Four More Shots Please!

Every once in a while there comes a show that realigns the contours of entertainment. A show that redefines the plane of artistic brilliance and creativity. Four More Shots Please! Is not that show.

The show was projected as an exclusive female project and hence no one had any illusions regarding what the story line would be. The trailers laid to rest any remaining doubts. I finished the entire season this weekend not because it induced binge watching, but because I did not want to write a review without fully exposing myself to the ordeal.

The show basically chronicles the adventures and misadventures of four young women living in Mumbai, as they wade through troubled waters infested with a plethora of personal, professional and mostly silly issues.

All the characters in the show are copybook stereotypes with no depth whatsoever. Imagination and detailing are conspicuously absent. The script is poorly written and the direction is equally bad. The dialogue in turn is ordinary and drab. There is no humour except for some poor jokes that are even more poorly delivered by the actors on screen. The acting ranges from medicore ( Sayani Gupta) to horrendous ( Bani J). While, no one ever presumed that the actors in the series were seasoned method actors, the expectations were inflated given the hype created around the show.

Prateek Babbar makes the sound department look bad, for every time he speaks in English, one cannot understand a word he is saying. Instead of creating relatable characters who are imperfect and believable, we have here finely chiseled individuals who smack of superficiality.

The director very poorly oversells feminism and women empowerment by adopting all the hashtags and buzz words around, and manipulatively inserting scenes and injecting messages that are ridiculous. As the season progresses one can clearly make out that all the protagonists are unprofessional and entitled individuals who have not yet matured despite their contempt for other immature individuals.

The show bears an uncanny resemblance to most American sitcoms that you may have seen and all the sets and locations are designed in such a way to pass off Mumbai as an American city. I couldn't help stare with wondrous eyes at the plush and posh looking "houses" (yes, houses not flats) where almost all the characters live. It now seems most of my Mumbai based friends are living in indigence.

The background music is pretentious and does little to redeem the show. All in all, the show doles out a liberal helping of mediocre content and hopes to cash on popularly trending themes that are transient in nature and hollow in body. Not looking forward to season 2.

Four More Shots Please (A Pretentious Prime Original) is a vague attempt at making a feminist show. We Indian, I must say have a very wrong notion about feminism. This show is supposed to be portraying women power in a fresh light but ironically this show is filled with cliches and cringe-worthy one liners which we are now already very used to seeing in Bollywood. This show is filled with desperate innuendos to make it look more "progressive". The plot is mired with some very one dimensional and shallow writing. And lastly about men in this show. Though I have no problem with strong female characters and I also know that in a feminist show you shouldn't really expect male characters to shine but this show fights "male chauvinism" with it's own version of "female chauvinism". Men are mere ornaments for a good orgasm in the show, which is exactly what Bollywood is known for (just with the roles reversed). Total disappointment from the writing.

Edit - The above review only portrays the cons, which I believed would be the right way to criticize the show at that time, but looking at it's meager rating now I feel like I should add some pros too. There are very few things which I liked about this show. One being the performances, especially by Kirti Kulhari. Another being the music. In spite of having an inconsistent and flawed script, it manages to pull a pretty decent finale.

On one hand Amazon Studios has given us shows like Bosch and on the other hand invests money in "creators" in India who are pretentious bunch of hypocrites who can't write a good plot to save their lives. Time for Amazon to start anew in India and this time, hire actual talents and not a bunch of pseudo-progressives.

Women empowerment = Cussing, having drugs, acting like a constipated screeching idiots.

If you're going to harp on the good ol' muh patriarchy again, at-least don't act like complete hypocrites in YOUR OWN SHOW. It's absolute cringe. At this point, it's almost like when they sit to write the show they have only three ingredients. Sex, cussing and, more sex. Because that's all the talent they have. Acting like loud mouth degenerates does not make this mess "progressive."

Avoid like a plague for your own sanity.

Pathetic acting, story and direction. It's a waste of time to watch this ... Well not sure what to call it.

Four More Shots Please! Season 2 (web-series) review :

Damini, Anjana, Siddhi and Umang!

#FourBesties

Yup, they are back with a new season of Four More Shots Please - a desi version of 'Sex and the City' which found a fair amount of bouquets as well as brickbats in its first season. A mixed reaction, to put it bluntly!

Anyways, Season 2 has our ladies pick up (their lives) from where they left off and re-unite at their fave 'Truck Bar' for the mandatory tequilla shots and profane chatter highlighted with hastags!!

#FWordEverySentence. Oh yea!!

Sids (Maanvi Gagroo) gets over her breakup tamasha and attempts stand up comedy, Dee (Sayani Gupta) is chasing a real life scandal for her controversial novel, Anj (Kirti Kulhari) deals with a new misogynist boss while Mangs (Bani J) is supporting her depressed lesbian partner (Lisa Ray, gorgeous as ever) suffering from bipolar disorder.

#GirlGang

While the lead performances are sincere, it is Sayani and Kirti who stand out. Sayani Gupta is impressive once again as Dee. This chameleonistic actor can fit in to any role effortlessly. Kirti Kulhari pitches in yet another super fine act. Watch the scene where she gives back to her boss indulging in petty politics. Or a later episode where she resists her drunk hubby.

#Sheroes. Both of them.

On the other hand, the male cast comprising Milind Soman, Neil Bhoopalam and Prateik Babbar is one dimensional and strictly okey dokey.

#MenSuck. Offo!

Production values and other technical aspects are decent. The catchy title track is carried forward from season one. Ditto for the swear words se bhare dialogues.

More of a guilt pleasure watch, the new season of Four More Shots Please will appeal primarily to millennials and the SoBo crowd. Conservatives and NoBos, please stay far far away!!!

#LockdownTimepass

P.S. - Theres a twist at the end hinting at a season 3. Probably next year. That's ofcourse if these alcoholic promiscuous quadro are able to survive booze and casual sex during these Corona times. We hope!!!

Regards Sumeet Nadkarni