Kohrra review: Sudip Sharma juggles between slow-burn and sledgehammer
Kohrra is no Pataal Lok. It's not edgy or pacey. But that doesn't mean it's not engaging or hard-hitting. It simmers before it explodes every once in a while.
Remember Rachel Shelley from Lagaan? The British actor played Elizabeth Rusell in Ashutosh Gowariker's 2001 historical epic starring Aamir Khan. When I saw her first pop up in Sudip Sharma's new Netflix show Kohrra, I couldn't help but recall her lip-syncing to “No drop of rain, no glowing flame, Has ever been so pure, If being in love can feel like this, Then I'm in love for sure.” But the song faded as quickly as the joy of returning to India on her face. Her son is missing.
Kohrra, co-created and co-written by Sudip, Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia, and directed by Randeep Jha, is set in Punjab. Balbir Singh (Suvinder Vicky) and Garundi (Barun Sobti) are cops investigating the murder of Paul, the son of a local influential man, and the missing case of his best friend Liam, an NRI from the UK, son of Clara (Rachel Shelley).
Rachel Shelley, like us, realises very quickly that she is not in Lagaan. She's not a powerful white man's sister in British India. She's a hapless outsider in a state that runs on the nexus between powerful leaders and drug cartels.
Udta Punjab? Pataal Lok? Nah.
Kohrra has shades of Abhishek Chaubey's Udta Punjab (2016), which was co-written by Sudip Sharma. The trailer may also give the impression that Kohrra is a fast-paced, thrilling ride like Sudip's Prime Video show Pataal Lok. But I suggest those expecting the same to manage their expectations: Kohrra is the slowest of slow burns. It takes more than an episode to warm up to its pace and its world. The pace still doesn't pick up, but the investment in certain characters does. The final reveal isn't worth pulling along, unless one's found a character to latch on to.
Suvinder Vicky is the beating heart of the show
Suvinder Vicky made for a great truck driver with an existential crisis in Ivan Ayr's 2021 film Meel Patthar. He was the anti-thesis to the Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) trope from Anil Sharma's Gadar (2001) that has been perpetuated: a benevolent, macho Sikh truck driver.
In Kohrra, he rebels against yet another trope: the noble head cop. Balbir Singh is no Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah in Delhi Crime). Sure, he goes about his job with sincerity and urgency, but how he conducts his personal life is no less heinous than the crimes he's investigating. From curtailing his daughter's freedom to love to brutally bashing up her boyfriend, Balbir commits crimes that would make viewers flinch. Maybe that's the mental toll of a demanding and disturbing job or that's the only language of love he speaks, one keeps coming up justification for this side of Balbir.
That's because Suvinder plays him with such ache and gravitas that we can't help root for his redemption. He's the beating heart of the show that otherwise hinges mostly on a rather pale police procedural. There's Barun Sobti too, but his role is mostly limited to the tough but typical joker of the pack. He's affable, but his arc isn't as well-etched as Balbir's. For me, Balbir and his daughter (a sharp Harleen Sethi) made for the philosophical fulcrum of the show.
If you can look beyond the kohrra of its pacey trailer and Sudip Sharma's past record, this slow-burn on Netflix has a fair share of surprises to offer. Sudip knows when the story screams for a Hathoda Tyagi and when it demands a far subtler sledgehammer.