Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Writers: Vishal Bhardwaj, Jyotsna Hariharan, Anjum Rajabali

Cast: Wamiqa Gabbi, Neena Gupta, Gulshan Grover, Priyanshu Painyuli, Naseeruddin Shah, Lara Dutta, Ratna Pathak Shah, Chandan Roy Sanyal

Streaming on: Sony LIV

It’s fitting that Vishal Bhardwaj’s first web series is a small-town whodunit. If there’s one film-maker capable of reinventing the wheel of an overpopulated genre, you’d imagine it would be Bhardwaj. You’d also imagine that, as a virtuoso adapter of literature, Agatha Christie would be his mystery match made in heaven. Sure enough, Charlie Chopra & The Mystery of Solang Valley is based on Christie’s The Sittaford Mystery. The prospect of perhaps the most complete Hindi storyteller of our time reframing a classic as a quirky detective story is nothing if not intriguing. Unfortunately, that’s where the suspense ends. 

Forget reinventing the wheel, even the horses have bolted with this one. It almost saddens me to write that this six-episode series is uninspired and forgettable. It doesn’t look like a “Vishal Bhardwaj production” – which, in the right circumstances, can be construed as an ode to his all-round versatility. Here, however, it feels more like a weirdly generic voice, a la Anurag Kashyap for Dobaaraa (2022); even a retro Teesri Manzil (1966) tribute looks clumsy. There were times I double-checked the opening credits, convinced that I had misread them. Maybe Bhardwaj is the producer or, mercifully, the showrunner? But there is no escape: He is the sole director, and this show is its own imposter. 


#General