The Couch Review

Serious Men(2020)- Review Serious Men is yet another attempt by Netflix to create a quality film independent of the traditional production houses, in Hindi for the Indian market as they did with Roma in Mexico. But this film too can be added to the failed attempts list of Netflix. Serious Men centers around Ayyan Mani (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a smart and intelligent man yet uneducated and by his own accounts unprivileged, and his attempts to make sure his son has all the ‘privileges’ that he was not fortunate enough to have and make sure his son lives a better life than he did. As simple as the above task seems, Ayyan makes it a little too complicated with a few white lies and rule breaking. The story lacks depth and is a further reminder that, in the modern era of Indian entertainment films only with renowned actors will still fail if the film doesn’t have a good story and a strong screenplay. As has been the case for some time now Nawazuddin’s acting is unquestionable which brings ...

Special Ops(2020)- Review Special Ops is a story about Himmat Singh’s(K.K. Menon) quest to find a terrorist who was directly involved with the 2001 Indian Parliamentary attack and at the same time trying to prove his existence to the Indian authorities. With the prologue displayed in the initial scenes, the series kicks off, which is set years after the event in question. In that time Himmat’s hair has turned to grey from sombre and he is now heading the government agency he worked for but he has still not been able to find the terrorist nor has he been able to successfully prove his existence. The story continues with Himmat and his team trying to capture the mystery man, all while still trying to prove the existence of whom. The series follows the now so common sequence of the protagonist reliving his story while retelling it in front of a camera/person. Nonetheless, because of the short amount of information to be shared from the past, the unoriginal storytelling style would no...

Scam 1992(2020)- Review The Sony Liv production, biographical drama based on  The Scam: Who Won, who Lost, who Got Away  by Su c heta Dalal and Debashish Basu, takes us through the journey of infamous stock trader/businessman Harshad Mehta. The series starts in 1992 at the height of Harshad Mehta’s success, with TOI reporter Sucheta Dalal being informed by a whistle-blower about discrepancies in the books of SBI, allegedly due to the actions of Harshad Mehta. With the initial tease of the intriguing story of the ‘scam’, the series cuts back to the late 70’s where a young and unexperienced Harshad Mehta and his family are finding it hard to make ends meet in the city of Mumbai. After displaying the initial struggles of the protagonist the story kicks off with him being introduced to the stock market and trying to learn the tricks of the trade to turn his fortunes around. With the quick and sharp learner he is, Harshad takes no time in acquiring the skills of a seasoned tra...