Panchanama delivers a weak thriller
BOTTOM LINE
Template Thriller, Low on Thrills
PLATFORM
ZEE5
RUNTIME
2Hrs 20Mins [6 Episodes]
What Is the Show About?
Cop Jai Ram’s life takes a drastic turn when his younger brother dies under mysterious circumstances. The local authorities and the officials quickly dismiss the tragedy as a mere accident. Refusing to buy it, he kickstarts an investigation to uncover what truly happened.
Performances
Bharath fits the part of a hardened cop with a past and has the right composure and body language expected of a protagonist in a tight investigative thriller. Medha Reddy is decent in a role with limited scope. The show is particularly noteworthy for Roopa Lakshmi, who gets to do something substantial beyond her goody/emotional mother roles. Sivaji Raja does what’s expected of him, with no surprises there.
Analysis
After the just-about-watchable Srikanth’s Objection My Lord, OTT platform ZEE5 is back with another remake. Panchanama, backed by noted television host Udayabhanu, is the Telugu adaptation of the platform’s widely watched Tamil series Regai, which released late last year. The show marks the Telugu OTT debut of Boys fame Bharath as an investigative cop and Mohan Srivatsa, the filmmaker behind Tribanadhari Barbarik.
It’s puzzling why ZEE5, with access to vast talent across markets, keeps backing remakes – more so when Panchanama casts a Tamil actor for a Telugu show and chooses Regai, which at best was a tolerable thriller that hardly merited a remake.
Panchanama begins with the protagonist, Jai Ram, a cop losing his brother to an accident. When multiple other suspicious deaths surface in the city, he struggles to map a pattern to the crimes. With every passing day, new chilling details and links around the deaths emerge, revealing the modus operandi of an organ trafficking syndicate that exploits the desperation of money-starved youths.
The show is a thriller with a body, but no personality. It simply mimics a bankable pattern of storytelling with a clear-cut structure, where the end goal is clear sans a trace of emotional connect. There are deaths, some confusion, a handful of twists, and an obvious resolution. It is so invested in the formula that it is insecure about pausing even for a moment or to explore a character’s emotional state. The thrills feel so mechanical.
Jai Ram is a sincere cop with a past, good at work, who loses his loved one and has a personal motive to resolve the crime. You know nothing of him beyond that. Like a list in an Excel sheet, the show simply moves from one bullet to another, ticking a box, filling up the screen time while presuming it would have a viewer invested.
The premise screams of some potential, and yet the screenplay is in a rush to reach the destination, devoid of any elaboration. These are the kind of shows that treat stories as quick-fix products. It wants to be like a director Hari film with racy, sharp cuts, short scenes in a thriller format. Every 20-minute episode feels like a long Instagram reel catered to the restless, doom-scrolling viewer, wary of losing their attention at any point.
The climax stays with you because it is the only segment that has anything substantial. Although it is extremely hurried, it provides some meaning and context to the show. In times when jobless youngsters are easy targets for scammers, Panchanama works better as a cautionary tale than as a thriller.
Apart from a good ending and a couple of reasonable twists, Panchanama is hardly a show that would excite a thriller enthusiast. The execution is largely generic, with the only other positive being the short duration.
Music and Other Departments?
Naresh Kumaran, a specialist in dark thrillers, does a neat job with an arresting background score. On a visual level, it lacks much appeal. The production design is patchy, where every location feels like a carefully assembled set property and lacks realism. From an editing perspective, the show is always in a tearing hurry, and you wish it had more space to breathe. While the idea is decent, it lacks strong characters or emotions that resonate.
Highlights?
Good climax, short runtime
Couple of decent twists
Drawbacks?
Lacks genuine thrills or emotions
Mechanical screenplay
Unidimensional characters
Did I Enjoy It?
Not really
Will You Recommend It?
Unless you’re at gunpoint and are forced to meet your thriller quota this weekend, you can ignore it.
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