What Is the Story About?
SonyLIV’s new original series ‘Kafas’ centres on the oft untold sexual exploitation of minors in the film industry. Sunny (Mikhail Gandhi) is a fifteen year old kid who gets a lucky break in a film with big star-producer Vikram Bajaj (Vivan Bathena). However, he falls prey to the sexual perversion of the star. Sunny’s middle-class parents Seema and Raghav (Mona Singh, Sharman Joshi) are helpless in the face of Vikram’s power and financial clout, and accept hush money to shut down the matter. But soon, things begin to fall apart, culminating in a make-or-break situation.
Kafas is created by Subhash Kapoor, written by Karan Sharma, directed by Sahil Sangha, and produced by Applause Entertainment.
Performances?
Sharman Joshi and Mona Singh are decent in their roles as Sunny’s parents. Mona Singh gives a restrained performance throughout. Sharman Singh is a bit too over-the-top in some parts. Vivan Bhatena is suitably nasty as the drunk-on-power Bollywood star.
Tejasvi Singh Ahlawat as Sunny’s sister Shreya delivers an impressive performance. She is yet another good find from ace casting director Mukesh Chhabra. Chhabra has cast himself in the role of righteous journalist Irfan Akhtar, and delivers a neat turn.
The star of the show, however, is Mikhail Gandhi, who portrays the various nuances of his character with admirable skill and maturity. The rest of the cast is average.
Analysis
Kafas is the official Indian adaptation of British show ‘Dark Money’. The Indian version is almost a frame by frame remake of the original, though it helps that the BBC One drama is largely unknown in India and is also not available to stream in India since its debut in the UK.
Kafas boasts a plot that is solid and pertinent to the times we live in. Sexual exploitation is rampant in the Indian film industry, though, unlike Hollywood, paedophilia is still not prevalent in the Indian film industry. Hollywood, of course, has its Jeffrey Epsteins and Michael Jacksons, which makes Dark Money quite pertinent, Kafas not so much.
It is also a massive irony of sorts that the creator of Kafas is Subhash Kapoor, himself on the #MeToo radar after molestation charges against him. But with the film industry’s notoriously fickle memories and flimsy morals, most perpetrators of similar heinous deeds manage to go scot-free.
To come back to Kafas, the plot is solid and the subject hard-hitting and affecting. The series starts off on a gripping note, keeping the viewer invested in the proceedings on screen. The sexual assault part of the plot is briefly and sensitively filmed, with no sleazy milking it for titillation. That, of course, is more because that’s how it is shown in the original, and Kafas is a faithful remake of the original.
The story moves ahead at a fast clip in the first two episodes. It is also reasonably compelling until then. But then, needless subplots make an entry into the story, distracting attention from the crucial subject at the core of the narrative. The ex-wife and her son are quite irritating, frankly, but there for a reason – to make Sunny’s parents look bad and certainly not victims. Sunny’s gay track and missteps at school are also added to the plot, only to showcase the ruthlessness of people drunk on power and money, who’ll stop at nothing to cover their tracks.
However, all that the subplots do is drag down the tautness and pace of the story, and make it slow and tedious. The original series was a tight four episodes, but has been stretched to make it into six episodes in the Indian version, maybe to confirm to minimum requirements of the OTT platform. Save for the first two episodes and the final episode, the remaining three episodes are downright boring and tedious.
That’s not all. Several sequences in Kafas are downright cringey and irritating. For instance, when Raghav doubts Sunny’s reason for recording the sexual assault, and says – is it because you wanted to blackmail him? Cringey, much? With fathers like this, who needs sexual predators to add misery to one’s life?
Over-the-top histrionics in some sequences lend a downmarket feel to the series, not to say, a shabby touch to the storytelling. The finale is especially over-the-top, undoing all the good work that the first few episodes put it. A subtle, understated style of filmmaking would have better underlined the inherent gravity of the subject matter.
The constant reinforcement of the financially precarious condition of the Vashisht family is also so not needed. We get it that the family is in dire straits financially,and powerless to get any kind of justice; hence the acceptance of the considerable hush money. Constantly shoving the fact down our throat in myriad ways doesn’t make it any more palatable.
To sum it up, the premise of Kafas is compelling and different. It is a story that needed better handling – more nuanced and refined, not the over-dramatic treatment given to it by its makers. Give it a watch, only for the subject matter, if nothing else.
Music and Other Departments?
The background music by Pranaay is inconsistent and erratic. It gets too loud and on the nose in parts, which quite gets on your nerves. Anubhav Bansal’s cinematography and Sherwin Bernard’s editing are decent.
Highlights?
The plot
Michail Gandhi’s performance
Drawbacks?
Inconsistent storytelling
Over-dramatic in parts
Loud performances
Slow and draggy in places
Did I Enjoy It?
In parts
Will You Recommend It?
With reservations
Kafas Series Review by Binged Bureau