A Potpourri of Vestiges Review
By Murtaza Ali Khan
Following the success of
Asur, Voot Select has released another crime thriller series titled ‘The Raikar
Case’. Director by Aditya Sarpotdar, the series stars Atul Kulkarni, Neil Bhoopalam,
Ashwini Bhave, Parul Gulati, Reena Wadhwa, Manava Naik, Vaishnavi Kadam, Lalit
Prabhakar, Kunal Karan Kapoor, and Ajay Purkar. The series, set in Goa,
revolves around a murder mystery involving the youngest member of the high profile
Naik Raikar family. The family’s patriarch Yashwant Naik Raikar (Kulkarni) who
runs the family’s cashew business is all set to be elected to Rajya Sabha when
the dead body of his 16 year old nephew Tarun Naik Raikar is discovered. At
first it looks like an open-and-shut case of suicide but things begin to take
an interesting turn when the Superintendent of Police John Pereira (Bhoopalam) comes
across evidence which makes him reach the conclusion that Tarun has actually
been murdered in cold blood. But who has committed the murder? What makes things
even more complicated is that fact that four years earlier Tarun’s father and
sister had died in a tragic accident.
The Raikar Case is
essentially a whodunit with a panoply of characters who are murder suspects,
both inside and outside the Naik Raikar family. Within the family the primary suspects
are Yashwant, his daughter Etasha (Gulati) on whose phone Tarun left 12 missed
calls before getting murdered, his wife Sakshi (Bhave), and Tarun’s mother Lily
D'Silva Naik Raikar (Wadhwa). Then there is Yashant’s sister Anandi (Manava
Naik) and her family. Also, there is the powerful politician Rajshekhar Rane
and his hot-headed son Eklavya who was hooked to Tarun’s daughter before she
died in the accident. But it doesn’t end here. Given the wealth and influence
of the Raikars, the list of suspects is really a very long one. Interestingly,
each episode of the series begins with a different subjective reality that
hints towards a different killer in a classic Rashomon style.
The best whodunits are not
just about finding the killer. For, the journey leading to the final revelation
is just as important. Now, The Raikar Case is nowhere near the best whodunits
we have seen over the years. But there is no denying that it is not a bad one
either. In fact, the seven episode series offers several moments of brilliance
during the course of its three and a half hour running time. If anything, the
melodrama could have been toned down a little given it’s not a daily soap but a
web series. Fortunately, the solid performances by Kulkarni, Bhave, Gulati,
Wadhwa, and Bhoopalam give it just the right kind of fillip, despite the shortcomings.
Those who enjoy watching murder mysteries will be not be disappointed by The
Raikar Case.
Rating: 6/10
A version of this review was first published in The Sunday Guardian.
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