Director: Rohan Ghose, Aritra Sen
Rating: ***
ZEE5's latest web series Kaali 2 is the sequel to the 2018 series Kaali. It is a ride full of thrill and action, emanating straight from in-depth love and in-depth annoyance. It is a well-crafted story of revenge with a necessary room for emotional outbreaks.
Kaali 2 is a story of a single mother pushed to the corner to raise money for the operation of her only son. In her desperation, she loses sight of right from wrong. She gets entangled in a drug cartel and finds herself selling a consignment to raise money and in the whole situation what happens with the mother & son duo forms the crux of Kaali 2.
The series begins with 2 Kolkata Police officers getting attacked by some goons and one Policeman getting shot in the cross-firing. Then the story moves back and forth, where Kaali is struggling to live a normal life.
Kaali 2 can be considered one of the epitomes of perfect direction, infallible characterisation and above all, a realistic approach to the entire plot where we get to see the unseen secrets of the city of joy Kolkata with some realistic drama, guns, crime and war.
The story is full of twists and turns and keeps us engaged. Though the mediocre screenplay and dialogues at times take away the show's charm the actors do manage to keep the audience hooked to what's going on the screen.
Paoli Dam's performance as Kaali here deserves serious appreciation. Her screen presence keeps our eyes glued to the screen as every emotion she depicts is so real that you can feel it. Vidya Malvade is as awesome as always, through her little boosters of sarcasm, humour and action, she slays her character of Police officer Gupta.
Rahul Banerjee's work is commendable as usual. Each and every modicum of emotions are portrayed with immense deftness, with clean dialogue delivery and movements making it more impactful. The cold stare and contemptuous expressions of Abhishek Banerjee as Jinliang add to the icing the cake.
Nabarun Bose shows excellent skills in designing the music and background scores of Kaali 2. Although as thriller there is no scope for music but the background score is still perfect.
All in all, Kaali 2 is a complete action-packed thriller and an acceptably good sequel with a lot of surprises and emotions. So if you love thriller dramas then watch this one without a second thought.