Mandala Murders Series Review:

There is certainly a Netflix aesthetic which makes its way into all its original shows and films. It majorly operates within some identifiable colour palettes carried ahead from the trailblazers like Narcos and Sacred Games. Since then, all the thrillers backed by the streamer have come in the same filter: a mix of blue and yellow tones along with tints of low-contrast greys. It is difficult to tell one show from the other. A frame from the recently released Netflix show, Rana Naidu season 2 or Khakee: The Bengal Chapter doesn’t look much different from Dabba Cartel or The Railway Men. It is a multiverse of slick and steady camera work. Filmmaking has become derivative; films have turned into ‘titles’ which can be clubbed together and presented as a yearly ‘slate’. A strange homogeneity has taken over where everything looks and feels the same and continues to only evoke a resounding fatigue. It is a whirlpool of story-deficit scenes, a plenitude of shows that lack rigour. Vaani Kapoor’s The Mandala Murders is no different. It arrives in the multiverse and merges in the chaos.

Starring: Vaani Kapoor, Vaibhav Raj Gupta, Surveen Chawla, Jameel Khan and Ragubir Yadav 

Directed by: Gopi Puthran and Manan Rawat

Streamer: Netflix

Even its storyline reeks of a similar tragedy where characters have no novelty and are trapped in a formula. We get a forever-before-seen, no nonsense cop in the form of Vaani’s Rea who has to deal with her own psychological demons as she takes up a case of ritualistic serial murders taking place in the North Indian town of Charandaspur. She is joined for the investigation by a suspended cop, Vikram Singh (Vaibhav Raj Anand), who sees a connection with his mother’s disappearance 22 years ago in the murders taking place now. As if just following on the fundamentals of screenwriting 101, Vikram is given an exhaustive back-story about his lover who met with an accident. What could have easily been conveyed with a few evocative dialogue exchanges turns into an overlong flashback.

The show operates majorly in flashbacks and less in real-time. In fact, as it progresses, there is more dependence on showing what happened in the past than following the characters in the present. It begins with a rather loud flashback sequence where an enigmatic community is engaged in a strange ritual involving a futuristic device and some human bodies. Led by a woman in red sari, Rukmini (a miscast Shriya Pilgaonkar), they are all waiting to be transformed. The story then shifts to the present, operating more like a crime-thriller for a couple episodes before shifting back to have a mythical connect. The twists don’t really make a difference and neither does seeing a body getting piled at the end of each episode. There is nothing to get hooked on to here; nothing to stay put. As it unfolds, the show just feels like a big-budgeted revamp of a Doordarshan sci-fi soap from the 90s.  

There is a sign of ambition here but not the intent of creating a worthwhile experience. Directors Gopi Puthran and Manan Rawat don’t really pay any heed to building an engaging environment. The focus is more on blindly following plot events while failing to add any bite to the narrative. It is just in the third episode with the introduction of Raghubir Yadav’s character that an element of mystery is evoked. There is a sense of genuine dread created within the overarching same-old aesthetics. Yet it is short-lived. The ambiguity returns in no time with more flashbacks.

Mandala Murders is perennially confused on what tone to carry. It doesn’t completely surrender to its mythical themes, nor does it faithfully explore its crime-drama aspects. There is even another arc of a politician, Ananya Bhardwaj (Surveen Chawla) who wants to become the chief minister, and there goes one more cliché of the genre: add a cunning politician. There is so much going on in the show, and in the end, nothing stays. Surveen comes out to be the only consistent actor in the series, which starts to put her as well in awkward scenarios by the finale. On the other hand, it is difficult to root for Vaani playing the cop as she feels slightly out-of-place, always emoting with a straight face. Even Gullak fame Vaibhav doesn’t completely get into the skin of his character. He seems a tad too feeble to be the protagonist and is not able to bring his top game.

The same lack of clarity is seen in the direction that the show takes. A common feeling of indifference is evoked while watching some of Netflix’s uninspired ‘titles’. They seem to have come out of algorithms and from a chase for numbers. It won’t be a surprise to find Mandala Murders getting renewed for another season, and the final episode even hints at stretching the story ahead. But will that be a natural progression? Multiple characters are seen repeating throughout the show, ‘Vardaan ka mol chukana hoga' (There’s a price to pay for the boon). We have all paid the price, but where’s the boon?