Bad Cop Review: Déjà Vu



Bad
Cop

is
not
unwatchable.
For
older
viewers,
there
may
even
be
some
comfort
in
the
familiar,
notes
Deepa
Gahlot.

Bollywood
has
already
put
its
stamp
on
this
formula

twin
brothers,
one
grows
up
to
be
a
cop,
the
other
a
criminal.
Still,
the
new
Web
series

Bad
Cop

needed
to
be
imported
from
the
German

Kriminell
Gut

(2017).

Adapted
by
Rensil
D’Silva,
directed
by
Aditya
Datt,
the
series
almost
has
a
neon
déjà
vu
sign
flashing
over
it.
In
the
process
of
Indianising
it,
the
team
of
writers
has
picked
every
cop-gangster
cliche
seen
in
mainstream
Hindi
films.

Even
Hussain
Dalal’s
pungent
dialogue,
with
profanity
considerably
toned
down,
does
not
help
lift
this
humourless
show.
The
intention
of
naming
the
twins
Karan
and
Arjun
must
have
been
cheeky
but
it
just
comes
across
as
unimaginative!

The
show
goes
into
frequent
flashbacks
to
explain
how
they
got
separated
in
the
orphanage,
and
took
different
paths.

Karan
(Gulshan
Devaiah)
is
a
cop,
so
resentful
of
his
wife
Devika’s
(Harleen
Sethi)
promotion
to
become
his
boss,
that
the
marriage
is
on
the
rocks,
despite
that
annoying
kid
who
keeps
popping
up
and
interrupting
dramatic
scenes.

Arjun
and
his
partner
Kiki
(Aishwarya
Sushmita)
are
petty
crooks,
and
get
into
trouble
when
they
witness
a
murder,
and
he
leaves
DNA
behind
(by
now,
everybody
who
watches
crime
thrillers
knows
they
must
not
touch
a
dying
stab
victim!),
making
him
the
prime
suspect.

The
dead
man
(Deepraj
Rana)
was
an
investigative
journalist,
who
was
about
to
expose
a
major
criminal
nexus.

Arif
Khan
(Saurabh
Sachdeva),
is
a
CBI
officer,
who
grabs
the
case
because
the
journalist
was
his
friend.

Where
there
are
so
many
heroes,
there
has
to
be
a
villain.

Kazbe
(Anurag
Kashyap)
is
the
typical
Bollywood
don,
who
rules
the
jail
he
is
in

he
dances,
waves
a
gun,
has
a
girl
in
his
bed,
and
chops
mutton
while
barking
commands
at
his
minions,
adding
a
touch
of
comedy
which
is
otherwise
missing
in
the
script.

The
hapless
recipient
of
his
rage
is
usually
his
bumbling
nephew
Raghav
(Deepak
Kamboj)
whose
spirit
is
strong,
but
gun
arm
weak.

During
a
shootout,
one
of
the
twins
is
killed,
the
survivor
takes
on
the
identity
of
the
other,
and
as
it
always
happens
in
films,
nobody
can
tell
the
difference!

There
must
be
some
difference
in
their
speech
and
body
language,
but
why
go
into
that,
when
there
are
enough
complications
to
deal
with,
the
biggest
being
a
consignment
of
contraband
that
goes
everywhere
but
to
its
intended
recipient.
(Kazbe
dresses
slummy,
but
uses
the
word
‘consignment’,
not
the
colloquial
maal‘.)

Meanwhile
Arif,
with
his
reptilian
gaze,
haunts
the
scene,
looking
for
the
killer
of
his
friend,
even
resorting
to
illegal
bugs,
and
bullying
sleep-deprived
techies
working
on
his
team.

The
action
sequences
and
chases
are
slick,
the
pace
is
whizz
fast,
and
the
runtime
of
the
episodes
(six
sent
for
review
out
of
eight)
kept
to
around
30
minutes.
So

Bad
Cop

is
not
unwatchable.
For
older
viewers,
there
may
even
be
some
comfort
in
the
familiar.

Gulshan
Devaiah
and
Anurag
Kashyap
give
good
performances,
without
looking
like
they
have
seen
or
done
this
a
dozen
times
before,
even
though
Devaiah
does
not
get
to
really
enjoy
the
double
role
and
work
out
variations
between
two
characters.

There
is
an
unexpected
twist
in
Episode
6,
as
a
reward
for
viewers
who
do
not
give
up
on
the
show.



Bad
Cop

streams
on

Disney+
Hotstar.



Bad
Cop

Review
Rediff
Rating: