Swamp Creatures:
The female protagonist and antagonist of Daldal both come from backgrounds of neglect and abuse. The former, Rita Ferreira (Bhumi Pednekar), becomes a dedicated cop, the latter a murderous psychopath, Anant/Anita (Samara Tijori)
The seven-part web series, directed by Amrit Raj Gupta, is full of twisted characters and brutal murders. The camera pans slowly – and unnecessarily—over slashed bodies and mutilated faces. This kind of gruesome violence should ideally be kept out of home entertainment content. Disturbing images do not add any value to the show.
The perpetually glum Rita is given a promotion to DCP after a successful undercover operation to stop a human trafficking ring. Her boss (Sandesh Kulkarni) has appointed her, a woman, as a PR gimmick, so Rita has to face the nastiness of a jealous male colleague (Chinmay Mandlekar), even as her relationship with a cheerful doctor (Vijay Krishna) breaks up.
Rita is always dressed in severe outfits in dark shades, a belt tightly clinching her waist;, she is always pouting and yelling even at her loyal constable (Geeta Agrawal), which makes her a boring, one-note character. The only thing which makes her less of a robot is her weed-smoking habit, for which she has a supplier code-named Doctor. Anita has more fun playing a journalist, needling Rita, and using an eager admirer in the crime branch as a source.
Caught in between, is Sajid (Aditya Rawal), who becomes a suspect in the brutal murders of men, with whom the killer has an axe to grind, some of them just names in a police list of victims who were killed with the same method.
The show, based on Vish Dhamija’s novel Bhendi Bazaar, was set in a red light area. In Daldal, there is a flashback about a Russian woman (Emily R. Acland) in the flesh trade, and the opening scenes around a brothel, but it is mostly zigzagging over the emotional graphs of the Rita, Anita and Sajid, with the police procedural often taking a back seat.
The most sincere and affecting performance comes from Aditya Rawal, as the loyal friend and tragic loser crushed by the evil that surrounds him.
Rita Ferreira stands in a long line of female cops on OTT, all with personal issues that either drive or hinder them, so much so that the character has become a cliché. The week when Daldal drops (on Amazon Prime Video), on the screen Rani Mukerji plays a ne’er-say die cop in Mardaani 3. For women to be at the centre of the action, they have to play masculinised characters.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)