
BOTTOM LINE
Bloodbath Without a Purpose
RATING
1.5/5
PLATFORM, Run Time
Disney+ Hotstar, 3h 30m – 8 Episodes
What Is the Show Kobali About?
At a village in Rayalaseema known for its bloody faction wars, two brothers Ramu and Srinu are desperate to settle scores with Ramana for wreaking havoc on their seemingly pleasant family. The fatal conflict claims many lives – from cops to elderly people to women, but what triggers this bloodbath? A middle-aged man’s illicit affair or a youngster’s tryst with drugs? Who has the last laugh?
Performances
Ravi Prakash, in a rare turn as a lead, plays an elder brother who desperately tries to keep the family together. While you can’t ignore the earnestness in his performance, it doesn’t test his mettle as an actor. Tarun Rohith gets to essay a meaty role, but his effort is forgettable. Noted actor Bharat Reddy delivers the goods in a decent part and so does Shyamala, who holds her own in a brief role. Rocky Singh’s villainy is too old-fashioned and loud to strike a chord.
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Analysis
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Weeks after Pushpa 2: The Rule, Telugu cinema’s record-breaking blockbuster set in Rayalaseema that chronicled a criminal’s rise, a new Telugu web series Kobali also unfolds in this rugged terrain, reigniting age-old feuds between rival families locked in a relentless cycle of revenge. Kobali is an amalgamation of everything that’s wrong with OTT and how it is making a mockery of creative license.
Ramu is a wayward youngster from a poor family who struggles to do anything fruitful. In a bid to ease the financial situation back home, he gets involved in the narcotic drug trade, leading to regular clashes with local gangsters. His elder brother Srinu protects him at every step. They have two other siblings – Gopi, who’s honey-trapped in an affair, and an educated, shrewd man Krishna.
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Notwithstanding the family’s financial woes, the petty clashes among the brothers and their questionable personal choices further worsen their situation. One event leads to the other, and a bitter conflict with a rival—Ramana—snowballs out of control, destroying their family beyond repair. Ramu and Srinu do what it takes to find out the truth and eliminate the culprits.
Kobali struggles to hold your attention because it never rises above the ordinary, relying on stale, time-tested cliches in rural dramas, failing to evoke any emotion. The writing, at no point, compels you to care for the characters or their problems. The show is only interested in using the revenge angle as an excuse to stage the gory action scenes, where men are on a killing spree.
The show is packed with one petty squabble after the other and doesn’t make any notable effort to explore the setting, or convincingly establish its pivotal characters. The creators give a free rein to the actors to mouth filthy, uncouth language (in the garb of rusticity, and ruggedness) and hurl abuses – primarily for shock value over any necessity in a scene.
Although there’s plenty of scope to build the family drama well, the premise is misused for the wrong reasons. The show unfolds primarily through three perspectives – Ramu’s family members, Ramana and his gang in addition to the cops and all of them are devoid of any freshness in the storytelling. The violence in the show is needlessly hurried. At a point, you nearly forget the reason for which they unleash their fury on one another.
It’s perplexing to understand why such mediocrity continues to find its way into OTT platforms despite so many gatekeepers of ‘quality’ at every step. It’s high time they value a viewer’s time and stop resting on the legacy of their brand. Kobali is a show that should have been repaired right on paper. It’s a blatant waste of resources without a single redeeming factor. Need we say more?
Music and Other Departments?
Gowra Hari’s music loses its way in a chaotic plot and it’s equally unfair to expect him to salvage a subpar product that doesn’t even give much time for the story to generate any kind of momentum. There’s nothing quite striking about the technical contributions to merit any discussion – be it the cinematography (by Rohit Bachu), the action choreography or the messy editing.
Highlights?
Decent core premise (which isn’t expanded well)
Interesting in parts
Drawbacks?
Subpar execution
Terrible screenplay
Ordinary performances
Absence of any emotion, impact in action sequences
Did I Enjoy It?
No
Will You Recommend It?
Only if you want to regret about the time you would’ve lost
Kobali Hotstar OTT Web Series Review by M9