Engrossing police procedural set in UP

Kaalkoot
Hindi (JioCinema)
Director: Sumit Saxena
Cast: Vijay Varma, Seema Biswas, Shweta Tripathi
Rating: 2.5/5

In Hindu mythology, Kaalkoot is the deadly poison that emerged when the devas and the asuras began churning the ocean; it is what Shiva drank up to save the world. In this story though, the poison has seeped in too deep. A group of policemen in small-town UP are trying to play Shiva, but more out of compulsion than choice — in their heads, they aren’t saviours; they are simply doing their job.

After the recent success of two police procedurals, 'Dahaad' (Amazon Prime) and 'Kohrra' (Netflix), 'Kaalkoot' has high expectations to live up to. And it almost does, mainly because, at heart, it is not as much a story about a horrifying crime as it is about the human side of the investigators. These policemen at the Sirsa station keep you engrossed with their banter and fat egos, their insecurities and flaws, their casual misogyny and the wretchedness of their everyday life.

The story begins with mild-mannered Ravi Shankar Tripathi (Vijay Varma), a newbie policeman labouring over his resignation letter but forced to instead investigate an acid attack on a college student, Parul (Shweta Tripathi). His mother, played brilliantly by Seema Biswas, is his world as is his dead professor-father who acts as some sort of 'akashvani' through the poems he has left behind. How he solves the case with his colleagues, while also wrestling with personal and social demons, forms the main plot.

But the makers want to throw in their two cents (very fashionable nowadays) about patriarchy, feminism, foeticide, domestic abuse… you get the drift. So yes, you chafe a bit. But it is the top-notch performances that save the story from a disastrous last episode full of avoidable heroism and violence. A hat tip to the inventive background score by Raghav and Arjun.