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Farzi review: Brilliantly performed and ‘kadak’ly intriguing like those fresh currency notes
What: Farzi - Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi anchor a kadakly (bole toh solidly) intriguing scamster drama series revolving around those ‘jaali notes’ (counterfeit/fake currency notes) directed by Raj and DK.
Farzi synopsis
Sunny(Shahid Kapoor) is a gifted artiste. abondned by his own father who does petty crimes gets shelter by his Nanu (Amol Palekar). Nanu runs a publication by the name Kranti and dreams of revolutionising the country and its youth with its ideas and ideolosims. Sunny learns minutes of painting from his Nanu and grows up to be an exceptional painter surviving on making famous replicas and portraits. his childhood friend Firoz (Bhuvan Arora) is his only company after Nanu in this materialistic world. Sunny is seeing an urban girl Ananya (Kavya Thapar) who he considers to be his girlfreind but Ananya is just fooling around witth the garib painter.
Circumstances lead Sunny to make a fake currency note and he suceeds. Sunny now has a nickname ‘Artist’ who is unbeatbale in making counterfiet currency notes much to his own and his best pal’s Firoz’s amazement. the business of ‘Farzi’ notes begins and big sharks like Mansoor Dallal (Kay Kay Menon) who runs an international fake currency notes syndicate with state of the art machinery and manpower comes into picture.
But hold on, there is an honest special task force officer Michael Vedanayagam (Vijay Sethupathi) gung ho in nabbing the people behind this fake ‘Farzi’ currency racket.
Raj and DK from cross border terrorisim in The Family Man series now gets into the global financial terrorisim – the fake/counterfiet/jali note racket.
Jali note – a topic once common in Bollywood potboilers be it Dev Anand, Madhubala starrer Jali Note (1960) or Manoj Kumar, Hema Malini starrer Dus Numberi (1976) so an so forth even the SonyLiv’s June 2022 series Avrodh: The Siege Within 2 focussed on the similiar fake/counterfiet currency note issue.
toh phir Farzi mein naya kya hai...
to think of it, the creators of Farzi - Raj and DK and the team of writers - Suman Kumar and Sita Menon including the director duo add some technical detailing over here which am not sure how authehtic and true it is but can be very dangerous.
However, for me the USP of ‘Farzi’ for me was not the detailing as the makers in probably their enthusiasms belived to be doing something extraordinary. It was the strong characterization of charecters that had good graph, proper establishent and convincing story/back story to hit the right chord. Sunny’s (Shahid Kapoor) restrained but growing resentment againgst the system, the wicked and dangerous flamboyence of Mansoor Dallal (Kay Kay Menon), the true brotherhood of Firoz ((Bhuvan Arora). the righteous simplicity of Nanu.
The dilemma of Michael Vedanayagam (Vijay Sethupathi) fighting a batttle on the personal front as well.
The charecters are well skecthed and have their individual nuamces.
solid Charecterisation backed by an intruguing, free flowing narration that has been the USP of Raj and DK is well maintained here.
‘Frazi’ has thrown bigger challnege to Raj and DK cause the emenmy is not that clearly defined as cross border terrrorist in his previous Family Man series. Farzi tackles greed, morality, unequality, love, trust, faith etc.
The desructive power of money.
Though its not sweeeping as an ‘art’ in its theme like Robert Bresson’s 1983 French soul searching drama L'Argent (rough translation money) or slap stick no brainer fun like Rush Hour 2 starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker that involved fake currency.
Farzi is almost everything – a socio economic drama to a crime thriller with spy detective elemnets with bit of an action drama twined with a political potboliler in orde rto please the fandom of Shahid Kapoor and give a unique identity to Vijay Sethupathi. quite a task isn,t it. relaisim bhi, commerciallisim bhi...
Anyways, Raj and DK manage to win the target by getting them hooked by the popular elements. garib samaj ka sataya hua painter becoming a fake ‘supernote’ currency creator. demonitisation, system ki.......
The Vijay Sethupathi personal track with his wife Rekha Rao (Regina Cassandra) may have been designed to gain extra sympathy for Vijay Sethupathi which works in parts but moreover for me it was an hangover of The Family Man – the extension of the equation between Manoj Bajpayee and Priyamani from season 2.
The fans of Vijay Sethupathi will have the hamdardi (sympathy) in any case.
In the Shahid Kapoor, Vijay Sethupathi bargain, i felt Kay Kay Menon enjoyed his individuality and freedom without any burden to the fullest.
The freeom of time sometimes make the makers fall prey to overindulgence and Farzi suffers on this front. The 8 episode series running around 50+ minutes each is unecessarily lenthy at places.
However, the lenght is not that sucidal and the twist and turns in the plot make the audeince glued to the screen.
Shahid Kapoor as the ‘Artist’ is brilliant in his restrained, subtle and at times vulrenable portrayal. Shahid excels and betters himself in the final episode.
Vijay Sethupathi is outstanding. the scenes with the minister are the major highlights.
Kay Kay Menon is extraordinary. he has that unique mannersim which works brilliantly in such roles and he gets a flashy get up for a change.
Bhuvan Arora is fabulous as Sunny’s BFF and has his unique moments.
Raashi Khanna looks charming and delivers a fine perofrmance.
Kavya Thapar is good. Regina Cassandra is wasted. so is Kubbra Sait.
Zakir Hussain as Minister Gahlot is fabulous.
Chittaranjan Giri as Yasir Chacha has his moments.
Manoj Mani Mathew as Iqbal Khan is good.
from the other cast - great support comes from Nilesh Divekar as Bilal. Hariharasudhan Balasubramani as Dimple. Vijayakumar as Jitu Kaka. Anurekha Bhagat as Gahlot's Secretary. Saurav Chakrabarti as Jamal. Sonam Gaychen Wangdi as Susan Dangmei. Vivaan Modi as Aman. Vivek Madaan as Arjun Nayyar. Anand Alkunte as Palash Raina. Lokesh Mittal as Lakdawala. Samir Khakhar as Illyas. Govind Pandey as MLA Kesaribhai Doshi. Saqib Ayub as Anees. Jaswant Dalal as Shekhar Ahlawat.
Ahmed Jawed Khan as Pathaan. Prammod Sanghi as Pramod
Child artiste Divyam Shukla as Vyom Vedanayagam, Kabir Shah as Kid Firoz and Armaan Bhanushali as Kid Sunny are good.
Last but not the least, its good to see the veteran Amol Palekar as Nanu so effortless and fantastic as an actor.
Brilliantly performed and ‘kadak’ly intriguing Farzi is your binge watch this week.
Pls note : The series has lot of cusss words, use of foul language. family should take note and watch with responsibility.
A child born from life & fed by cinema. A filmi keeda from child & a film journalist for the last fifteen years. a father, seeker, foodie who loves crooning bollywood melodies twitter.com/cineblues More By vishal verma