When you spin a story (inspired by a novel) that is convoluted, (over-)cooked and thus confused as it goes along, the least one can do is to be confident—about the presentation!
Mandala Murders is a perfect example of that. It mixes up a kind of horror-whodunit with an investigative thriller and a mystical cult drama that is strewn with bloody, decapitated corpses and there is a past-cum-present macabre angle about a machine (!) that cuts off the right thumb in exchange for a “miracle” (a fervent wish). But that’s not all. There is a price to be paid: a death!
Mandala, we are told, refers to a ‘circle’ denoting that in life, everything is interconnected. And over here, each “piece” of this mystical circle is interpreted by a local man, Jimmy Khan (Jameel Khan), who helps two disparate investigators, a cop named Rea Thomas (Vaani Kapoor) and a suspended cop (Vaibhav Raj Gupta), both of whom have pasts of “import” here, to find out the truth.
Mandala Murders is replete with mysterious and gory murders, revelations that cannot be always understood in context, the political rivalry angle between husband and a venomous wife—these roles are played by Rahul Singh and Surveen Chawla, and other sundry major and minor characters who come in and go, sometimes by being murdered!
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In the movies of yore, a token Muslim or Christian noble character would be there to help in the concept of National Integration. Over here, we have Jimmy Khan and also Giyasuddin Khan (Anang Desai) and Rea Thomas herself, whose grandmother is Nandini Pant, clearly a Hindu (Vaani in a dual role with a 1950s hairdo!). And then for good measure there is a foreigner named Robert (Edward Sonnenblick). But the story is all about a Hindu tale!
Finally (and hopefully) the story ends with the destruction of an ‘assembled” (from various human parts!!) god named Yast.
The time factor and location (a fictional town named Charandaspur in Uttar Pradesh) are seemingly of little value. Ornate setups with ultra-modern electronic connections and lighting, machine-propelled arrows within a van, lit-up tunnels and more are seen and the story spans a full 75 years.
A steep decline from YRF’s last web masterpiece, The Railway Men, which still ranks among the all-time Top Ten series ever on Indian OTT, Mandala Murders is placid in the beginning but totally flaccid later.
Being a YRF project, artistes of the caliber of Shriya Pilgaonkar, Aaditi Pohankar, Raghubir Yadav, Anang Desai, Kiran Karmarkar, Aakash Dahiya, Utkarsha Naik and Siddhanth Kapoor agree to play walk-on or minor appearances. Vaani Kapoor is good as the cop, better as the physicist. The acting honors are shared by the ever-dependable Jameel Khan, Shriya Pilgaonkar and above all, Surveen Chawla. Soft, hard, menacing, passionate—she makes her character stand out in all her shades and is a major part of the confidence that otherwise gifted writer-director Gopi Puthran (of Mardaani fame) and co-director Manan Rawat manage to show in this all style-and-no-substance avatar of Kantara! But to no avail!
Rating: **
Netflix presents YRF Entertainment’s Mandala Murders Directed by: Gopi Puthran & Manan Rawat Written by: Mahendra Jakhar, Gopi Puthran, Avinash Dwivedi, Chirag Garg, Gabe Gabriel, Anurag Goswami & Matt Graham Music: Sanchit Balhara, Ankit Balhara Starring: Vaani Kapoor, Surveen Chawla, Vaibhav Raj Gupta, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Raghubir Yadav, Aaditi Pohankar, Monica Chaudhary, Piloo Vidyarthi, Jameel Khan as Jimmy Khan, Sharat Sonu, Manu Rishi, Sukhita Aiyar, Anang Desai, Kiran Karmarkar, Aakash Dahiya, Utkarsha Naik, Siddhanth Kapoor, Rahul Bagga, Leena Balodi, Edward Sonnenblick, Ipshita Chakraborty Singh as Vasudha Singh, Yogendra Vikram Singh as Vyankat, Sunny Hinduja, Rahul Singh & others