Tandav Review: Random

This is an extremely Bollywood POV of what Indian politics is or how duffer democracies work The truth is inevitably stranger than fiction of course God knows itd be brave to pull off an honest representation in these times when FIRs get fired off over tweets and hashtags Youd expect the filmmakers are only too aware of the tightrope theyre walking on already Given the genre that is a national political dramaBut this series is so deliberately far away from anything vaguely real that it only leaves you wondering what is it close to then A whole lotta bull basically And no Im not even getting into how series like House of Cards and Succession have spoilt usmdashso far as the subject is concernedGreat to see everyones come fully dressed up for the show though The female politicians of varying vintage Dimple Kapadia Shonali Nagrani Gauahar Khan etc in chic designer wear touched up to perfectionThe man of the house Saif Ali Khan mostly in bridal Manyavar Playing what Prime MinisterPrime Minister all through the dayplay Hes the current PMs son interested to be the next PM instead The father Tigmanshu Dhulia is seemingly his only obstacle SeeminglyWatch the trailer right hereWhile planning various moves equally inconsequentialindecipherable to the audience he grimaces smiles exchanges knowing glances pretty much in his posh living roommdashdoing some topclass mental math in his headBy the end of the series hes had so much whiskey poured from and into customised crystal you almost want him to stop for his livermdashsince the show wontmdashand you could do with some of that drink insteadTandav at one end is set in a palace The grandness of which is incontestable You could say the same for some of the crowd sequences But this scale stops with the Raisina Hill architecture The young Prime Minister perpetually in waiting has only one consigliere cum henchman plus hitman Sunil Grover doing all the dirty work for himmdashfrom connecting to lowest level cops and peons to snooping and executing the murderThis is evidently an economy in recession To be fair India is in recession as we speak You can certainly sense that from the investment in writing thats gone into this show Its so deeply lacking in layer that even the game of thrones in an imagined citystate like Mirzapur from the eponymous Amazon Prime show and its adjoining Uttar Pradesh districts seem more meatycomplex than one about electing the head of Indian stateBesides playing PMPM whats at stake here The exalted position of the president of a students union in a university modelled on Delhis JNU Whos directly behind this power play again That same PMinwaiting obsessed with the minute shenanigans ReallyIt becomes unclear then whether this series is trying desperately hard to be more like Prakash Jhas Raajneeti 2010 Or Yuva 2004 along with the original Rahman track borrowed from the Mani Ratnam gem The central character on campus with a permanent look of bewilderment in his eyes is called Shiva Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub guessing named after the protagonist from Ram Gopal Varmas breakout 1990 campus classicWhich isnt to suggest that student state and national politics arent interrelated Also taking nothing away from arresting presences of both Saif and Dimple Bollywoods veterans as the male and female leadBut what exactly are we engaging with here Between a university election and passing the parcel for Indias PM and everybody wanting to be defence minister within a familyled party politicsBasically 300plus minutes of cardboard character introductions over thoroughly dimwitted plot twists and astonishingly incredulous turns What happens after all of this You dont wanna know I suspect there was a lot more to be shot scripted and made sense of Ugh shoot us instead well never knowTandavOn Amazon Prime VideoDirectorAli Abbas ZafarCast Saif Ali Khan Dimple Kapadia Sunil Grover Mohd Zeeshan AyyubRating