The Front Page:
As any true blue journalist would agree, the crime beat of a newspaper is thrilling, because the chase and uncovering of criminal activity, with its whiff of risk-taking, is a high. The new show Crime Beat (on ZEE5), based on Somnath Batabyal’s book, The Price You Pay, directed by Sudhir Mishra and Sanjeev Kaul, is reminiscent of recent OTT content set in the world of journalism, like Despatch, The Broken News, Scoop.
This eight-part show is not so much about the inside track on journalism as it is about the crime-police-politics nexus in which the media might play the role of a very weak catalyst. Even the most principled journalist has to succumb to pressure from the management and bury a story that could affect the interests of those in power. At the same time, a smart criminal could manipulate a sensation-hungry media for his own purposes.
The protagonist of Crime Beat, is Abhishek (Saqib Saleem), who has moved from Banaras to Delhi to make it big as a journalist. and manages to live in a lavish apartment thanks to a rich buddy. He impresses Amir Akhtar (Danish Husain), the editor of The Express enough to be able to make a move from a lurid tabloid to a respectable newspaper, but he is also hungry for by-lines, and the elusive page one story. The show makes it look as if the first page of a newspaper is essentially an investigative expose, while in reality, most of it is regular, agency- provided news copy. The paper’s cynical photographer Pashupati (Kishore Kadam), an oldtimer in the newsroom, becomes Abhishek’s guide through the labyrinth he is keen on entering.
An escaped gangster, Binny Chaudhary (Rahul Bhat), is pulling political strings from Afghanistan, so a powerful politician SK Rawat (Vipin Sharma) wants him dead. A top cop, DCP Uday (Rajesh Tailang) is on Rawat’s payroll and curbs his enthusiastic deputy ACP Mayank’s (Adinath Kothare) investigation into Chaudhary’s activities. His gang members, that include a femme fatale nicknamed Heroine (Sai Tamhankar) carry out kidnapping and ransom collection on Chaudhary’s behalf. When Chaudhary sneaks into Delhi with his own political agenda, Rawat is furious and worried.
Acting more like a detective than a reporter, Abhishek starts digging into Chaudhary’s crimes, at one point even posing as a film producer to reach his inner circle.
The paths of DCP Uday, Rawat, Chaudhary, Heroine and her victims keep intersecting, as Abhishek’s scoop is stolen by Akhtar and he walks out of the paper to join a television news channel. He is more than eager to be picked up by Chaudhary so that he can deliver exclusives. The sense of power starts eroding Abhishek’s ethics, for which he is berated by a fellow journalist Maya (Saba Azad), who then does not hesitate to steal his sensational story.
Crime Beat is a fast-paced thriller, with a star turn by Rahul Bhat (recently seen in Black Warrant) as the charismatic gangster. The show is well cast, with Saqib Saleem convincing as the idealistic journalist who does not even realise when and how he strayed. Crime Beat has plausibility gaps and some unexplained tracks – like the mysterious one-scene godwoman, and the naïve film director– but it is engrossing enough to be binge watchable.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)