An image of cash flying seductively in the wind appears at pivotal points in Farzi, Amazon Prime Video’s web series directed by Raj and DK (they co-wrote it with Sita Menon and Suman Kumar). It marks the graph of the anti-hero’s origin story, his triumph, and his inevitable topple from the throne. The world expects artists to rise above money and its trivial pursuit, but what if one such kalaakaar decides to put all his heart into making it and becomes a counterfeiter?
Sunny (Shahid Kapoor) loves his grandfather, an old-time journalist clinging on to Kranti, a ‘revolutionary’ magazine that nobody wants to buy. Amol Palekar plays this dignified, forgetful nana who has a vague suspicion that his grandson is up to no good. “You are not doing anything wrong, are you?” he asks Sunny every now and then, and the latter reassures him that he certainly isn’t. But while Kranti magazine and its geriatric employees may be caught in a time warp, the world outside has changed into a different beast – and Sunny and his best friend Firoz (Bhuvan Arora) are determined to tame it. They don’t want to be the “middle finger” class any more.
Like the director duo’s acclaimed web series The Family Man, Farzi also has a tired law enforcement officer with a failing personal life at the heart of the cat and mouse game. To rub it in, the anti-counterfeiting unit that he heads is called CCFART, a bureaucratic acronym coined by someone who either had a wicked sense of humour or none at all. Michael Vedanayagam (Vijay Sethupathi) is a Tamilian in Mumbai, married to Rekha Rao (Regina Cassandra), a Telugu woman who has had enough of his work baggage. It’s weird to hear Sethupathi speaking in Hindi at first – so indelible is his dialogue delivery in Tamil that the Hindi sounds far less spontaneous. But the awkwardness grows on you after a few episodes.
In The Family Man, there are two thriller plots. One is Srikant Tiwari (Manoj Bajpayee) going after the bad guys, and the second is the decidedly soap operatic “Lonavala mein kya hua tha?” revolving around his wife Suchi’s (Priyamani) maybe-may-not-be affair with a colleague. Farzi keeps the drama in Michael’s personal life largely to the background, but despite the sound performances, it comes off as a cliche. Sethupathi is charming when he says things like, “Still you love me, no?” and Cassandra looks appropriately annoyed by her man-child spouse who refuses to see that it’s over. But this story has played itself out so many times by now that it drags down the pace of the series, and feels like an unnecessary distraction.
More engrossing is Michael’s frenemy equation with a minister (an excellent Zakir Hussain), and less predictable is his work relationship with Megha (Raashi Khanna), an RBI employee who is keenly interested in catching counterfeiters. It’s refreshing to see a woman character in different contexts over the course of a series – we see Megha chilling at home, speaking up at her workplace, dating, and dealing with cranky landlords. She’s an important cog in the wheel and Khanna plays it with spunk. Over the course of eight episodes, Farzi explains why counterfeiting is a problem, the various ways in which it can be done, and how counterfeiters get caught. It’s a credit to the writing that we don’t feel lectured to, and there is no information dump through unimaginative PPTs or TV screens.
While there is a moral compass in the series, it doesn’t adopt a castigating tone. The soundtrack is cheerful, even encouraging, as the conmen pull off their tricks. As Sunny cynically points out to another character, “good” people are all right with petty crimes as long as it gets them out of a spot, but you become the bad guy when you continue to dream big. When Sunny is broke, people don’t even shake his hand; the first firm handshake he gets is when he makes a deal with the devil. Who can blame him? Even Mansoor, played by a wonderful Kay Kay Menon, has his human moments. This kingpin is comical, but not a caricature. You are almost led to believe that he must be a nice guy to have coffee with and discuss Van Gogh.
Farzi means ‘fake’. The obvious reference is to the counterfeiting operation, but it’s also about Sunny’s character evolution – how he lets greed consume him to an extent that those closest to him don’t recognise him anymore. This self-destruction is the actual crime, Farzi seems to suggest. The real moments of tension are when Sunny waits, weapon in hand and ready to kill, though that’s not who he used to be. Shahid Kapoor's career has veered between playing the good, upright man and the conflicted anti-hero, and it is in the latter category of films that he’s been more likeable. In Farzi, too, he carries off the raw and rakish attitude well.
The series travels across states and countries, and with increasing urgency as the stakes become bigger. There’s also a crossover with The Family Man – Tiwari and Chellam Sir – are part of the same universe, we learn. But this is a slower series, different in mood from The Family Man where there was more blood and bodies, and ideology too. Palekar as Sunny’s nana is sweet, but one can’t help wondering if the whole ‘Save Kranti’ premise isn’t somewhat weak. What does this magazine actually publish? How does it get its news or is it just a vanity project for the grandfather? Why is it worth saving in this day and age when journalists are getting jailed and shot for speaking up? Of course, we understand why Sunny wants to save it so badly, but it’s hard to empathise with the cause as viewers, and feel just as invested.
The final episode of Farzi ends on a cliffhanger, suggesting that a second season is on the way. Will Tiwari and Michael meet? Will Suchi share notes with Rekha on dealing with difficult husbands? Will we figure out what exactly Kubbra Sait was doing in the first season? Will Megha realise who is in the CCTV image? Will Firoz and Sunny remain friends? Lots of possibilities, and it’s always a good sign when a series leaves a viewer mulling over them.
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