Bambai Meri Jaan Review

Just by virtue of its concept, Bambai Meri Jaan bears similarities to two classic American gangster films: The Godfather, which tells the story of familial entanglements in the mafia, and Heat, which humanizes both a cop and a robber in their own game of cat and mouse. Fans of the genre will find a lot to like in Prime Video India's most recent release. However, the specific stories do differ.

Depicts Genre of Gangster

It might be challenging to master the genre of gangster dramas. After all, it is one's responsibility to narrate the tale of someone who, in the pursuit of power and control, slaughtered a great number of people and upset the balance of law and order. These characters are humanized at the same time, but it's important to avoid elevating them.

Now, considering how innately violent people are, that's a fine line to walk. In "Bambai Meri Jaan," we witness the ascent and establishment of a person whose life has been numerous times adapted for the screen and about whom there are a tonne of legends. It tells the story of the ascent of a Dongri police officer's son who eventually becomes the "zamindar" of Bambai or Mumbai and seeks to take over commerce in Dubai with his D-Company.

Although the two performers that elevate the show are Kay Kay Menon and Avinash Tiwary, who play a father and son who are incompatible, there is much more acting throughout the series.

Bambai Meri Jaan, a web series on Amazon Prime Video, is the first to fictionalize the early life of Bombay mafia don Dawood Ibrahim. This story is often recounted about his rise to prominence in the 1970s and his escape from the city ten years before it became Mumbai.

A Quick Overview of Bambai Meri Jaan

It is a ten-episode retelling of a saga that does a respectable job of presenting an account of a megalopolis' turbulent past is made possible by an amazing cast of actors who lend authenticity, if not high-voltage star power, to the action-packed period crime drama set in the mid-1960s to mid-1980s with a few stray sequences set in the 1940s.

The preoccupation with money and power that one guy has is depicted in Bambai Meri Jaan. It also explores the intricacies of policing a city under the control of violent criminal gangs that are always at war with one another. The show, which is plagued by an excessive amount of profanity, capitalizes on the image of law enforcement and criminals cuddling up together. At the same time, Bombay struggles to contain the destruction caused by a rogue underworld.

Although the two performers that elevate the show are Kay Kay Menon and Avinash Tiwary, who play a father and son who are incompatible, there is much more acting throughout the series. Numerous members of the supporting cast, including Jitin Gulati, Saurabh Sachdeva, Nivedita Bhattacharya, Nawab Shah, Vivan Bhathena, and Kritika Kamra, give their all in a performance that demands their whole weight.

A Tale of Criminal World

A blend of organized crime, violence, and retribution, Bambai Meri Jaan is produced by Excel Media & Entertainment and directed by Rensil D'Silva and Shujaat Saudagar. It is presented in a way that emphasizes both the violent gang conflicts that take place in the streets and dockyards of Bambai and the emotional dynamics that are at play in the life of a young man who is determined to turn his and his family's fortunes.

Cinematographer John Schmidt's lighting and lensing in Bambai Meri Jaan convey the mud and filth of gang conflicts, which leave a trail of dead in their wake and drive a city to the brink. It sets up a virtuous, God-fearing father against a disobedient son who discovers that in a society where fear reigns supreme. The latter deceives himself into leading a criminal life.

In order to divide the spoils of their extortion and smuggling operations, which they conduct in cooperation with dishonest elements of the police force, the ruling underworld triumvirate of Haji Maqbool (Saurabh Sachdeva), Azeem Pathan (Nawab Shah) and Anna Rajan Mudaliar (Dinesh Prabhakar) is to be overthrown. Dara Ismail (Avinash Tiwary) is out to destroy this alliance.

Under the leadership of Ismail Kadri (Kay Kay Menon), a police officer of steadfast integrity, a special task squad known as the "Pathan Squad" is established with the mission of apprehending the mafia dons. The squad makes every effort to defend its survival, but its might and its resources will only allow it to complete the task of eradicating the underworld.

Filial Bonds In The Crime World

Dara Kadri's story is told entirely from the perspective of his father, Ismail Kadri (Kay Kay Menon), who loathes his rebellious son's illegal activities and makes an effort to put his family-which also includes his mother Sakina (Nivedita Bhattacharya), older brother Saadiq (Jitin Gulati), and younger siblings Ajju (Lakshya Kochhar) and Habiba (Kritika Kamra)-into the dilemma that he leads them into.

Tragically, Dara's father seems to be the last guy remaining on a collapsing planet. He is completely sincere, yet one small mistake costs him dearly. Ismail Kadri's decline from prominence is rapid. Haji's cunning enticements persuade him to accept his life sentence of extreme financial hardship, and Dara is forced to turn against his father and face the entirety of Bombay's underworld.

Different from other generic crime dramas that typically emerge from the Mumbai industry, Bambai Meri Jaan is a crime drama that centers around the ups and downs of filial ties. The main focus of the show is the relationship between Ismail and Dara, but the closeness between Dara and his feisty younger sister Habiba and the sibling "rivalry" that develops between Dara and Saadiq-who feels like he's always got the short end of the stick-are equally crucial to the storyline.

Another aspect of Bambai Meri Jaan is, which centers on a mobster and the city that he describes as his adored. It's clear that Dara is not a poet, and he lacks the words to convey his love for Bombay-or its underbelly, anyway. In addition, the protagonist has a less glamorous romantic interest in Pari (Amyra Dastur), the daughter of an Irani café owner with whom he has had a number of run-ins. Here, too, words fail him, and he finds it difficult to express his love for the girl he has been fascinated with since he was a young schoolboy. Though Dara doesn't give up easily, neither Bombay nor Pari seems to be ultimately meant to be his.

In 1986, Bambai Meri Jaan debuts. Confronted with the law, Dara Kadri is prepared to take off from Bombay. The end of the show is clearly in sight with this intro. The story leaps forward a few decades to 1964 and focuses on the Kadri couple, who are expecting their fourth child and making ends meet on a poor policeman's wage. As the years pass, the financial hardship gets harder, and Ismail's second son, Dara, starts acting suspiciously.

This is an explicitly fictional story based on actual occurrences. The majority of the major characters are based on real people, such as Assistant Commissioner of Police Ranbir Malik (Shiv Pandit), who supports Dara Kadri in an effort to weaken the influence of Haji and Pathan.

Bambai Meri Jaan: A Quick Review

The story is overdone in two important ways. One, given that the Dawood story has been told on the big screen multiple times in the new millennium and was even recently given a documentary treatment (in Netflix's Mumbai Mafia: Police vs the Underworld), Bambai Meri Jaan fails to offer anything that could be considered novel despite the action and dramatic twists it manages to pull off.

The language used in Bambai Meri Jaan, which credits Rensil D'Silva and Sameer Arora for the screenplay and Abbas Dalal and Hussain Dalal for writing the dialogue, only offers a little to the exercise. The coarseness of it may make some sense, given the context, but the profanities are totally over the top.

Bambai Meri Jaan is a wide and occasionally engrossing historical account of the underworld wrapped in a very theatrical exterior based on generalizations about crime, law enforcement, and a vast metropolis of nightmares and dreams. For Bambai Meri Jaan, the actors come through for the good.

Performances That Stand Out

Bambai Meri Jaan's aim to clear the clutter is an intriguing feature. The creators understand that things must be done differently. A portion of this is effective. Although Dara is the main character and Bombay is his playground, this is still very much a story about a dysfunctional family. The main character is the Kadri family. Ismail Kadri (Kay Kay Menon), the patriarch and disillusioned father of four, tells the story of the journey.

Ismail is actually the main character in the first three episodes of the series, which take place while Dara & his siblings are still young criminals. His coldly noble persona foreshadows a future in which the city is involved as collateral in a dramatic family drama. The series establishes a feeling of history & stakes by delving into his struggle as an honorable police officer who won't sell out. This accomplishes two things: it reminds everyone that Dara is more of a villain than an anti-hero, and it contextualizes the heat that signifies a son-rise.

The last sections are decided by contrasting Ismail's morals with his son's rebellion: Ismail was brought low by his devotion to a family that no longer respected him. Dara develops into a guy who utilizes his family as a front for an empire-building binge. His desire for vengeance fuels his ambition, and it seems as though he always finds a reason to justify his lawless outbursts once a loved one dies.

His deception is reverence. Some of the father-son conversations are reminiscent of the ideological conflicts between Ranveer Singh and Vijay Raaz in Gully Boy (2019), with the exception that Dara, in this instance, is influenced by Vijay Verma's dark side. His decision to choose the exact opposite road is a result of his irritation with Ismail's ideas. The father appears to be the villain for daring to be moral and for not "evolving" with the times, which says something.

Kay Kay Menon's compelling portrayal of a man who is intimidated out of his own story is helpful. Ismail's voice-over is filled with remorse rather than pride, and the pouting character takes on the role of the Kadri family's fading conscience. A couple more performances are also effective. Making the most of her little on-screen time, Nivedita Bhattacharya plays Sakina Kadri, a mother divided between her son's dishonest success and her husband's honest failure.

Sakina's whole issue is revealed in a succession of intense scenes, yet the actress does a respectable job of capturing Sakina's lingering remorse. Saurabh Sachdeva is another who is currently quite popular due to his recent character roles. He portrays mafia leader Haji with a gender fluidity that is both real and menacing at the same time; even the way he smokes-deep, contemplative draws-reveals the gangster's innate connection between real-life experiences and cinematic masculinity.

Direction & Music

With his directing, Shujaat Saudagar (Rock On 2) does provide some thrilling moments. The funeral picture, the closeness between young Dara and his sister Habiba, her ascending to the kingdom, the father dying breath by breath, and the young boy reading out an entire English newspaper headline made his parents pleased. All of it enhances the positive aspects of the experience and diverts your focus from the show's similarities and repetition. It doesn't help that Shujaat's directing likewise borrows heavily from the dramatic mob dramas we have seen throughout the years.

Both the background score and the art design are outstanding; they are executed precisely and in the right proportion. The crew succeeds in capturing the mood, even though some of the appearances are too modern for the period in which the drama is set.

Technical Aspects

The production design of the series is its most notable aspect; it perfectly recreates the color scheme, artwork, and general atmosphere of 1986. The world the creators have created is breathtaking to look at.

The method used by director Shujaat Saudagar is similar to a fine balancing act, as he tries to bring a sense of novelty to an old story that has been adapted many times. Compared to filmmakers like Mani Ratnam, Ram Gopal Varma, Anurag Kashyap, and Milan Luthria, who have previously directed films like "Nayagan," "Satya," "D-Company," "Black Friday," "Once Upon a Time in Mumbai," and many others centered around Dawood and other Mumbai underworld figures, the director only partially succeeds in creating something truly iconic. Despite his best efforts, the storyline remains somewhat unchanged.

Conclusion

He gives a sincere representation of a modest family man and an honest police officer. In the confrontation moments, he is just as skilled and efficient, effortlessly displaying the breadth of his abilities. At first, at least, Ismail's character comes out as overly innocent and unsuspecting.

The harsh, cruel aesthetic of the Mumbai underworld complements Bambai Meri Jaan well. Due to its length and stretching, the series loses its focus. But if you enjoy this kind of criminal fiction, this might be your best option.

"Bambai Meri Jaan" explores a bit of Mumbai's grim realities while providing substance and soul. This series is a must-watch if you enjoy gripping crime dramas since it promises to be an engaging trip through the fascinating world of Mumbai's underworld during a pivotal period.