Rakhtanchal review : Gangs Of Purvanchalpur

What: Crime Action

The Story of Raktanchal

Amidst the picturesque Purvanchal, the criminal empire of Waseem Khan (Nikitin Dheer) rules. Waseem runs mafia syndicate that grabs government tenders. One day a young simpleton Vijay Singh (Kranti Prakash Jha) crosses path with Waseem and its mayhem in that land of Purvanchal.

Raktanchal review

A typical quintessential badla (revenge drama) that pay tribute to Bollywood action era during the 70’s 80’s starring Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra etc, along with the Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur that winks and smiles at      Karan Anshuman’s and Puneet Krishnan’s Mirzapur

Call it MX players answer to Amazon Prime Video’s Mirzapur where nothing is ‘sacred’ in this ‘game’.

We just had that terrific Pataal Lok from Prime Video, Ritam Shrivastav’s Raktanchal is more populist and massy where the local Bahubaali (strong man, gang lord) has huge havelis and quirky henchmen. Like Waseem Khan (Nikitin Dheer ) over here. The 9 episodes has some bloodbath, unhinged violence, desi Katta, bad guys, good guys like the protagonist with grey shades, the good honest simple man – pitaji who gets thrashed resulting in the son turning a rebel and obviously like any Bollywood blockbuster ‘Vijay’ getting into the bad books of his ‘Maa’ by turning a ‘mujrim’.

The first couple of episodes give a proper introduction and hook the viewers but after that when the audience feels that the battle line is now drawn. The series loses steam and falls prey to its own misconceptions.

The basic wafer-thin plot then starts playing merry go round on its own.

The narrative flounders and the audience miss the ‘kill’ they excepted and its plain escapisms nothing to dig in and hardly any layers.

The lack of solid confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist turns suicidal.

Still a steering act by Kranti Prakash Jha as Vijay Singh with good support from Chittaranjan Tripathy, Pramod Pathak and Vikram Kochhar. 

Nikitin Dheer underplays which mostly works but at times it spoils the game tremendously.

The cuss words are forced at times not coming naturally.

Final words

Raktanchal is a quintessential revenge drama it has glaring flaws but still if you thrive on the old school badla stories with some extra blood and cuss words thrown in then it’s an okay one-time binge watch.