Kaalkoot is one more masterstroke by the immensely talented Vijay Verma, this time as a good-hearted cop with a conscience. (His most notable performances till date have been ones that drive you to hate him - be it in the role of a womaniser and serial killer in Dahaad, or as the voyeur Sasya in the Netflix web series SHE).
Kaalkoot is also a feather in the hat of JioCinema—finally the platform got a show worth watching, rather bingeing on.
Only three episodes were released as the first installment on Thursday and then each new episode releases after a gap of 24 hours. The script engages you to such an extent that one only hopes this show could be binge-watched. Also, another hope is that the succeeding episodes stay true to the mood built up by the first three.
Coming to the story, this is a police procedural based on victims of acid attacks in a small town of Uttar Pradesh. Verma, as Ravi Shankar Tripathi is a sub-inspector who is forced to investigate an acid attack in his jurisdiction, just when he decides to quit his job.
Created by Arunabh Kumar and directed by Sumit Saxena, it is the way the story flows that makes it an immensely watchable show. So, all the credit first goes to the writers. Kaalkoot does not hinge on needless profanity nor does it take the support of sex and sensuality to prove its point. Here, dialogues are hard hitting, story is direct and gripping and the actors are real.
As the victim, Parul continues to recover in the hospital with her parents waiting on her; Tripathi is on the mission to piece together the sequence of events that led to the attack. Here even as her parents wait on her, Tripathi's colleagues and seniors get into character assassination by calling the victim a prostitute who deserved what she got, based on the evidence of a bottle of alcohol inside her purse.
Tripathi does not agree and is trying to find his voice amid the din created by misogyny around him. Another character who lingers for long after the show is over, is that of Tripathi's mother played by Seema Biswas. She is full of heart and immediately pulls you into her small world consisting of her son and late husband, an ex-professor of Hindi literature.
Kaalkoot is totally worth a watch, the first three episodes definitely were. Now, let us hope the momentum builds up further in the upcoming episodes.
Show: Kaalkoot
Language: Hindi
Director: Sumit Saxena
Cast: Vijay Varma, Shwetha Tripathi, Seema Biswas
Streaming on: JioCinema
