A Hype-free Nitpicky Review of Sacred Games
‘Sacred Games’ has a huge amount of hype. First Indian Netflix series that’s market internationally. It’s first series to have writers are also being acknowledged. It has many firsts associated with it. Just Google it and get buried under it, please. Since the show majorly centers around Mumbai and there’s so much hype, let me share a story about hype by a person from the city.
Raj Thackeray says, he once went to Australia and wherever he went he was bombarded about an event — Watch Penguins On A Beach. To a layperson that sounds slightly curious coz Penguins are shown only in extremely cold places. But their tourism department hyped it up so much that, in his words, it felt like your life’s nothing if you haven’t seen these penguins. When they actually went there, three penguins passed by them, and their guide said — That’s all folks. Raj Thackeray wanted to talk about tourism in that talk but to me, it told me much more about the nature of hype.
When the hype delivers, not only are your expectations met, they’re surpassed — You get a villain of the lifetime, stunts that had never been done before, a moment that will forever stay with you, and a franchise whose goods will be hyped again and the circle of life continues.
More often than not though, the hype feels like a con. They pumped in huge amounts of money to convince you that Avatar is a world event — Movies will never be the same. After seeing it, I felt there was some part that was new but it was more of the same. I was left underwhelmed, like Raj Thackeray.
That’s what I felt after watching ‘Sacred Games’, there was something new but it was more of the same. Let’s start with Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Yes, he’s good. but…
Gaitonde is Faisal Khan-II
If we move past that. Except explicit sex, everything Gaitonde does echoes of a previous Nawazuddin Siddiqui movie. This is Faizal Khan’s rise expanded. In fact, like Gangs of Wasseypur, his place is ambushed… twice. This brings to the second point.
What’s the point of Kukoo and Subhadra?
Kukoo is shown to be the good luck charm of a gangster. If she’s spotted with you, it means your star is rising. But she has a secret. #SpoilerAlert She’s a transgender. The good thing is it normalizes a lot of things, at least tries to. It normalizes a relationship in which the man is shorter. It normalizes the transgender relationships. It doesn’t show transgenders as evil, or mock them. Kukoo is portrayed as desirable. She has her desires, disappointments and insecurities. It is a fairly well developed character.
But two things about her bugged me. One, if she’s so careful about letting her secret out then she shown openly visiting men’s loo. One may say that it was to inform the audience that she was transgender. But that’s being done immediately two scenes later. Also you had been foreshadowing about it. The story could have done without that one inconsistency.
Secondly, what was the point of her story overall? She dies in an ambush. Her death spurs Gaitonde to proclaim he’s the God and unleash terror on Isa’s men. Then Gaitonde marries Subhadra. She dies in an ambush. Gaitonde unleashes terror on Muslims.
Probably her only addition to the story was how religion gave power to the powerless. But that angle could have also been covered with Kukoo, just by making her a closeted religious person. Otherwise, both are serving same purpose for Gaitonde emotionally.
May be I’m wrong, may be there’s a plot reason for having them as two different characters. I felt, emotionally, the series could’ve shown the same things with just one composite character of two.
Radhika Apte Is Repeated (Differently Than You Expect)
Radhika Apte is the butt of jokes for doing too many Netflix series. But that’s just being a good actor to work with. I hope Radhika Apte gets a lot of Netflix and movie roles. All success to her.
The roles she’s played as Anjali though is very similar to Kalindi from Lust Stories. In both she plays a flawed feminist — they’re both initiative taking women who are unreliable in one way or another and often incorrectly use the issues in feminism to justify their decisions.
Sartaj Singh Gets Caught A Lot
Sartaj Singh is repetitive, gets caught thrice in the series. Twice in one night. How many times do I have to see that?
The Episode Names Only Seem To Mean Something
I love if the episode names have some thematic connections with the story in an episode, it shows how deeply the writers have thought about it. I’m sure they did put a lot of thought. But may I point out something? The episode names are quite vague and often don’t fit the episode names.
E.g.
a. The title of Episode 3: ‘Atapi-Vatapi’ suggests a story about two demons who lure tired travelers in and consume their souls. It could’ve very well been the story of Episode 8 were Gaitonde is pushed to the brink of death and then is lured by the Guruji.
b. The title of Episode 1: ‘Ashwathama’ is about how Gaitonde survives even after his death. The explanation in a Reddit thread (which one of author said is ‘Almost Bang On’) is people continue to talk about his stories so he survives. But, everybody’s just talking about what will happen in 25 days. His story is the one he’s shoving on us. Literally no one the show is curious what he was doing in the times of Emergency. So, how is he thematically being immortal?
There are quite a few such examples. I wish the connections of Episode names were actually concrete. They left no room for doubt that the themes title suggest is exactly what the episode is about. So you might think that I disliked the series.
But…
Not really, I’m just underwhelmed. While I write this, I’m aware that I’m able to do this deep an analysis of a story because it is allowing me to do so. Writers have put in enough effort into creating a world in which I can immerse myself and then find the gaps. Before, only academics did that. If you as a layperson tried that, you’d get scoffed at — “It’s just a movie, don’t apply your brains” is what people said.
Now, analyzing Indian movies and serials deeply will be a common thing to do so. In that sense, this series will be a game changer or a Sacred Game changer.