BANDISH BANDITS (web series)

#FinalVerdict: BLAND

Rating: 2 stars

Created by Anand Tiwari and Amritpal Singh Bindra, Bandish Bandits is a genuinely hatke fare, which will appeal to those who believe in this kind of story. The web series has nothing to offer to the common man. A non-starter!

There's mainstream web series that caters to the masses, the junta. There's parallel web series that caters to the youth living in big metro cities. There's art-house cinema/series that caters to a niche audience. Bandish Bandits belongs to the third category.

Bandish Bandits has a simple plot well told. But the problem with web series of this genre is that they cater to a very tiny segment of moviegoers. Those appreciating this kind of cinema are hard to find in today's times! They exist in the Festival circuit.

Bandish Bandits rests on a simple plot and the setting is beautiful. Visually striking (DoP: Sriram Ganapathy), laced with competent performances and chartbuster music, this web series falters only because it takes its own sweet time to drive home the point. There's no denying that Bandish Bandits does boast of brilliantly executed sequences. Even the sequence towards the climax is exceptional. Swapnali Das' production design is magnificently unique. Music (Shankar-Ehsan-Loy ) suits the demands of the script.

Director Anand Tiwari deserves credit for handling Bandish Bandits with utmost sensitivity, but the subject and the screenplay (Lara Ahsan Chandni, Amritpal Singh Bindra and Anand Tiwari) could meet with diverse reactions. Ajay Sharma's editing is sluggish.

Bandish Bandits' casting (Casting Bay) is top-notch! Ritwik Bhowmik is a revelation. Ditto for Shreya Chaudhry. Amit Mistry, Sheeba Chaddha, Rajesh Tailang, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Meghna Malik, Naseeruddin Shah and Rituraj K Singh are highly competent.

To sum up, Bandish Bandits, directed deftly by Anand Tiwari, has a one-line premise that's reluctantly stretched into an unconvincing screenplay. Despite its plot of convenience, the actors somehow rise above the mediocre writing. And that is it!