Remember Gopi Puthran? He is the man behind Mardaani and Mardaani 2. Based on those two films, one can say that he has a certain affinity for female super cops. Unsurprisingly, then, his Mandala Murders has room for a smart, strong CIB officer. She is Rea Thomas (Vaani Kapoor) — a superwoman who can read 3,000 pages in one night and take down multiple goons without backup. A senior officer gets so impressed by her skills that he asks whether she is an AI or an alien. The same thought occurred to me as I watched Vaani Kapoor's performance. Rhea sees the ghost of a girl and reacts as if she woke up late and missed the alarm. Rhea narrates a tragic incident from her past, like someone recalling the time they skipped a class, got caught, and were scolded by their parents. When a Vaani Kapoor character is stabbed in the neck, she wakes up and sets a body on fire with such ease that it feels as if she had been hit by a piece of paper. Was the actor airdropped onto the set, or generated by an AI model? Why does she seem so disconnected from the story, the surroundings, and her co-actors? Then again, her co-actors, too, aren't giving Oscar-worthy performances. They also seem disconnected from the story, the surroundings, and their co-actors.
The main culprit, I suppose, is the bland filmmaking that, instead of seeing the characters, passively records them from a distance. This means that major incidents are reduced to signposts that simply point in a particular direction. There is no emotional charge, no conviction. When Vikram (Vaibhav Raj Gupta) and his dad, Vishwanath (Manu Rishi Chadha), return to their Charandaspur home in Episode 1, old memories, bathed in nostalgic yellow lights, come to the surface. The problem? The images neither look like memories nor do they feel nostalgic. Rather, Mandala Murders takes this opportunity to dump an exposition, which is why we don't experience this moment; we just read the script's content. The show's sole motivation is to tell a story, whether by fair means or foul. Hence, little effort is put into things like suspense or dramatization. Puthran doesn't bother building his scenes to reach the climax. He just plainly passes information. When Rea recounts the tragic incident, the flashback arrives with such suddenness and casual ease that what should have felt deeply emotional is delivered with a mere wave of the hand. The only moments that stir any emotion are when Surveen Chawla's Ananya Bharadwaj is introduced, sultry in the bathtub, or when she slowly undresses before the mirror, as Vikram, standing in the doorway and clearly seduced, watches her. Chawla can turn herself into a fantastic femme fatale. Her eyes can turn the camera on, and her flirtatious smile can make you blush. The fact that Mandala Murders underuses a talent like Chawla only underscores the filmmaking team's incompetence. Her sexiness is sacrificed at the altar of silly revelations.
Those revelations are baffling in the worst way possible. Puthran incorporates a wide range of disparate elements — from Frankenstein to fantastical gadgets, comedy to creepy stalkers, drama to thriller, and police procedural to Abbas-Mustan-level twists and turns — without fleshing out any of them. For Puthran, these ingredients are akin to shiny, colorful balls, which he hangs on his Christmas tree for mere decoration. The intention is to create a dark fairy tale, and the images often look like comic book panels. Puthran, however, fails to locate the thrill, the excitement. Given how dumb Mandala Murders becomes, there are no pulpy pleasures either. Puthran chooses to remain solemn when he should be gleeful, unabashedly goofy, unhinged, and proudly preposterous. He doesn't know what tone he wants, which is why Mandala Murders is all over the place and exhaustingly dull. There is no sense of urgency, no mystery, no madness. You know a story existing in the realm of fantasy is in trouble when you start poking holes in it with the logic needle. How was the Aayast Yantra created? What mechanical and magical parts were used? Who came up with the blueprint? Who finalized the manual? A good fantasy teases your imagination — it asks and answers questions your mind couldn't even fathom. In Mandala Murders, a character assigns the task of creating the Aayast Yantra to someone. Cut to the next scene, that character presents the device and regurgitates the rules. How much time was spent on the whole process? Puthran's blinkered view obliterates all the magic; he just wants to spin the wheels of the plot. This flavorless, factory-made product is the result of rote, mechanical execution. Someone should have sacrificed their thumb to get a better version of Mandala Murders.
Final Score- [2.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times