Farzi in Google Drive
Storyline: An artist who gets pulled into the murky high stakes of a con job and a fiery task force officer on the mission to rid the country of his menaces in a fast-paced, edgy one-of-a-kind thriller.
Director: N/A
Cast(s): Vijay Sethupathi, Shahid Kapoor, Raashi Khanna
Language: Hindi
Quality: Amazon WEB-DL
Resolution: 480P | 720P | 1080P | 4K
Size: 900MB | 1.9GB | 4.8GB | 25.9GB
Story: An artist starts the unlawful business of designing and printing counterfeit notes to save his Grandpa’s dying printing press. But before he knows, he is too deep into the muck and his one-time crime becomes a thriving syndicate.
Review: Abandoned by his own father and taken in by his maternal Grandfather, Sunny (Shahid Kapoor) has grown up with resentment against the world. Apart from his best friend Firoz (Bhuvan (Arora) and his Nanu (Amol Palekar), there is no one he can call his own. And, it’s only a matter of time before he switches from making abstract yet beautiful paintings and selling them for peanuts to the world of crime. It starts out as a desperate attempt to help his Nanu’s age-old publication ‘Kranti’ but soon he realises his own potential as a brilliant artist, who can design ‘Farzi’ notes like no one else.
It’s a crime that has seldom been explored on screen and creators Raj and DK go all in. From intricate and technical details about making fake notes to their distribution and infiltration into the economy, this thrilling web series is dangerously detailed. Such that we wonder if it can be misused by criminals. However, despite the realistic tone of the show, the makers use a lot of cinematic convenience that feels quite unbelievable and at times downright preposterous. Especially, when a fiscal crime of this magnitude is being carried out in the country and only a few good men and one woman seem hell-bent on stopping it.
That said, ‘Farzi’ uses really strong characters to tell its story. Each and every important character is well-defined and clearly fleshed out. While their stories run concurrently, not all of them are equally interesting. For example, the entire track of task force officer Michael Vedanayagam (Vijay Sethupathi) feels quite forced and slows down the speed of this otherwise fast-paced thriller. Also, when makers switch from big screen to the small, they get carried away with the freedom of runtime. Some judicious editing could have made this show crisper, even more interesting and engaging for the viewer. Yet, there is an element of constant unpredictability and thrill that makes this one an easy binge. Also, the scale of the show is no less than that of a movie - from a telling cinematography (by Pankaj Kumar) to the generous use of outdoor locations and top-notch production values.
Performances also reign supreme here. Shahid Kapoor aces it once again, reprising his bad-boy-with-a-heart avatar from Kaminey. The actor is in top form in his debut show on OTT and gets into the skin of his character, effortlessly. Ditto for Vijay Sethupathi, who brings his trademark style to portray the highly motivated officer Michael, who never plays by the rulebook. It’s the clash of these two super strong and powerful characters that keeps fuelling the narrative with huge doses of excitement. Kay Kay Menon is a hoot playing the fake note kingpin Mansoor. The actor nails the eccentricities and quirks of his character - be it the flamboyant, uber chic and metrosexual dressing to the use of cuss words in his kachchi Angrezi. Bhuvan Arora is superb as Sunny’s BFF and man Friday Firoz. The actor is in fact, quite the surprise package, as he effortlessly makes you fall in love with Firoz. Veteran actor Amol Palekar is aptly cast as the upright freedom fighter, who still has hope from the youth of the country and his fading newspaper ‘Kranti’. Women are woefully outnumbered by men in this male-dominated story, but Raashi Khanna is impressive as Megha - a young and raring-to-go professional.
There are too many F and MC, BC words, which is like an all too familiar calling card for such shows on OTT, but thankfully here only a few of them feel out of place. The dialogues on the whole are very relevant and well-suited to each character. Overall, ‘Farzi’ is a refreshing and intensely gripping scamster saga where the pros far outweigh the cons.
