Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas: An average watch instead of compelling nightmare, notes Mayur Sanap.
Early in Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas, we see the meet-cute of a young couple on the quaint ghats of Varanasi.
The guy gently but determinedly pursues the girl, and despite her initial disapproval of his soppy behaviour, she is ultimately drawn to him.
So ensues a romance between the two, Meera (Ayesha Kaduskar) and Sameer (Jitendra Kumar), who then decide to elope due to their inter-caste relationship.
This bittersweet romantic track runs parallel to the police procedural drama where Inspector Vishwas Bhagwat (Arshad Warsi) and his team of subordinates are investigating a startling case of several missing women in the same region.
The two tracks run in different time zones, and how they will collide is not much of a mystery if you have seen enough crime stories that the Indian streaming space is dishing out of late.
The most frustrating aspect of Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas is that it feels all too familiar.
The plot revolving around an unrepentant killer is strikingly similar to Reema Kagti and Ruchika Oberoi's terrific Dahaad. The police procedural bits remind you of the other ZEE5 show Janaawar: The Beast Within featuring an excellent Bhuvan Arora.
Director Akshay Shere, working on the script by Sumit Saxena and Bhavini Bheda, takes a grim true-life tale in Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas and presents it in a fashion that's too conventional at times, even though the intentions are in the right place. This is the same problem that Bhumi Pednekar's Bhakshak suffered from.
The focus is also on the machismo of Warsi's cop character to establish him as the protagonist hero of the show (it's called Chapter One for a reason), but it does so with dampener effect.
This effort feels indulgent at times, which inadvertently turns the unsettling story into a reductive thriller-cum-suspense drama that lacks the necessary tension and emotional heft.
The cast is determined to do something with the material, but given the standard tropes of their characters, they can only do so much.
Arshad Warsi's growling, screaming, agitating, outwitting cop is the shadow of every other police detective we have seen in this space before. And even though the actor is sincere, there's nothing particularly exciting about his character, which only dampens the overall impact of his performance.
Jitendra Kumar's versatility is more evident in a role that makes a smart use of his boyish charm, only to spring a surprise.
The actor puts forward some wild personality shifts to good effect, but there's not much mystery or tension about his character that would have further elevated his performance. A character like that needed a deep dive to hit harder, but it just feels incomplete, not developed enough, for us to fully be immersed in the story.
Overall, Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas feels like a wasted potential without the adequate writing.
You wait for a visceral gut punch, but the film remains an average watch instead of a compelling nightmare.
Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas streams on ZEE5.
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