Farzi [Raj & DK]

Couple nights back I finished with the first season of Farzi, the OTT-series on Amazon Prime. In this crime drama, talented artist Sandeep/Sunny (Shahid Kapur) turns small-time counterfeiter, and then gets involved with high-level players. On the flip side, a job-obsessed but deeply flawed and manipulative cop Michael (Vijay Sethupati) heads a special task force (called CCFART, for the lulz, obviously) to bust the fake notes business in the country. Passionate RBI employee Megha (Raashi Khanna) joins this team, and has run-ins with the counterfeiter. On these three linchpins hangs a narrative with multiple turns and an end-of-season showdown.

I had significant expectations from Farzi, as it came from the stable of Raj & DK, the makers of the Family Man series as well as entertaining movies like 99, Shor in the City, A Gentleman etc (For now let's ignore Go Goa Gone and Happy Ending). But the first episode had me seriously wondering if the burden of simultaneously taking on multiple series had severely stretched out the creative juices of these guys. What I like most about their work - across film and OTT - is their ability to mine individual personality quirks and regional subtleties that make their character writing memorable. In contrast, the bulk of Ep 1 was alarmingly generic and lacklustre. Thankfully, the further episodes picked up the slack, and while the best parts of Family Man are superior to anything we see here, this is still a well-made piece of entertainment.

The casting is terrific across the board. Vijay Sethupati in his Hindi debut gives non-Tamilians a taste of his trademark irreverent style - his peppery exchanges with Zakir Hussain's minister character are a joy to behold. And Michael is suited to the actor's ability to deliver layered portrayals. Michael loves his job, but it's more an ego trip for him than the selfless "desh-seva" mantra that Family Man's good guys had. He is also fairly flexible in his principles, using seized fake notes to buy his son a fancy phone or emotionally manipulating his wife to hold off the impending divorce. Like they did for Priyamani and Samantha in Family Man, Raj & DK continue their mission of giving meaningful parts to Telugu movie 'import glamdolls' - this time it's Raashi Khanna and Regina Cassandra, as the counterfeit-hunting RBI employee and Sethupati's estranged spouse respectively. The talented but often typecast Kay Kay Menon is in cracking form as mid-level fake currency operator Mansoor Dalaal - in both the writing and his performance, the character gets a delightful amount of nuance that separates him from the stereotype gangster/bhai.

In comparison to the more colorful cast members Shahid Kapur's 'Artist' is very tamped down. But this is deliberate - Like the protagonist of Johnny Gaddaar, his character is supposed to be one that flies under everyone's radar. He succeeds when underestimated. But there is also the flip side - he is a cocky fool that gets into shitholes by aggrandizing himself as a playah when he is really a 'lukkhaa' surviving by the seat of his pants with no real strategy. The actor bravely embraces the essential amorality of Sunny and delivers exactly what is needed.

Compared to Family Man's several audacious action sequences peppered through the series, this one mainly comes alive in the chase sequence amidst Mumbai traffic in the last episode (there is a fair amount of action before, but that's more competent than exhilarating). But thankfully, unlike FM S01's brutally abrupt ending, this one has a reasonably satisfying series arc while setting up hooks for the next season. I look forward to them upping the ante.