Lawyer Chameleon:
When Reeta Sanyal opens, the eponymous lawyer (Adah Sharma) is fighting a case for a dog that is barking in the witness box. A series that begins with such a ridiculous scene could either get better, or simply collapse into more absurdity. This one teeters on the edge.
Based on the novels by Amit Shah, Reeta Sanyal, directed by Abhirup Ghosh from a script by Deepak Das, aims at a comic book feel meant for children, with low attention spans—the episodes run for about 20 minutes. Not even teens could take this show seriously when the streaming space is overflowing with good crime and legal shows. For instance, put Reeta Sanyal and Lincoln Lawyer on the scales, and the former would fly off with its featherweight content.
In the first episode, along with Reeta and her tapori sidekick Ishaan (Manik Papneja), a female assassin Zi (Nirisha Basnett) is also introduced, who dresses in a school uniform, constantly sucks on lollipops (she has lollipop sandwiches for lunch!), and grins manically for no reason. She is supposedly from the North East, so is accompanied by some vaguely oriental sounding music. Loud background music is now a menace in Indian web shows, and Reeta Sanyal is no exception.
Fed up of low level cases, Reeta wishes for a big career-defining one, and bumps into a man called Keshav, who claims he murdered politician Parav Rane, but his mother is being sentenced to death for it. The public prosecutor is Thakral (Rahul Dev), who is portrayed as evil, without any explanation–maybe because his name is villainish? Nobody wonders how a helpless old woman would get a gun; why is the son’s confession not taken into account—even when he reveals his modus operandi, so outlandish that only a bad TV show or stoned pulp writer could think it up. Why would anyone want to hang a harmless woman and then send the grinning, lollipop hitgirl to kill Keshav?
Not much makes sense in the series, anyway. Reeta Sanyal has to prove the mother is innocent, so she has to find the real killer, for which she bats her eyelashes at cop Jai Vardhan (Ankur Rathee), who instantly falls in love with her, and is only too willing to help. She also dons various disguises, puts on accents and pushes her way in anywhere—people are willing to tell her secrets, diaries with information and CDs (who uses CDs now?) with incriminating visuals are left around for her to find. At one point, she and Ishaan (who glares at the cop, because, love triangle brewing), break into the house of their own client, when they could have politely asked for a key. Incidentally, Keshav who is a TV prop guy lives in a bungalow, and Reeta in a mansion—in Mumbai?
Adah Sharma, who seems to be holding back an eye roll, is the only half-way decent actor amidst the crowd of amateurs and a bored-looking Rahul Dev. Some of them would not get past the audition stage, so they try to prove their worth by overacting. This case links up to something from Reeta’s past, so she is not going away soon; hope they can revive lollipop girl who is at least amusing. The series is available for free on Disney+Hotstar’s mobile app—hence the bite-sized content—and an episode will drop every day from Monday to Friday. Good enough to watch, perhaps, while waiting for the Uber to arrive!
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
