Piyul Mukherjee

Binge watched Farzi last night. Now groggy-eyed. Should have expected this with directors being Raj & DK. What i did know for sure when i began watching the episodes is that there would be no regrets later at my time wasted. (So many OTT series make me grumpy due to lasting regret at having compulsively watched rubbish)! Family Man had set up expectations sky-high and rightly so. Here, i especially loved the way the approach-avoidance interaction between the minister Gahlot (Zakir Hussain) and the the protagonist on the right side of the law, Michael (Vijay Sethupathi) is set out all through the series. Very sharply written and perfectly enacted by VS and ZH making it so real and non-stereotypical. Boys - Shahid Kapoor & Bhuvan Arora - were competent. Raashi was perfectly cast as the young fire in her belly RBI officer. The grandpa interactions were a tad dragged out. Almost as if Raj and DK didn't have the heart to cut out scenes with a thespian of Bollywood called Amol Palekar. Frankly, those bits were predictable, stereotyped and boring. And while it was delightful to see cameos - Chellam Sir et al - over here in this Mumbai story, Farzi was not quite Family Man. I mean, i wouldn't want to see cameos in reverse i think - these folks entering that world.