Play all audios:
If _Kankhajura_’s dark sinister criminal mood flows by like a breeze in spite of eight episodes, it is for Roshan Mathew, that chameleon-like Malayalam actor (have you seen his work in his
native tongue, if not then about-time you did) who transforms in front of our incredulous eyes into a severely traumatised borderline-psychotic, kind gentle naïve yet devious man named Ashu
who seeks only one thing in life: validation from his brother Max, played effectively by Mohit Raina. Very rarely are we forced to wonder what a film/series would be like without an actor:
Dilip Kumar in _Devdas,_ Shabana Azmi in _Arth_, Kamal Haasan in _Hey Ram_… Advertisement Add Roshan Mathew to this rarefied roster. Were it not for Roshan, _Kankhajura_ would collapse like
a house of ‘cads’ and I do mean cads. The characters, including Mathew and Raina, have a mean streak running through their lacerated souls. Max’s business buddies, played by the redoubtable
Ninad Kamath and Mahesh Krishna Shetty, are various degrees of nasty depending on which way the wind blows. The latter even takes a leak on a victim’s face. Not a nice man to know.
Advertisement Even women aren’t immune to a smattering of spite. Veteran Usha Nadkarni has a whole lot of fun with her role, reminiscent of Shabana Azmi in the recent _Dabba Cartel_, as a
dreaded crime lord. Heeba Shah is a whole lot of steely will as a hard-nosed cop who seems to nurture Ashu’s slow-burning intensity, but she too, has her own agenda. Even Max’s genteel wife
(Sara Jane Dias) secretes some not-so-pleasant surprises for her male counterparts. Taking hold of the core of the original characters from the Israeli series _Magpie,_ director Chandan
Arora and his co-writer Upendra Sidhaye construct a curious kingdom of white-collar crime, governed by surreptitious self-gratification. There is an unusual level of layering and subtexts on
the storytelling, easy to miss on a medium as casual as the OTT. So, if you are one of those viewers who saunter in and out, this series might be problematic. As mentioned even before, the
actors iron out the rough edges; the series retains the basic emotional core of two brothers, polarised and traumatised by their individual circumstances to the point of becoming
adversaries. Interestingly, Roshan Mathew and Mohita Raina play off each other with a sense of guilelessness, as though they don’t know where the sibling relationship is heading. There is a
feeling of relentless dread cutting through the plot. That the series is located in Goa is a happy coincidence: the palm trees, beaches, the ancient heritage homes and quaint cottages lend
an alluring mystery, far deeper than what the characters collectively convey. Ideally, _Kankhajura s_hould have found its home on the big screen where the articulate frames would have
whispered about the mysteries that we can only imagine on the home medium. _Kankhajura_ has its own dosage of deficits. Some of the action in the closing episodes looks stagey and tacky, and
one involving gas cylinders is an embarrassment. But with Roshan Mathew’s OTT-defining performance—yes, we have not seen anything like this on any streamer–the series holds together very
ably. As far as slow-burning crime dramas go, this one scorches. _RATING: *** ½_ Advertisement