A six-part Zee5 series directed by Shaad Ali, Bloody Brothers is a thriller that shuns the usual trappings of the genre. No blowouts, no gunfights, no chases, no heavy-handed confrontations - it thrives on sustained restraint. Its pace isn't manic. Director of photography Vikash Nowlakha frames the slow crackle in an unflashy manner that does not take the focus away from the people on the screen while creating the requisite visual ambience. The images breathe and create room for continual intrigue.
As the show opens, a sloshed Jagjeet 'Jaggi' Grover (Jaideep Ahlawat) and his teetotaler brother Daljeet Grover (Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub) are on their way back from a wedding reception. The sober one is at the wheel. Their car hits a man (Asrani in a cameo) on a dark stretch outside a bungalow. The brothers pick up the lifeless body and carry it into the living room and leave it on a chair. Jaggi and Daljeet have no reason to suspect that there might be an eyewitness to the accident. They believe that can return to their daily lives without anybody in the world coming to know their secret. But they soon realize that their optimism is misplaced.
Jaggi is a married lawyer who has little time for his wife Priya (Shruti Sheth). Daljeet runs a bookstore and falls in love with Sophie (Tina Desai), the dead man's niece who has been bequeathed a large book collection. Priya wants a baby; Daljeet needs a friend. Both have surprises in store. Bloody Brothers is also about three women - one (Priya) in a marriage that isn't quite working, one (Sophie) forced to run away from a toxic relationship and another (Sheila) who is anything but a helpless old widow who is past her best days. The three actresses who play these characters - Sheth, Desai and Alagh respectively - completely own the parts and make them come alive.
Bloody Brothers, written by Siddharth Hirwe, Anuj Rajoria, Riya Poojary and Navnit Singh Raju, is unfailingly watchable, if not dizzyingly exciting, because of Jaideep Ahlawat and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, who are consistently in their elements without having to push themselves too much. Through muted methods, they achieve maximum power.
Satish Kaushik as a criminal mastermind who brooks no opposition steals a bit of their thunder, but the two lead actors deliver performances that are stunning in terms of control and the way they play off against each other. Not once is either of them off the mark in articulating the repercussions of the turmoil within and around them. The rest of the principal cast - Tina Desai, Shruti Seth, Jitendra Joshi and Maya Alagh - are no less impressive as they flesh out people who do not shy away from giving their unsavoury and scheming (and, in a case or two, the simply adventurous) sides a free rein.
Neither delirious nor demonstrably pacy, Bloody Brothers holds one's attention all the way thanks its tonal consistency and the quality of the performances .
