The children of long dead serial killer Bala Banne (Zakir Hussain) are stigmatised right from their school days for the sins of their father. Even 17 years later, the cops and the media, led by blogger Vikas Sarode (Abhijeet Khandkekar) with a huge following, have a hunch that Bala could not have acted on his own. He had an accomplice. Fingers are pointed at his son Abhishek, missing since the murder of the sarpanch.
Fed up of the association with the Banne surname, Abhishek (Gulshan Devaiah) switches identities and becomes Sammit Patel, the respectable son of Dr Manohar Patel (Rajesh Khattar) and socialite wife Anupriya (Divya Sheth) who have their own skeletons in the cupboard, quite literally. Dr Patel walks into his cupboard and into a hidden ICU where his real son Sammit (Amit Sadh) is in a coma.
People without feelings, dead to finer emotions, abound on screen.
In this mix is main element Ira Jaykar Patel (Drashti Dhami with round saucer-like eyes), a senior policewoman on the trail of a couple of murders that have happened in her jurisdiction. Are they copycat murders committed to look like Banne’s MO? Or is his unknown accomplice on the loose? And where’s Abhishek Banne?
Ira has no clue that Sammit, her perfect househusband who cooks, cleans and takes care of their precocious daughter, is the Abhishek Banne she’s hunting high and low for.
Given such a potent premise and the many twists in the plot, the official adaptation of the Korean drama ‘Flower Of Evil’, begins with a host of interesting question marks. But stretched over nine tedious episodes, what should have been an edge-of-the-seat nailbiter turns into a rather unexciting watch. There are unnecessary characterisations like the Patels, Abhishek/Sammit’s ‘parents’, having their nose perpetually in the air. For reasons unknown, and rather conveniently, the precocious granddaughter they keep at a distance, is palmed off on them by Ira’s mother (Nivedita Saraf) for a whole day. It’s done by writer Charudutt Acharya purely to make room for a twist that presents itself right at the end – like a cliffhanger for which you’re supposed to breathlessly wait for the next season.
Unnecessary tension between Ira and one of her colleagues leads nowhere and the many flashbacks to the past where the 17-year-old murder of the local sarpanch, Abhishek’s humiliation and some tantric rituals are replayed, add no zing to the storytelling. Directed by Pradeep Sarkar and Aijaz Khan, even the flashbacks to how Ira and Abhishek/Sammit met and wed don’t carry the spark of a warm romance. Nor is there brilliance in any of the performances.
It’s therefore not the main plot but the general dullness of the sequences that takes away from what could’ve been a spiffy, thrilling series. Put a pep in your step the next time around, guys.
Watch Duranga Trailer:
Also Read: Review | Dobaaraa – A Brain Teaser