Bambai Meri Jaan review: Even Kay Kay Menon's tour de force fails to save this 'old wine in new bottle' gangster drama

Director: Shujaat Saudagar

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Avinash Tiwary, Kritika Kamra, Nivedita Bhattacharya, Jitin Gulati, Saurabh Sachdeva, Nawab Shah, Dinesh Prabhakar, Lakshya Kocchar, Shiv Pandit, Amyra Dastur, and Aditya Rawal

Where to watch: Prime Video

Rating: 2.5 stars

To call Bambai Meri Jaan, the newest gangster drama in town, dark would be an understatement. The show from Shujaat Saudagar takes grittiness to its extreme and as has been the norm of late, for some reason, tests your screen’s brightness levels with scenes so dimly lit that you can hardly see a thing. But you can forgive all that for its performances and the production values. Bambai Meri Jaan is one of the most well made and well acted shows of recent times in this genre. Where it falters is in its storytelling that does not offer anything the average viewer has not seen about a dozen times already.

Partially based on Hussain Zaidi’s bestseller Dongri to Dubai, Bambai Meri Jaan fictionalises the journey of Mumbai mafia. It tells the story of Avinash Tiwary’s Dara Qadri (the producers will have you believe he is not based on Dawood Ibrahim but the argument against it is flimsy), the son of a righteous cop Ismail Qadri (Kay Kay Menon), who enters the big bad world of the Mumbai underworld. He must navigate sharks like Haji (Saurabh Sacdheva), Pathan (Nawab Shah), and Anna (Dinesh Prabhakar), while battling his father’s disapproval.

In ten episodes, Bambai Meri Jaan graphs Dara’s rise from upstart to the king of Mumbai’s crime world in a rather predictable fashion. The story is something that has been told time and time again, and the show resorts to using the same clichés and tropes that crime dramas and gangster films have for years, probably decades. As much as the makers will maintain that this story is ‘all fiction’, the parallels to reality are all there, from thinly-disguised names to almost exact recreation of real incidents from 1980s’ Bombay.

But a familiar story can be told in an interesting fashion as we have seen many times. That is where Bambai Meri Jaan falters. It resorts to using tropes of the trade and turns every character into a clichéd version of what they ought to be, bringing in stereotypes and predictability. The show really comes alive in moments of action because that is when there is something novel happening. The action is more rooted and realistic than in some of the recent crime and gangster dramas we have seen of late.

There are parts of Bambai Meri Jaan that tend to go overboard. Without any spoilers, but a particularly violent depiction of assault gets graphic without actually showing anything, merely through the sounds and music. It is in part a credit to the director for creating that effect so simply and also a little disturbing as I felt it could have been toned down. But then Bambai Meri Jaan aims to disturb, which is its way of depicting the harsh reality.

The performances are the saving grace of the show (along with that banger of a title track in Shibani Dandekar’s voice). Kay Kay Menon easily lords over everyone in an author-backed role. With each line and expression, the veteran actor re-asserts his position as one of the finest actors of his generation. Avinash Tiwari tries to match up but does fall short in places. He brings out Dara’s arrogance and bravado quite well but falters in depicting his inner conflict and turmoil. Kritika Kamra does a fine job playing a more badass role than she ever has and holds her own as Dara’s sister Habiba, while Nivedita Bhattacharya as Sakina, Dara’s mother, is a revelation too.

Among the support cast, two names stand out. The first s Saurabh Sachdeva as Haji (inspired from Haji Mastan), who portrays the don’s various shades – from the ruthless king to the defeated warrior – very adeptly. The second is Aditya Rawal as Chhota Babban (or Rajan, anyone?), who gets the benefit of the most stylish presentation of all the characters, complete with a rap from Kaam Bhaari as his theme song. In limited screen time, the young actor brings to life the younger generation of the Mumbai mafia.

Bambai Meri Jaan is, by no means, unwatchable. It is, in parts, a fine show. But it is much less than what it could have been given the premise, the cast, and the expertise at hand. While the production does a fine job of bringing to life Bambai through the sets, the design, and the aesthetics, the soul of the city and the story is found lacking.