The 10-episode Zee5 Hindi comedy sequence Kaun Banegi Shikharwati is surprisingly mediocre contemplating the expertise concerned. The solid consists of Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Lara Dutta Bhupathi and Soha Ali Khan. Naseeruddin, Raghuvir and Lara have beforehand been a part of the net sequence Bandish Bandits, Panchayat, and Hundred, respectively. So, it’s not a case of those actors making a misstep with out realizing what OTT has to supply. That can solely be stated about Soha Ali Khan, who’s making her streaming debut with this present.
The producers are Sameer Nair’s Applause Entertainment and Nikkhil Advani’s Emmay Entertainment. Both firms have made a mark in net sequence – Applause with Hostages and Scam 1992, Emmay with Mumbai Diaries 26/11. One of the co-directors of the present is Gauravv Ok Chawla, whose 2018 monetary thriller Baazaar, starring Saif Ali Khan, was an honest watch. The performances and manufacturing values are expectedly nice. Then what went unsuitable?
Even the premise had promise. The king of a present-day fictional Rajasthani kingdom Shikharwati, performed by Naseeruddin, has to pay unpaid taxes value ₹32 crore inside a month, or the federal government will snatch away his property. The kingdom is in a shambles, because the widower king misplaced all curiosity in it after his 4 daughters (Lara, Soha, Kritika Kamra, Anya Singh) left six years again. The king’s solely companion is his man Friday (Raghuvir), who places up together with his tantrums and whimsies.
Seeing that he will likely be unable to pay the federal government, the king conspires together with his quantity two to get his daughters again to the home, and dump his fiscal tasks on them. For this, he pretends to die, and engages his daughters to compete with each other in a sequence of Roadies-style duties. The winner will inherit Shikharwati.
Also learn: Lara Dutta on taking tips about royalty from Soha Ali Khan: I overlook she is a royal, attribute that extra to Saif Ali Khan
The king’s daughters, who don’t see eye to eye, don’t have anything in widespread with one another. Devyani (Lara Dutta Bhupathi) is assured of her wealth and standing. The second youngster, Gayatri (Soha Ali Khan), is searching for internal peace in an ashram. Spoilt brat Kamini (Kritika Kamra) is a social media influencer. The youngest, Uma (Anya Singh), is a video-game designer.
They are all handed some quirks – Devyani is a perfectionist mother. Gayatri is a perpetual validation-seeker. Kamini is simply annoying whereas absolutely anything can set off Uma’s allergic reactions.
But over the course of 10 episodes, they continue to be caricatures and by no means develop into three-dimensional characters. The downside with Kaun Banegi Shikharwati is its writing, which severely assessments the viewer’s persistence for 300 odd minutes. If the script itself is dangerous, a top-drawer solid and crew can’t save the venture. It’s bewildering to see such a poorly developed screenplay get bankrolled and entice such expertise.
Creator and co-director Ananya Banerjee’s try is to create a heartwarming, goofy comedy, the place the oddball king annoys the 4 girls, however sometimes shares poignant moments with them, till the daughters resolve their variations and are available collectively to avoid wasting Shikharwati. That is a superb thought, however she is unable to show it right into a compelling screenplay.
The boring household historical past padding the characters is de facto unremarkable and never as fascinating because the makers suppose. The stakes are by no means excessive to the viewer, as a result of they’re clearly by no means essential to the characters themselves. Epiphanies are simply and ceaselessly reached. Characters solemnly rethink their lives, as they ponder over one thing unimportant, however the background rating would recommend in any other case. The dramatic highs are mapped out, however unearned.
For instance, the king had been pitting his daughters in opposition to each other (For amusement? Why? It’s by no means clear truly why the video games are so essential to him) since they had been youngsters, till they develop as much as be continually competing with one another. This results in an ungainly second in a celebration within the first episode, and Devyani, with none foreshadowing, drops a look-at-what-you-made-us and storms out of the home, the opposite sisters following her. Where did that outburst come from?
It’s like Ananya Banerjee’s goal with this scene was to have the daughters level out that their dad is fairly dysfunctional, for which they reduce him off for six years, however she doesn’t know how you can attain there. Just a few scenes later in the identical episode, Devyani once more has a second the place she says the themes of the sequence out loud. Themes ought to routinely emerge from the drama as an alternative of characters expressing the administrators’ intentions with dialogue. But the drama is anyway non-existent right here.
The worst crime of Kaun Banegi Shikharwati is that it’s not even humorous. It jogged my memory of a 2018 net sequence known as Shaitan Haveli, created by and starring Varun Thakur, who additionally stars in Kaun Banegi Shikharwati. Shaitan Haveli felt like a present the place the creators had been too intoxicated with the cleverness of their premise to work laborious on a screenplay that did justice to their thought.
Kaun Banegi Shikharwati has the identical downside. In a scene within the closing episode, Naseeruddin Shah says “Shikharwati is not here”, pointing on the opulence round him, after which provides, “but here”, pointing at his coronary heart. At the top of 10 episodes, Shikharwati stays within the display, overlook reaching the pinnacle or the guts.
Series: Kaun Banegi Shikharwati
Director: Ananya Banerjee, Gauravv Ok Chawla
Cast: Lara Dutta Bhupathi, Soha Ali Khan, Anya Singh, Kritika Kamra, Naseeruddin Shah, Raghuvir Yadav
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