BOTTOM LINE
This Musical Is a Yawn Fest
RATING
SONYLIV
RUNTIME
330 minutes (6 episodes)
What Is the Show About?
Bailed out by Pratap, Kaala’s music career resumes in style. Soon, he seeks revenge for his father Tara Singh’s murder, ignoring his girlfriend, Jazz. Believing Pratap is responsible for his father’s death, based on Jugal and Gurpal’s info, Kaala hires a contract killer, Jagga. Gurpal finds Pratap innocent, but Jagga attacks him. Kaala proposes to Jazz as everyone schemes for Teeja Sur’s control with Pratap in a coma.
Performances
Paramvir Cheema, in the shoes of a brat who unearths his father’s legacy and the conspiracy around his death, comes up with a charged-up performance of a messy star on the rise. Perhaps he could’ve done with more emotional depth in the show’s quieter moments. Here’s where Isha Talwar fares a lot better; it’s apparent that she’s broken inside and outside, and the restrained performance helps.
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Analysis
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Bailed out by Pratap, Kaala’s music career resumes in style. Soon, he seeks revenge for his father Tara Singh’s murder, ignoring his girlfriend, Jazz. Believing Pratap is responsible for his father’s death, based on Jugal and Gurpal’s info, Kaala hires a contract killer, Jagga. Gurpal finds Pratap innocent, but Jagga attacks him. Kaala proposes to Jazz as everyone schemes for Teeja Sur’s control with Pratap in a coma.
Review:
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There’s something additionally captivating about pulp fiction centred on real events. Chamak, Sony LIV’s series by Rohit Jugraj, in its second season, uses the death of a music icon (Tara Singh, inspired by Amar Singh Chamkila and his wife Amarjot Kaur’s murder) as a hook for a premise focusing on a rebellious son Kaala, who not only takes his father’s legacy forward but also seeks revenge.
As a logical continuation of the first season, Kaala is in all sorts of mess, consumed by addiction, is behind bars with a career and a relationship (with Jazz) gone haywire. Pratap, his father’s longtime collaborator, is out to provide some direction to his life while also helping the financial stature of his music label Teeja Sur. Kaala uses this equation to dig deeper truths about his father’s death.
While the long format can be a great medium to uncover specific details about a profession/walk of life and explore characters without oversimplifying it like cinema, one can’t deny the danger of over-explaining your ideas. As a story, almost everything of how Chamak unfolds was already established in the first season; the sequel gives us more of what we know about it.
There’s hardly anything new to discover about Kaala this time – we know he’s a rebel, he uncovers strange truths about his father’s legacy and his death, and he wants to settle scores with the mastermind while staying in his good books. Time and again, you’re directed to the ‘nasha’ of fame, how the market tries to milk his popularity once he has arrived and the dangers around it.
Kaala may be enjoying the fruits of his success, but he’s equally focused on his father, Tara. With every episode, the creators try to recreate incidents closer to Tara’s death, Kaala’s efforts to murder the culprit using a contract killer and glimpses of Jazz’s sinking financial status and her need for rehabilitation. Though many threads unfold simultaneously, Chamak is clouded in obviousness.
Instead of using the real-life connection to their advantage, the creators overcook the narrative with time-tested cliches – say, the exploitative nature of the music industry, a protagonist who’s a partly self-destructive singer, a typical gangster who tries to usurp all the wealth when a patriarch is on his death bed. Every beat feels familiar or inspired, and it’s hard to feel for any of the characters.
Except for a few moments where there’s an attempt to capture the true musical identity of Kaala, the show is bereft of a larger purpose or a soul to bring it alive. It relies on a wafer-thin plot and uses a long-winded narrative style to chart the journey of the flawed characters. The performances and the storytelling are quite mechanical to achieve anything new from a done-to-death space.
Chamak regains its momentum partially in the last set of episodes, when a pivotal character is nearly killed and there’s ample drama around the ‘riches’ his family may inherit. There’s infighting among a set of siblings and a gangster who makes things messier. Though Kaala is out for revenge, the integrity of his character comes through eventually, as he rekindles his ties with Jazz again.
This is the kind of a show that should have been ideally made by the Bhatts – given their penchant for tasteful music and integrating it with devastating stories headlined by the right faces. While Chamak is mounted on a lavish scale with scores of familiar actors, it is too flabby to be entertaining. With innovative and wilder writing choices, it would’ve ‘sparkled’ the way the makers intended it to.
Performances by Others Actors
However, it’s Manoj Pahwa who steals the show as an industry person with a complicated past. He plays the truth and notoriousness within Pratap with equal honesty. Navneet Nishan’s flamboyance fits in well in this pompous universe. Mukesh Chhabra continues to have fun with the role while the others – Mohit Malik, Gippy Grewal, Prince Kanwaljit Singh and others chip in when necessary.
Music and Other Departments?
As many as six music directors – from Manna Singh to Parth Parekh to Sunny M R and others – have worked on Chamak. While the eclecticism reflects in the result and the composers make a sincere effort to capture the evolution of the Punjabi indie scene, the music could’ve had a wider scope to play in driving the story forward with catchier tracks. The background score works slightly better.
Although Sandeep Yadav’s frames are packed with vibrant colours, a fair chunk of the praise must go to the production designer and costumers besides the smart choice of locations. Some of the writing choices of Rohit Jugraj and team are interesting at places, but as a show, all the ideas don’t come together seamlessly.
Highlights?
Interesting in parts
A few good performances
Drawbacks?
Wafer-thin plot
Dull, long-winded screenplay
Done-to-death storytelling tropes
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
Unless you have a taste for gangster musicals
Chamak: The Conclusion Web Series Review by M9
