Disney+Hotstar’s Showtime review: Emraan Hashmi is deliciously twisted in series that underwhelms

Showtime on Disney + Hotstar: Emraan Hashmi plays Raghu Khanna, the acidic, impatient heir to Viktory Studio, a fictional bigwig in the Hindi cinema space. (Photo courtesy Disney+Hotstar)

“Ek kahani hoti hai, hero-heroine hote hai, naach gaana hota hai, bawaal hota hai,” a man says, his arms spread wide as he draws a mental map of the milestones Hindi cinema has unfortunately overlooked, in a scene from Disney+Hotstar’s Showtime. It’s a casual conversation where a common but entitled man (Vijay Raaz) tries to educate a seasoned film producer about ingredients missing from his recent buffet of stories.

The exchange quietly pronounces the ineptitude of those at the helm of the artistic process, and the irony that everyone but the people making these films claims to know what they are talking about. When really nobody knows anything. The evolution of storytelling can neither be shaped nor controlled, it can really only be experienced and endured. To which effect, Showtime is at its best as this pulpy high-wire act of running a fundamentally flawed business, which flails when it also wants to earn the decorative ribbons of prestige.

Emraan Hashmi plays Raghu Khanna, the acidic, impatient heir to Viktory Studio, a fictional bigwig in the Hindi cinema space. Khanna doesn’t quite see eye-to-eye with his ailing father, an outdated romantic played by the reliable Naseeruddin Shah. While the son has redirected Viktory to edgy, bank-breaking (pan-India?) projects, his father yearns for the innocence and charm of yesteryear, the cinema of lore and gold dust.

After Khanna’s latest film is panned by the young critic Mahika (Mahima Makwana), he tries in vain to buy her loyalty. Her rigidity, though naïve on some level, endears her to his father. An unexpected demise and an undetected and somewhat iffy family connection lands this young girl the reins of a legendary studio. And thus begins a battle of egos, of manifest identities and the kind of mudslinging that can only really be recreated in the world of politics.

Off the bat Showtime operates at a breathless pace, unfolding like a tabloid keenly working towards its next big headline. You can tell it has identified its key moments and hits them with regular, unadulterated precision. The newsroom-like urgency and unruliness of it all strips filmmaking of its sexiness. Everyone’s self-worth dwarfs the size of the key it would take to unlock the disillusion inside them. It’s like walking on ‘egoshells’.

Storytelling, its provisions and prospects, feel so promising that to the outsider looking in at least, no set perhaps functions like anything other than a place of worship. Except, Showtime, sporadically shows, it never does. Which is why Showtime feels on-point when it cajoles egos, entertains bizarre inquests and captures the brazenness of it all. It’s when it turns away, to petty family feuds and half-baked characters that it struggles to hold your attention.

To Hashmi and Makwana’s battle of bloodlines, fought on the film floors of Mumbai, there is the intriguing but also somewhat sluggish slideshow of cameos. They just don’t add anything.

The supporting cast, though capable is underwritten – including the struggling damsel rescued by an industry icon, played by Mouni Roy. In fact, the show’s sentimental appeals fall flat. It’s when the swords are drawn, the tongues let lose that the series shines. A role played to pitch perfection by the spectacular Rajeev Khandelwal as the egotistic leading man Armaan. Chauvinistic, self-involved and just about every other adjective you can summon, he is the toxic yet suave mix of entitlement. Even his interjections, Armaan communicates with this near-lethal coating of condescension. Because he is the star, the face of the business, the name that propels a ticket stub from the value of garbage to the character of meaning. Without him, all of it feels unremarkable, transient.

Created by Sumit Roy and co-directed by Mihir Desai and Archit Kumar, Showtime is racy and fairly twisted. It thankfully abandons the pretence of uplifting filmmaking to the status of heritage, except in moments when, away from its thorny conflicts, it tries to re-frame itself as an ideological device. A small arc sees a producer identify marks of domestic violence on a housewife’s neck. It’s intuitive but serves little purpose in the story.

The core battle between Hashmi and Makwana feels like a lightweight contest as well. You get that the creators want to pit a Machiavellian, hard-boiled grafter against the innocence of someone who’ll eventually obviously, lose herself to the glimmer of it all, but Makwana is simply no match for Hashmi’s underhanded brilliance. The actor, so criminally underused by Hindi cinema, looks ruthless, grimy and deliciously on-edge in a show that is better off when fuelling the fire than applying the ointment of earnestness.

Hashmi looks ruthless, grimy and deliciously on-edge in Showtime. (Photo courtesy Disney+Hostar)

As a series about the business of filmmaking, Showtime falls provincially short of being revelatory. It’s partly satirical, sparingly analytical and wholly committed to the rhythms of an episodic soap. Everything that goes up, comes down in a rollercoaster journey that doesn’t quite fit the long-form geometry of the streaming space. Characters don’t grow on you as much as they sling themselves sideways like gymnasts consigned to repeat familiar tricks. Had the writing been tighter, the path clearer, Showtime could have become this deranged, spiky look at all that ‘show’ behind the ‘biz’. Instead, it repeatedly lights the fuse and nervously blows over it, unsure if wishes to explode or merely express. It’s enjoyable, if not memorable.

Showtime is now streaming on Disney+Hotstar