Kafas Review: Mona Singh and Sharman Joshi Series Is A Brave Attempt Weakened By A Sloppy Execution (LatestLY Exclusive)

Kafas Review: Based on the British TV series Dark Money, Kafas has an extremely bold and brave topic at its core. Sexual abuse of a boy and pedophilia are two unheard-of concepts in the Indian content world. Data on such heinous crimes in India is scarce too. But while the attempt is commendable, the series lacks finesse and emotional connect. Kafas: Sharman Joshi, Mona Singh to Star in Sahil Sangha’s New Show (Watch Video).

Raghav (Sharman Joshi) and Seema (Mona Singh) are struggling with finances, as is common in many middle-class families. Their one chance at being financially stable arrives in the form of their son Sunny (Mikail Gandhi) who lands an important role in a big-budget movie starring the nation's heartthrob Vikram Bajaj (Vivan Bhatena). But the win extorts a heavy loss when Sunny gets sexually abused by Vikram during the shoots. Now it's a fight between morality and money while Sunny puts his faith only in his sister Shreya (Tejasvi Singh Ahlawat).

Directed by Sahil Sangha and written by Karan Sharma, Kafas dives into the story immediately which gives it a lot of room to evolve. How penury can drive you to do certain things that should be nothing but sin. It drives the point home pretty well that money can buy you everything but peace and happiness. In the first few episodes, the end has always characterised a big reveal or an unfortunate twist. It keeps you hooked for the next episodes. It also works that there are just six of them.

Once you get past the importance of this story and the issue it addresses, you will start finding the chinks in the armour. In the entire series, Raghav keeps accusing Seema of living her unattained dreams vicariously through Sunny but there is no context for that. Why didn't her dreams get fulfilled? Did the affair with a married man ruin her career? The writer just leaves it to your imagination.

It also packs so many sub-plots in its runtime that the core issue of sexual abuse gets heavily diluted. Raghav's mixed feelings for his ex-wife and present are unnecessary, Shreya's belief that she is less preferred than her brother by her parents has no background at all. Is it just a mental construct or she is actually discriminated against?

And here's a pro-tip for content creators in the OTT world. If one of the main characters in a film doesn't turn up at the trailer launch, the entertainment media will have a field day obsessing over it. Questions will be asked, judgments will be made and inferences drawn. So just get over your urge to diss media everywhere and give us the due we deserve. Laal Singh Chaddha: Find Mona Singh’s Casting As Aamir Khan’s Mother ‘Problematic’? Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump Also Did Something Similar!.

Watch the trailer of Kafas here

Performances are decent. Sharman Joshi's character needs more gravity as he spends most of the runtime being apologetic, Mona Singh is good while Vivan Bhatena does get the bad boy superstar act right. Mikhail retains the innocence of a boy in trauma and gives a controlled performance.

Yay!

-topic addressed

-episode endings

Nay!

-unnecessary subplots

-no context to many threads

-slow pace hurts

Final Thoughts

Kafas, streaming on SonyLIV, picks up a social issue that needs a lot of attention but dilutes the impact with the meandering storyline. Watch it for the attempt, not for the execution.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 23, 2023 02:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).