What Is the Story About?
Bhargav suddenly loses his parents in an incident related to a bank scam in his hometown. No one attends their funeral, except for his best friend, Siddhant. However, Siddhant has his own problems – he is about to lose his girlfriend, Rhea, since her father thinks Siddhant isn’t good enough for her. Siddhant is also constantly belittled by his own father. During a night of drinking, a thought takes over their minds – to make India’s first fake bank. With the friends down on their luck and needing a way out of their miserable lives, they revisit this idea in the morning – which doesn’t seem all that absurd. Now, they need a team to make this plan work. How will they find the necessary team members? Will this scam work?
Performances?
‘Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar’ relies on its cast as much as it does on its plot. While the show starts off by focusing on our two leads – Vicky Arora as Bhargav Sharma and Anuj Rampal as Siddhant Rastogi; it brings in five more characters that quickly become part of the main cast. Vicky and Anuj are quite convincing as best friends, but Anuj feels more natural in his role as Siddhant than Vicky as Bhargav. Still, Vicky gives us a decent portrayal of a man who is both desperate for money and in need of revenge. Shishir Sharma is well cast as Hari Shukla AKA the main brain of the operation. Santosh Singh could have done a better job in portraying Hari’s son, Raunak. Alisha Chopra is well cast as Rhea, but the actress sometimes seems to try too hard on screen.
The best two onscreen performances come from Swati Semwal and Sreya Muthukumar. Both actresses portray a young couple onscreen and play their parts well. Swati plays Radha, an in-your-face, easily-prone-to-anger type of character and plays her to perfection. Swati is perhaps the best actor among the lot. However, Sreya is not far behind. The actress is sometimes held back by the script she has to work with, but she does a decent job with what she has. Sreya plays Khushi, who balances out Radha’s personality. However, her character does not depend on Radha alone. Khushi has her own character arc and Sreya makes it quite compelling.
Analysis
Unlike most scam films and TV series, ‘Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar’ is about a group of seven very different individuals coming together to perform a “heist of a scam” that has never been attempted before. With its unique setting and perspective, we root for the scammers from the very beginning. Also, because of the aforementioned unique setting, the web series goes through a rollercoaster of genres – drama, crime, heist, thriller, comedy, etc. Usually, in a web series like this – it comes down to three main points – how the main plan works out on screen, the cast & chemistry between characters and handling unexpected/thrilling situations (Yep, that’s right). Since a heist or a scam is something that could go horribly wrong at some point or the other; the show needs to present some “expected” unexpected problems onscreen and the way our protagonists dodge these problems will set the tone of the series.
And here comes our main problem – only one among the three main points as mentioned above, is up to the mark – the cast & the chemistry between characters. While the series is mainly about the “heist of Hoshiargarh”, the creators of ‘Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar’ manage to make the series about its characters as well. The motivations behind each of the characters are just as important as the heist – with the scriptwriter doing well in writing some rich characters and the casting director finding the right actors for the cast. Each character manages to interact with each other during different points of the heist – be it while dealing with a crisis or working on a plan and this interaction helps show some brilliant character development. However, this same writer somehow manages to make the main plan reveal boring and the thrilling situations semi-redundant as well.
Don’t get us wrong, a couple of the thrilling situations make sense – a young boy stealing from the fake bank is a good crisis. And so is a journalist finding out about their true intentions. The bank manager not giving them a loan initially, but Khushi using her body to do so is brilliant. But the postman situation, or a “could-have-been situation”, happened completely due to the characters which could easily have been avoided. And seems very unrealistic. Also, after Radha finds out about Khushi’s secret, the way she is brought back to the group by Raunak seems very forced. While both these characters seem to know each other beforehand, they do not interact with each other when they did share the screen previously. Plus, Raunak’s words should have earned him an ass-kicking from Radha, even if his words were true – because Radha would have taken offence to a few of the things he says to her. We don’t blame the actress, only the writer at this point.
Still, these two remaining points may not be perfect, but they are decent enough to keep us invested. However, one of the best parts of the series, unexpectedly, is its music. The original soundtrack is brilliant and we can hear the words “Chor chor chor” echoing off into the background, long after the series is completed. The composer has done some brilliant work and given us an awesome piece of art.
Overall, ‘Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar’ is a well-rounded web series, that is at the very least, a one-time watch. The music, premise and cast are what makes the series so addictive. However, the series ends on an unnecessary cliff-hanger – which puts a real damper on things.
Other Artists?
Beisdes “the main seven”, the series has a few good characters portrayals. Manish Chaudhari is brilliant as Rhea’s father and the inspector. Deepraj Rana is memorable for the few scenes he has onscreen. Sudhanshu Pandey is extremely menacing as Shivam Jain – and he only gets around 5 minutes of screentime. And Flora Saini deserves a special mention for her portrayal of P.C. Ji.
Music and Other Departments?
As we mentioned earlier, the music is one of ‘Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar’s’ biggest selling points. The title track is brilliant, the background score keeps repeating in our heads and the remaining songs work well into the narrative of the web series. A good portion of the show’s pacing is determined through its songs’ montage sequences – in a good way. And for that, Sebastian Andrade, the series composer deserves a special mention.
The editing team and the series’ director, Raj Kaushal deserves a mention as well. The series has a decent premise, thanks to Aman Khan’s writing. Cinematography and the casting departments do a decent job as well.
Highlights?
Music
Unique Characters
Buildup & Obstacles
Drawbacks?
Some Unrealistic Moments
Irregular Pacing & Ending
Did I Enjoy It?
Yes.
Will You Recommend It?
Yes.
Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar Review by Binged Bureau
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