On the surface, Khakee: The Bengal Chapter, the new Netflix original, carries both a state and a scale. Its heart is built of pulp, and its mind shines with stories replete with purpose. A kidnapping racket gives way to a shady organ trade. A gangster, feared and fabled, spills blood with the same hands that turn the pages of scripture for his ailing mother. The cops stand upright, though the ground beneath them shifts. Politicians play their moves like a game of chess. The youth, disillusioned by the system, have become outliers. And a young woman opposition leader emerges as the lone promise of tomorrow. All these fragments of truth now await the embrace of fiction — a union that could shape a show both layered and gripping.
However, in execution, Khakee: The Bengal Chapter makes a massive mess of both its state and scale. There’s pulp without pleasure, stories without substance. The backdrop of multiple crime rackets remains undercooked, never reaching their full potential. The gangster (perhaps the only character with some intrigue) is reduced to a tired trope, left unexplored. The cops wear their honesty, but their convictions are never truly tested. The politicians are as flat and lifeless as the chessboard they play on. The youth is perpetually consumed by rage, veering towards caricature, their rebellion bordering on silliness. And the opposition leader? She raises her voice against injustice but never steps beyond rhetoric, offering little to earn the mantle of tomorrow’s hope. In the end, the truth is bent and twisted to suit convenient fiction, leaving us with a show that is neither nuanced nor compelling.
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Everything is so formulaic, you can trace the blueprint from miles away. Everything is so predictable, so worn thin, that you could wager on how the entire seven hours will unfold — and win without breaking a sweat. Take the two orphan brothers at the center of it all, Sagor (Ritwik Bhowmik) and Ranjit (Aadil Zafar Khan). One is restrained and calculating, the other impulsive and brash. One is the brain and the other muscle. They work for Bagha (Saswata Chatterjee), the dreaded gangster who pins all his faith on his incompetent son. You know the arc: the seeds of betrayal are sown from the start. They will scheme, the throne will tremble, and power will shift. So far, so Mirzapur.
When they seize the throne, ambition will rise, as it always does. But growing strength breeds growing enemies. The honest cop, Arjun Maitra (Jeet), chasing them, will naturally find his way in. Divide and conquer — that’s the play. Misunderstandings will brew, doubts will be planted, and soon, the brothers will be locked in a blood-soaked rivalry. So far, so Gunday. And then there’s the politician Barun Roy (Prosenjit Chatterjee). He uses everyone like pawns. Every move is calculated, every crisis engineered. He pulls the strings, speaks poison, and manipulates even the Chief Minister to keep his grip on power. But when his own throne feels unsteady, when the power feels threatened, he’ll shed the facade. Hands will get dirty. Enemies will disappear. So far, so like every Prakash Jha potboiler.
That’s the thing about Khakee — it borrows so much from everywhere that nothing truly lands. The tones shift, the conflicts escalate, but no spark of novelty ever ignites. Not that every show needs to be groundbreaking, or that originality alone defines great storytelling. But when you have a scale this vast, an ensemble this sprawling, and a state so rarely explored in its raw depth, retreating into the comforts of formula feels like a choice made from fear. It signals a reluctance to risk. It hints at a belief that a familiar tale of betrayal and revenge will be enough to ensure success. The scope was undeniable, but somewhere along the way, the creator (Neeraj Pandey) and writers (Debatma Mandal, Samrat Chakraborty, and Pandey) seemed unwilling to push past the pulp. Instead of daring to explore the nuances of their world, they settle for twists that are as predictable as they are shallow. And the most frustrating part? Every time the story flirts with the possibility of soaring, they pull it back — as though afraid of its own power.
An argument could be made — why not judge the show for what it is, rather than what it could have been? Fair enough. But even by that measure, Khakee offers little more than disappointment. The beauty of a pulpy premise is its unpredictability: it thrives on the pleasure of the unexpected, never letting you settle. There’s shock in every twist, urgency in every turn. The characters aren’t meant to be mere placeholders; they are full of contradictions. But Khakee has none of that. It’s so devoid of tension, so stripped of surprise, that even its moments of violence and betrayal feel preordained. Worse still, it could have been set anywhere. Call it any chapter from any state, and the outcome would remain unchanged. The very essence of pulp storytelling lies in how deeply it drinks from its surroundings. The landscape shapes the narrative; the dialect, the customs, the bruises of the land seep into the story’s bones. Think of Mirzapur or even Netflix’s own Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhen — remove their geography, and you take away their spirit.
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But Khakee refuses to embrace that. It nods at the region, but never truly lets it breathe. Without cultural specificity, all it leaves behind is a shallow shell of what could have been. It’s a baffling move from a streaming giant like Netflix, especially when its other show making waves is Adolescence — a global hit rooted so deeply in its geography that even the camera knows where to stay, when to move, when to soar. In contrast, the only thing Khakee’s pulpy premise offers is momentum. There’s always something happening, something to keep you watching. But that raises a larger question — is hookedness now the only measure of success? Do we expect nothing more than a show addictive enough to consume our hours? And if so, where does the problem really lie — with those calling the shots or with us? Have our attention spans grown so frail that all we ask from our storytellers is a steady stream of distraction? Something to binge-watch, without asking us to think?
