Virodh is a seven-part action drama thriller series helmed by Rahul Dahiya, which stars Pritha Bakshi, Abhinav Ranga, Jaspal Kaur, Geetanjali Mishra, Simran, Ashish Nehra, Manoj Rathi, Deepak Kapoor, Rajbeer Singh and others in prominent roles.
Moreover, the average runtime of each episode is 30-40 minutes.
The synopsis of the show reads as
Kajri’s life turns upside down after a road shootout accident, which forces her to live on the cruel terms of his uncle and mafia Brijbhan.
-Virod Review Does Not Contain Spoilers-
The growing network of OTT platforms has ensured a degree of experimental and risk-taking cinema which would otherwise not finds its place in the present theatrical scenario. However, after watching the seven episodes of Virodh, it’s pretty safe to say, that too many cooks, definitely spoil the broth.
The story of this homegrown masala revenge story (with contemporary implications) revolves around Kajri, a budding shooter, and daughter of a land mining mafia, who dies in a proper mid-highway shootout during the pilot episode (believe me, the spoiler won’t make any difference). And resurrects in a miraculous manner, only to live a life, according to the terms of her Uncle Brijbhan.
The nightmarish events that follow in Kajri’s life, lead her to a girl’s hostel, where she falls in love with a free-spirited Gogi. Moreover, before the love story transpires into a successful relationship, they both get into an unwanted controversy. The next set of events connects (somehow) to Brijbhan’s rise in the Mafia mining sector, which eventually leads to a series of repercussions for Kajri and her widowed mother.
The simple plot explanation makes it quite clear that the story of this wanna-be grippy thriller is almost everywhere. At first, it moves to a tale of mafia and revenge, then shifts to a love story with a conservative fallout, and ultimately lands itself into a criminal inception saga. The common part with each widespread segment is the lack of conviction and believability. Therefore nothing works as a whole, because none of them works out individually.
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The entire series, (right from the first frame of episode 1) feels like an artificial depiction of overtly stretched events. With almost little to no life in their characters, aided by the conventional role-playing performances of the actors. At one point, it was really hard for me to differentiate the series from a sensationalized new channel documentary cum recreation to a full-fledged seven-part series.
In the recent breakout between the definitions of cinema and content, Virodh is one such product of the OTT chunk, that literally draws the line of distinction between the two. In fact, this entire thing is a dull act of black and whites, with repetitive and prediction-prone episodes, that might make you rethink the progress of the ‘web series’ space (don’t even get me started with Kajri’s medal-winning green screen montage).
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Virodh Final Thoughts
The mere thought of watching such content for leisure gives me a solid dose of jitters. Moreover, the series definitely works as a much-needed reminder, that our time on this floating rock is quite limited, and that we can do better things with it. Plus, it also makes you a hard believer in the concept of OTT mess.
You can stream the series on MX Player. Let us know your thoughts about it in the comment section below.
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