LalBazaar Review This Sayantan Ghosal directorial seems a little too run-of-the-mill and a bit too dull!

Director: Sayantan Ghosal

Star Cast: Kaushik Sen, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Gaurav Chakrabarty, Sauraseni Maitra, Ronjini Chakraborty, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Subrata Dutta

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Genre: Drama, Thriller, Crime

Rated: 2.5/5

The story opens with a murder of a 3 months pregnant prostitute in Lal Bazaar. She is brutally killed by a man while having sex; her innards are stuffed in a bag and thrown in a river. The story moves forward with another killing. This is what they term to be a ‘pantie-murder’ (female under garment). The death of a prostitute and pantie murder opens up a whole new can of worms that is filled with cold killers and ruthless ruffians. The dedicated cops from the Kolkata Police want to eradicate crime and corruption from the City of Joy and thus, they start inspecting every facet of the murders taking place in their city. The story will keep the audience hooked to the mystery, lust, suspense, serial killing and all the slangs used.

The entire web series is distributed equally amongst the casts. The characters lack development throughout the season. To some extent, Ronjini Chakraborty has been given a small development from a common woman to prostitute. I thought, Sabhaysachi Chakraborty, Kaushik Sen and Ronjini Chakraborty have essayed their roles very well but other characters struggle to hold on to my attention and to add to it were their poor acting skills! Husky-voiced Sabyasachi Chakrabarty is barely there in the series, but he has made his presence felt in the little screen time he is allotted. Gaurav Chakrabarty, Sauraseni Maitra and Kaushik Sen did their bit but none of them fit the part.

Dibyendu Bhattacharya is seen in a negative role and his performance will surely attract the audience to some extent.

This trilingual web series – dubbed in Tamil, Hindi and Bangla – presented by Ajay Devgn and directed by Sayantan Ghosal, has no new concept. It starts off with a dramatic, over-the-top sex scene between an anonymous man and a local prostitute Ruby but as the story unfolds; the dramatic and engaging capacity of the content faces a dent. This crime thriller drama lacks the character development throughout the season. The screen is equally distributed to the characters which ultimately results into having no lead character.

In black and white, this series shows a lot of promise: tough goons, tougher-hardworking cops. We get that. But, in reality, the narrative of ‘Lalbazaar’ is flat-out outlandish and an insipid portrayal of the bravado of the Kolkata City Police. The story has a very neutral soundtrack that ended up making narrative inconsistent, boring and compromising on the authenticity of the story. To be brutally honest, the story is the worst version of soaps like Crime Patrol, Saavdhan India and C.I.D.

Talking about the positive aspects of the Lal Bazaar, the story has successfully delivered its message to the audience. It will surely induce an emotional feeling into the viewer when he/she will see how the murders takes place, how a poor suffers because of no money. The story will keep the audience glued to their seats because of its rich suspense.

All in all, ‘LalBazaar’ is a cop drama that needed to up its game in almost all the crucial departments.