Mum Bhai is a crime/action/drama series directed by Akshay Choubey and starring Angad Bedi, Sandeepa Dhar, Sikandar Kher and Sameer Dharmadhikari.
Mum Bhai is yet another crime/gang series that provides all the cliched plots that we have seen so far. The 12-episode-long series has various characters, much profanities and some good acting, although I can’t say the same about the cinematography. The series portrays how a good and honest cop turns into a bad one, the bonds that make man, and how people use their connections to rise above.
Mum Bhai follows Bhaskar, who comes to Bombay during the 80s and quickly grows up to get into the police squad, in spite of being brought up by a gangster. However, with great power comes great responsibility and keeping that in mind, will Bhaskar be able to get out of the murky depths of the underworld and stay alive?
The series isn’t anything new – the story about double-crossing, murders, brotherhood and loyalty is something we have seen time and time again. However, it’s not boring either, and the director does a great job at weaving the story around various phases of Bhaskar’s life. It follows a similar trait of showing a horrible incident and then going back into the past to see how we ended up there. To its credit, Mum Bhai does a good job weaving these stories across decades and giving us interesting characters to look at.
Bhaskar, our protagonist, is quite an intriguing character. Although he starts out honest and naïve, he quickly realises that naivety is not something that can take you far in Mumbai, especially if you’re a cop. That pushes him to slowly transition from ideal to absolutely terrible, and Angad Bedi does a great job at portraying that transition. It’s smooth and interesting and adds a flavour to the story that would’ve been quite boring otherwise.
There are multiple backstabbings here, as it is with this genre of shows, and for that, we have Sikandar Kher’s Rama Shetty. He brought Bhaskar up in Mumbai, but their mutual respect takes a hit when the two men end up on opposite sides of the line. Sikander Kher’s portrayal of Rama is spot-on – he’s compassionate and has a loving side, but is equally awful at other times. Sameer Dharmadhikari and Sandeepa Dhar are good too in their respective roles.
However, that isn’t to say that Mum Bhai doesn’t have its flaws. There are plots that seem too forced or some are just improbable. Sometimes it does seem pretty dragged out because there was no need to add certain scenes except to pad the runtime.
Coming to the cinematography – this is one of my biggest complaints with the series. The entire show has a weird filter throughout the episodes which just looks awful and honestly hurts the eyes. I binged the 12 episodes (around 6 hours, give or take) and I couldn’t continue after a few episodes at a time because of how odd the colours were. On the other hand, the night-time scenes looked equally odd and fake. Set designs, too, weren’t the best and honestly took away a lot from the entire narrative.
In addition to this, even though we go through several decades, Rama never ages, and just becomes more dishevelled. I doubt that is how ageing works. Also, I know this might just be a personal gripe, but the sheer amount of profanities used in the series blew my mind. I know this is the norm in shows of this genre, but not one sentence goes without the use of some very choice “gaalis”. I wouldn’t say it’s uncomfortable, but it sure did make me cringe sometimes. But, the title track is pretty great and has a great Mumbai feel to it.
Summing up: Mum Bhai
The same-old gang series depends on its two principal characters a lot. Mum Bhai is pretty interesting and entertaining, and there’s a lot of plots to pick at. The characters, too, are interesting and have a lot of flavours to them. It’s not mind-blowing, but it’s not boring either.
Mum Bhai is streaming on Zee5.
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