Kaalkoot Review: Jio Cinema’s latest crime drama stars Vijay Varma as Ravi, Shweta Tripathi Sharma as Parul, Seema Biswas as Ravi’s mother, Yashpal Sharma as Yadav, Gopal Datt as Jagdish Sahay, Suzanna Mukherjee as Shivani, and others. Directed by Sumit Saxena, he co-wrote the series with Arunabh Kumar. There are 8 episodes of 35-40 minutes.
Kaalkoot Review Contains No Spoilers
In Kaalkoot, Sub Inspector Ravi Shankar Tripathi writes a resignation letter stating that he respected the Sarsi police station and his uniform, but seeing how everyone functions at the police station, he doesn’t wish to continue working. But Ravi’s resignation letter gets rejected, and he gets assigned a new case of an acid attack. The case takes an unexpected turn when the focus is more on the girl’s character than actually finding the culprit.
Jio Cinema’s Kaalkoot series has given Vijay Varma a break from playing the bad guy. His character, Ravi, is a soft-spoken and polite man. Often, he is on the receiving end of insults from his superior, Jagdish. Jagdish never leaves a chance to bully Ravi for being gentle and lectures him on how to be a “real man”. It shows how it is men like Jagdish who make fun of other males for not being loud and violent.
The main premise of the series is investigating the acid attack on a girl named Parul. Parul has trouble speaking, so the cops have no strong lead to dive into the case. What we don’t expect is to see them look more into Parul’s character just because they find alcohol in her bag. It doesn’t take a second for Jagdish to assume that Parul must be a prostitute. The entire aspect of victim-shaming is shown well, where the officers dig about the girl’s past, her work, the number of men in her phone, and her life.
The subtle depiction of the misogynistic approach towards Parul’s case makes Kaalkoot a compelling watch. The show doesn’t have preachy scenes or monologues to state something significant. Here, the devil is in the details—the words and actions. The course of the investigation and biased mindsets are enough to tell you what’s going wrong. But once the cops’ theories fail, they rightly focus on finding the culprit. But it’s a complicated puzzle surrounding men with crooked outlooks.
Kaalkoot on Jio Cinema also focuses on Ravi’s personal life. His widowed mother pressures him to get married. Ravi’s deceased father was a respectable person, so everyone expects the same from him. When Ravi finds a good girl, he wonders why someone would want to be with a “simple and boring” man like him. The seeds of doubt are sown in his mind by the prejudiced noise around him.
Ravi might not be hyper-masculine like most men around him, though he is still flawed. But not even once he’s seen bragging about it. Not even once the makers have hyped up the fact that he’s better than others. After all, we are supposed to be decent beings.
In the last episode, we see Ravi in action, risking his life, and finally emerging as a hero cop. But again, the makers never hail him for doing his job. The grounded approach and representation of Ravi’s character is another big highlight of the series. I really like the scene between Ravi and Shivani in the last episode where he is aware of his imperfections.
The characters’ organic interactions play a key role in describing the patriarchal mindset of society. A few instances of domestic abuse, restrictions on what women dress and do, whom they interact with, female foeticide and other similar issues are highlighted. Not even once the story gets into unnecessary melodrama. The songs incorporated throughout the episodes simply strengthen the plot’s overall impact.
Vijay Varma has repeatedly proven he is one of the most stellar actors in the film industry. He has the charm to win you over and even kill you. After creeping out everyone in Dahaad this year, Vijay is here to balance it out with a good man act in Kaalkoot. His simplistic and sincere performance as Ravi Shankar Tripathi keeps you interested. Although, at times, I waited for him to show his evil grin and bring in a big twist. It’s good to see Varma’s character not getting influenced despite all the sexist commotion around him.
Gopal Datt is a revelation in the series. We’ve often seen him as the funny guy or a buttload of jokes. In Kaalkoot, the actor delivers an amazing performance as Jagdish Sahay, a chauvinist police officer who often gets on your nerves. Actor Yashpal Sharma provides good support for the story and Ravi’s character with some sensible dialogue. Shweta Tripathi Sharma portrays Parul, as the acid attack survivor. Shweta plays her part well, even with the limited screen time.
Kaalkoot Review: Final Thoughts
The cop thriller by Sumit Saxena effectively explores the subject of crime against women and toxic masculinity. The investigation’s misdirection steers the narrative in a direction that will keep you invested till the end. The show successfully highlights several societal problems without being preachy or having any self-righteous characters.
The series is now streaming on Jio Cinema.
Read our reviews on Jio Cinema’s Do Gubbare here.