A tale of love-hate relationship with life

Afsos
Cast: Gulshan Devaiah, Anjali Patil
Director: Anubhuti Kashyap
Rating: 3/5

Ever heard of people hoping to commit suicide by sleeping on railway track wanting a pillow for comfort? This man, in love with death, outsources his own death to an agency when he is unable to kill himself. He then finds a reason to live, but his death chases him in the form of a hitwoman who makes it her life’s mission to kill him.

He is also chased by people in search of an immortal person, with a subplot for the ‘elixir’. The resulting chain of events makes you binge on Anubhuti Kashyap’s ‘Afsos’ on Amazon Prime Video.

Hitman movie isn’t a new concept, but there are not many of them in Indian context. To that end, ‘Afsos’ serves as a dark comedy — sometimes plain dumb, but intelligent at other times.

The indifferent hero (played by Gulshan Devaiah) who doesn’t mind taking even birdshit with no hard feelings finally develops the courage to do many unexpected things like killing the same bird by chance. Add to this many other interesting characters that get added in each episode, and the series keeps you hooked — provided you don’t doze off in first two episodes and decide not to continue.

Life has no value in this neo-noir comedy web series. People die like mosquitoes squatted by electric bats. People also fall prey to what they nurtured all along.

The characters talk in the most sensible manner when you least expect it. They do the most unimaginable things that you aren’t looking forward to. The story sometimes also breaks your heart and catches you off-guard when you aren’t prepared for it.

Gulshan Devaiah as the suicidal hero, Heeba Shah as the contract killer and Anjali Patil as the psychologist do well in whatever scope they have been given. Probably they would have done better if the characters were deeper. The dialogues are savage in many parts. Music is just apt and uplifts certain scenes to a totally comically brutal level.

The subplot of elixir indulges in ‘meta’ questions like the meaning of life and death, but ultimately ends up boring the audience.

Watch it if you want to indulge cynically in existential questions and want to laugh at this stupid life and its fallacies.