‘Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas’ review: Crime film needs more craft and spark

If Akshay Shere's Bhagwat Chapter 1: Raakshas was a persuasively written and acted and directed film, it would still be sunk by its photography. At first I wondered if cinematographer Amogh Deshpande and the camera team weren't equipped to light closed spaces with finesse, or just couldn't be bothered. But scene after overlit scene made me reconsider. This felt like an order being carried out, instructions to keep things overly simple for some imagined consumer of OTT who’ll flee at the first hint of a shadow.

Arshad Warsi looks thoroughly bored—and who can blame him? He plays Vishwas Bhagwat, a UP cop with a reputation for breaking heads and solving cases (the former often leading to the latter). Indian cinema is overpopulated with conscientious hothead policemen, and this is a fairly hazy attempt at one. Bhagwat is no loose cannon; he’s a well-adjusted family and a tough but fair boss. His rages come out of nowhere, useful for a violent shift of tone but unrevealing of the man himself.

Bhagwat’s first case after he’s transferred to the small town of Robertsganj concerns a young woman named Poonam who’s gone missing. His investigation turns up similar cases in nearby towns until there are over a dozen. Around the same time, Meera (Ayesha Kaduskar) in Banaras finds herself increasingly charmed by a persistent stranger, Samir (Jitendra Kumar). Long before she finds herself in a cheap motel, wondering if she’s made a terrible mistake, it’s clear that Samir is behind the disappearances.

Samir turns out a formidable villain, unrepentant and enterprising once the police catch up with him. The problem is, we’ve seen almost this exact character and story in Dahaad (2023). Both this film and the Amazon series are based on the Mohan Kumar serial killings in 2000s Karnataka. But Dahaad is on a bigger scale, is better made, written and acted. Vijay Varma’s antagonist is a more arresting, chilling creation; you can see why so many women might fall under his spell. Jitendra Kumar is a smart bit of casting, working against his image as the amiable lead of Panchayat. But Kumar plays his hand a little too readily. Samir comes across as a creep from the outset—his best scenes are later in the film, when he’s making a mockery of the judicial process.

Shere and writers Bhavini Bheda and Sumit Saxena set their film in an India that’s believably uneasy and ugly. There are tensions over a rumoured interfaith affair, thuggish ‘moral police’ separate Samir and Meera at the ghats, and several of the missing girls’ families are either uninterested or embarrassed by their daughters being conned by a stranger. It’s also worth noting that though the cops try and beat a confession out of Samir, torture isn’t what’s ultimately effective. Still, the writing lacks the zing you often get in these dark thrillers. There’s a scene with Samir’s two wives and Bhagwat that should've been tartly funny but falls flat. “Bas chhodna mat kameene ko" (don’t spare that vile man), a clerk tells Bhagwat. “Promise," he replies.

There’s one nice visual device, a montage with the camera tracking across the screen, left to right, each shot showing Samir with a different victim. But apart from this, the film is hard to look at, with distracting framing choices and a jaundiced yellow-green tint. Bhagwat could be grouped with recent bleak procedurals like Sector 36 and Bhakshak, but those films, apart from possessing a more authentic darkness, show how a little craft goes a long way with modest releases like these.

Zee5 had a surprise streaming hit with the courtroom drama Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai in 2023, which even secured the film a theatrical run. Bhagwat, also a Zee5 original, is cut from the same cloth—basic production values, simplistic, socially relevant. As with so many films now, the canvassing for a franchise begins before the fate of the first is decided. There’s no indication why Shere’s film is ‘chapter 1’ or why glum Vishwas Bhagwat needs to return. They really shouldn't bother. It takes something special to make Arshad Warsi boring.