BOTTOM LINE
RX 100-Style Romance with Few Good Twists
PLATFORM
AMAZON MX PLAYER
RUNTIME
4Hrs (6 Episodes)
What Is the Show About?
Kartik, a man from Ujjain, falls obsessively in love with the mysterious Charu. When she suddenly vanishes, his life turns into a relentless search. He soon finds himself entangled in the dangerous world of a ruthless politician, Huntry Chauhan. As Kartik travels from India to Georgia to find the truth, he must navigate a web of deception, violence, and changing loyalties where love comes with a price.
Performances
For the masala genre to click, besides writing and direction, you want the actors to submit to the world fully without chasing logic. The viewer can catch glimpses of it in Tejasswi Prakash and Anud Singh Dhaka’s performances. One hoped the writers invested the same thought in giving substantial characters for Srishti Shrivastava and Tejasswi as much as they did for Anud and Kishan’s parts.
Analysis
Psycho Saiyaan is a homage to Hindi cinema of the past: no logic, only magic. The show is an action musical with a familiar blend of characters: an obsessive lover, his mysterious girl, and a larger-than-life antagonist, all in a spiritual, small-town setting. The story, unfurling in Ujjain, has madness written all over it, but it is old-school masala made with conviction, which, at least, is inoffensive for the most part.
The aimless protagonist, Kartik, pursues Charu, even if it means danger, leaving behind a local sweetheart, Ritu, and confronting a world of crime and boundless power until a crude twist of taste pushes him for vengeance. The director, Ajay Bhuyan, an experienced hand in the OTT space, does not rationalise the characters or their choices; they are all heart, even if messy, going all out for love.
The no-stops romance between a passionate lover and a damsel in distress looks a tad too vanilla to digest initially. Sparks fly almost instantly. On an impulse, Kartik is ready to go to any length to free Charu from a cage-like existence. Ritu, the good old friend he leaves behind in Ujjain, appears the usual sacrificial goat, doing what is best for her man, though there is little chance for reciprocation.
Huntry Chauhan is the typically flamboyant Bollywood baddie, donning funky tees, cheating on his bitter wife, and trapping an aspirant singer in his house, surrounded by a coterie of men who swear by him, ever-ready to go on a killing spree upon his orders. He is ideally the man you would love to hate, though Ravi Kishan enjoys all the hamming and lends it a colourful, undeniable vigour.
While establishing Chauhan’s obviously dangerous world, you wish certain subplots had more firepower. The thread around his wife, and the relationship she forges with Kartik and Charu, unfold in a conveniently linear fashion. You would not have minded her posing a bigger challenge to Chauhan than surrendering so meekly. The scene where Kartik reveals his true intentions to Chauhan is also a cop-out.
Still, one of the more relieving aspects of the show is that what you see is what you get. It is unapologetic, over-the-top, largely implausible and yet, the odd mix works. It is a tale where the hero easily makes a buffoon out of a maverick villain to win over a girl, right under the latter’s nose. When Kartik lands in jail, he uses rodents to plan his escape. All of it looks stale and outlandish on paper, but they land decently.
The writers flip the script smartly at opportune moments; though you smell the twists from a distance, it does not spoil the fun. The final episode gives a major fillip to the proceedings; the climax is the stuff that quintessential mainstream cinema is made of. It has the jazziness that Hindi cinema could borrow a leaf from, keeping the wokeness aside for a moment.
Psycho Saiyaan is no great shakes in terms of its old-world story, performances or execution, but it is repackaged with a zany energy that makes you root for it. It is meant for guilty-pleasure viewing and does a reasonably good job of it.
Music and Other Departments?
The music score, by Shivam-Anuj, is lively and apt for the treatment the director opts for, even if it does not push the bar high. The Ujjain backdrop comes alive well across Shanu Singh Rajput’s frames; the intensity in Kartik’s love finds a right match in the town’s spiritual setting.
The writing is patchy to begin with, in the initial episodes, but works better from the mid-way stage, where the true colours of the story come to the fore. Despite that, the four-hour duration feels a bit too much to handle for a familiar cocktail of love, action and betrayal.
Highlights?
Conviction in the execution, good twists
Decent cinematography
Generally engaging
Drawbacks?
Dull start (initial episodes)
Few half-baked, underwritten characters
Lengthy runtime
Did I Enjoy It?
In parts
Will You Recommend It?
It could be an okayish, timepass action romance to kill time during a lazy weekend evening
Psycho Saiyaan Series Reviewed by M9 News
