoi community of course. Dev himself has some bad blood with the town and the people living including his family. What follows is Dev getting muddled into the mysteries of the town where everybody hates him for some reason and trying to turn a new leaf for the sake of his family and an old flame.

Navdeep Singh tried emulating the same things that worked for him when he made Manorama Six Feet Under while writing Lakhot. So much so that he has set the series in the same city that his first movie took part in. No prizes for guessing this - Lakhot! But the reason why Manorama worked was because of its taught plot and interesting characters. It was a perfect neo-noir thriller complete with femme fatales, men from royalty turned dubious politicians, etc. And who did the makers have to thank for this excellently written film? Why, but Robert Towne and Roman Polanski! Because the entire movie was heavily inspired by the 1974 Oscar-winning screenplay of Chinatown! It's also weird that the two films that have worked well for Navdeep, i.e. NH10 and Manorama are both almost-remakes of Eden Lake and Chinatown respectively. The two times he tried something original with Laal Kaptaan and Lakhot, he has failed miserably.

None of the characters generate any interest or sympathy from the audience, nor do they try to do so, because the writing is such. Most of what Priyanshu Painyuli tries to say as Dev is quickly cut down by the five expletives he uses in the sentence, which leaves the audience perplexed! You'd have to peel through the alternately placed profanity to decode a sentence. So, the screenplay sucks! Chandan Roy Sanyal who is the villain is the only person who has been given a meaty role and he righteously delivers. But you don't have an ounce of a clue about how and why the characters are the way they are. So, it doesn't really matter. The makers give you quick-cut childhood flashbacks for most characters to give you a semblance of a backstory. But they add to the bore.

It was torture to sit through the entire series.

Sometimes, the newer Indian series can be very good, especially if they tackle social issues in a changing India. This unfortunately is not in that category. The writing and narrative for the story is terrible, made worse by the ridiculous way the series is edited with never ending flashbacks that only worsen the viewer's ability to understand how it relates to the characters. There is little in the way of story continuity, character context or development. It makes the assumption that the intended audience already understands the caste system, and justice process in India, hence it really has no global appeal at all. As the series progresses, very little happens, and the plot just seems to go nowhere. Gave up after the third episode.

Shehar Lakhot, set in a fictional town, has intrigue, plot twists and turns, small-town politics and gritty characters that keep you riveted and at the edge of your seat until the conclusion.

What stood out for me were the convincing performances, especially by Priyanshu Painyuli, who plays the unlucky but endearing Dev Tomar, Chandan Roy Sanyal who plays the menacing Kairav Singh, Kubbra Sait as earnest SI Pallavi Raj trying to do her job against all odds and Manu Rishi Chadha as the creepy, corrupt SHO. Manjiri Pupala as the unhinged, trigger- happy villain's sidekick Bhi, was brilliant and fun to watch.

The writing is clever and keeps you engaged. The plot twists are unpredictable and leave you wanting more. I enjoyed watching this show immensely.