Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas

Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas starts like any Indian crime drama that wants the best of both worlds. The story is “inspired by true events,” but just about fictional and legally coy enough to stage itself as a franchise about a police officer who solves one case per film/season. It’s the Delhi Crime template. The ‘Chapter One’ in the title is a clue. As is the self-reverential opening slate: “To keep the truth alive, you must tell its story”. And a corny closing slate about courage that ends with an exclamation mark (!). In between these two quotes, however, Bhagwat defies its familiar status to stay humble, metrical and consistently watchable. Akshay Shere’s two-hour film has more in common with another well-crafted Hindi series. It shares its real-world source material with Dahaad (2023), the 8-episode thriller about a cop who gets drawn into a case of multiple missing girls and a potential serial killer. Like the show, the film does well to excavate the social fabric of a place that often serves as a portal between predator and prey.

OTT lighting. Killer of scenes. Destroyer of aesthetic. The flat, boring, unengaged style that says, we know this looks terrible but no one expects better anymore.

Two excellent actors, thriller genre, a real story and an authentic setting… ‘Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas’ seems to possess very many ingredients that make for a gripping fare. Indeed, the film starts off well: a girl has gone missing. Arshad Warsi, as Inspector Vishwas Bhagwat, has serious anger management issues and gets a punishment posting in the same town. He has a backstory, which is just hinted at to begin with, but explains both his anger and passion to go after criminals like a man possessed. His investigation into this particular case not only leads him to many more missing girls, but also dead end after dead end, until a breakthrough presents itself.

Exactly twenty years back, Arshad Warsi had played an upright cop in one of his finest films, ‘Sehar’. We had seen him in mostly comic roles up until then, and this ramrod straight policeman was a welcome departure, posting notice that he could do serious as well as jokey, turning him one of those performers whose presence invariably betters the movies they are in.

उत्तर प्रदेश के गुस्सैल ए.सी.पी. विश्वास भागवत को क्राइम ब्रांच से हटा कर रॉबर्ट्सगंज भेजा गया है। शहर में एक लड़की के गायब होने से बवाल मचा हुआ है। भागवत का वादा है कि वह 15 दिन में उसे तलाश लेगा। अपनी तफ्तीश में उसे पता चलता है कि सिर्फ वह लड़की ही नहीं बल्कि कुल 19 लड़कियां लापता हैं। पुलिस शक में एक युवक को उठाती है लेकिन उसके खिलाफ कोई पुख्ता सबूत नहीं है। भागवत को यकीन है कि यही राक्षस है लेकिन वह शातिर कुछ और ही पैंतरे आजमा रहा है। अचानक कुछ ऐसा होता है कि…! ज़ी-5 पर आई इस फिल्म ‘भागवत चैप्टर 1-राक्षस’ की कहानी में दम है। कहानी के आवरण को भी दिलचस्प ढंग से तैयार किया गया है जिससे उत्सुकता बनी रहती है। एक लड़की के लापता होने के बाद लगातार नए-नए नामों का जुड़ते चले जाना रहस्य को बढ़ाता है। उधर इस कथा के समानांतर एक युवक-युवती की परवान चढ़ती प्रेम-कहानी इस रहस्य में नया एंगल जोड़ती चलती है। लेकिन यह कहानी उतनी दिलचस्प, कसी हुई और पैनी बन नहीं पाई है जितनी होनी चाहिए थी या हो सकती थी।