Hasmukh - All set to spoon out your eyeballs !

ASHOK’s FIVE reasons to watch “Hasmukh” now streaming on Netflix. When little children get fed up of playing with their dolls, they start pulling hands and legs out of the doll and hold it by the hair and shake it fiercely giving it the ‘ragged doll treatment’ and this is precisely what you feel like doing to this ten episode series that sets up a brilliant, uncanny and truly original plot and then lets it meander into sublimely ordinary fare. Hasmukh is a dark thriller with humour laced in and a matter of fact ‘anything goes’ style that makes you sit up and take notice. Applause Entertainment’s new show is directed by Nikhil Gonsalves and co-created by Vir Das and Nikhil Advani and boasts Das’s debut as an actor on the OTT space.

1.       Full marks to the ingenuity of the idea. An awkward and shy comedian from Saharanpur discovers that he gets his ‘feel’ and transforms into a tiger on stage only when he murders an evil person. A string of killings, tonnes of dark humour and Vir Das’s performance propel the comedian to Mumbai and the show in a genre that is yet to come into its own in India.

2.       Ranvir Shorey is in his elements in a role that is tailor made for him as Jimmy the maker, a lecherous goon, gold teeth and sly demeanour in tow. He and Vir Das salvage the show and makes it worth a late evening watch-worthy pursuit.

3.       The first couple of episodes set in Saharanpur, with Manoj Pahwa as Gulati are brilliantly done and easily the best part of the series. Poor scripting and clumsy half-baked characters pull the show down even as it moves to the Mumbai setting and Vir Das makes it big on the sets of Comedy Badshaho (Kings of Comedy).

4.       Hasmukh boasts a strong cast with Ranvir Shorey, Manoj Pahwa, Amrita Bagchi, Ravi Kishan and Suhail Nayyar. Raza Murad is wasted in his role and the build-up to his character goes completely down the drain as he vanishes into the background in some insipid writing.

5.       Dark humour in a psychotic murder thriller is an exciting category and conjures up visuals of the characteristic gouging out of eyes, hacking of limbs with blood spouting out like a fountain or the other perennial favourite of Korean movies where the sword flashes past the neck and there is a moment of silence before the head topples down in super slow-motion. Hasmukh sets up such a brilliant hors oeuvre and as you smack your lips in anticipation of the main course, the fare slips up and you so look forward to the cheese dessert that unfortunately never makes an appearance!

Hasmukh keeps you invested in a voyeuristic, shut-up-your-senses journey that can keep you up the whole night. Don’t blame me if you finish the series and bang your head against the mantelpiece. The hollow of the end is a vacuum that will take days to fill and leave you scarred.