Seven episodes of Brown later, I couldn’t help but make my way to a place I never visit: ChatGPT. I keyed in a series of prompts which looked exactly like this: Serial killer + Murder mystery + Calcutta + Anglo-Indian community + Alcoholic and troubled cop + Food + Rabindrasangeet + Noir feel + Shadowy spaces + Calcutta landmarks + Sepia frames. In less than five seconds, I was staring at a plot uncannily similar to what I had just watched. It had even suggested a title for the story: “Sepia Nights”. ‘Sepia’ is, of course, described as “a deep reddish-brown colour”. ‘Brown’ is the operative word here.
Before you rap my knuckles for venturing even close to AI, Brown has already beaten me to it. The series, now streaming on ZEE5, is nothing more than an algorithmic amalgamation of everything that Calcutta is. More importantly, it shows more of what Calcutta isn’t. Granted that Brown is a serial-killer thriller and not a geography lesson. But for a story that relies so much on atmospherics, it is a shame that director Abhinay Deo, along with his team of writers (Suri Gopalan, Diggi Sissodia, Sunayana Kumari and Mayukh Ghosh) choose to present the city through such a stereotypical, trite lens.
Colonial-era homes, stock shots of Chinatown, Bow Barracks and the Maidan, dark alleys, shadowy cul-de-sacs, images of ululating women in red-and-white saris sporting sindoor, spiral staircases, wooden shutters and a consistently gloomy pigment hangs over Brown. Calcutta here is a character, all right, but one weary, overused and calling out to be seen through a fresh perspective. Not to mention the overwrought background music and a score tinted with the usual Bengali staples as seen by outsiders — a mix of Rabindrasangeet, Baul and rock.
Much of this could have been overlooked if the plot was engaging enough. Brown — based on the City of Death by Abheek Barua — has an interesting initial hook, but stretches it far beyond what it deserves. The show is named after Rita Brown, the world-weary, grieving, rebellious, alcoholic cop (Karisma Kapoor) at the centre of a gruesome murder investigation. Rita Brown spends a lot of time swigging and smoking, even on duty. When a young woman is killed and decapitated in her own home, the top brass — including the police and the political establishment — swings into action to quickly pin the crime on a fall guy and make Rita the scapegoat. But even as she faces ups and downs in her personal and professional equations — as does her deputy Arjun Sinha (Surya Sharma) — Rita finds herself in the middle of a race against time chase, as the body count piles up.
Attempting to blend classic noir and Gothic mystery with a narrative that touches upon everything from incest to infidelity, fractured relationships to dysfunctional families, Brown relies too much on cliches of every kind. The red herrings strewn in the plot only serve to prolong the already protracted runtime. Casting a well-known actor in what appears to be a side part on the surface directly points to the fact that he will hold the key — in this case, much more than that — to the mystery. Predictability is the bane of Brown, and the so-called wallop at the end, therefore, doesn’t have the heft that its makers perhaps hoped it would.
Karisma, shorn of glam and willing to let her wrinkles and dark circles show, is one of the few reasons you would want to tune into Brown. The actor, however, is saddled with a role that may have seemed layered on paper, but what she gets (and makes the best of) is a one-note character. Surya Sharma does as well as Karisma, and ably supports her. The rest of the players, which includes some notable names, are reduced to cardboard cutout cliches. Which is a pity because Soni Razdan and Helen Khan — whose rare scenes together are a hoot — should have been utilised more, and much better.
In the end, Brown is a case of two halves. That, in film-watching parlance, usually refers to the “curse of the second half” in which the post-interval scenes wilt in comparison to a relatively stronger first half. Brown, however, is evenly limp.
What we are referring to is the first few episodes featuring Rita Brown downing a drink in almost every frame she is in, that alone perhaps accruing to a cumulative two episodes worth of runtime. By the time the next few roll in, she is squeaky clean (courtesy the most effective Alcoholics Anonymous programme you never would have heard of). Brown, however, will leave you with no hangover. Not even a buzz.
My favourite set-in-Calcutta thriller is... Tell t2@abp.in