Country Mafia Review: Loud imitation of Mirzapur doesn't quite add up

There is a sequence of violence in Zee5’s Country Mafia, that kind of works perfectly as a metaphor for the show. Babban, played by the believably snide Ravi Kishan, has a surprise to offer his guests. Not a drink or a discussion, but a man half buried in the ground. It’s obviously a violent ruse, a method of warning adversaries in going against him. Babban sits up, approaches the man and slits his throat while abusing with abandon. It’s the kind of scene that feels more decorative than reliably important, and it reappears in the show, with the kind of blatancy that makes it seem more theatre than life. It’s a problem that recurs through a series that has a habit of posturing rather than breathing through its characters. Nothing, except maybe the setting, seems genuine in this tepid, loud cousin of Mirzapur that cannot seem to build anything other than noise.

Country Mafia is the story of siblings Ajay, played by Jamtara’s Anshumaan Pushkar and Nannu played by Soundarya Sharma. The two have lofty dreams of becoming IAS officers – Ajay even gets close once – but their lives are turned upside down after their father is brutally murdered by the local, illicit liquor baron Babban. As most heartland villains are, he is curt, foul-mouthed and a raging chauvinist. He swears and dances with the kind of menacing energy that made me wonder if Kishan could have actually been a fine, casting choice for some of streaming’s better shows around crime and noir in India’s rural corners. Babban is obviously hand-in-glove with politicians and even a godman (a well-cast but ultimately underutilised Satish Kaushik as Mahant).

The siblings turn to a life of crime to avenge the death of their father. Their mother, played by Anita Raj, quite incredibly is their greatest cheerleader. In one scene where a local cop raids their house, she looks at her children longingly for hiding guns beneath books meant to be studied. It has the making of an iconic scene, but in the hands of underwhelming actors and shoddy direction, it appears hammy and deaf, to the sound of depth.  Country Mafia is an underdog story that apes the many rise-of-the-gangster narratives we have seen a dozen times previously, but here, at least in the premise there is the stench of nuance. The problem is absolutely no one, perhaps with the exception of Kishan, is up to the task.

From poorly lit scenes, to absurdist musical interludes, from jarring transitions to horrendously enacted sequences, Country Mafia is a mess. It doesn’t clutch at too many things through its swift 30-min episodes but it doesn’t dig deep enough either. There is grief and trauma on display here, but you hardly ever feel it. There is enough violence and gore on offer, but it rarely gets under your skin. Everything feels flat, to the point that this feels like a dated reprise of a series that might have existed two decades ago. A re-run of Mr Bean, if you like, but with noise, bad acting and witless macho posturing.

A case has to be made here for Pushkar, whose reliability as the face of hinterland stories, is starting to get the better of him. Here too, he tries, and appears to be the only human with a hidden inner life. His character is easily the one that writers have applied themselves to and it shows in his restraint, in the way he reluctantly goes about his personal mission. Compared to that the sister and the mother, are horrendously off-beat, and struggle to emote without speaking and grinning. Pushkar, however, is persistently let down by the material in front of him. The artificiality of the conflict, the jarring sense that most of these actors are actually not good enough to play the roles they are trying to play and the superficial grit that occupies the belly of a series that insists on blabbering incoherent bile rather than construct something worth relating to in the quiet background, are all false notes.

Country Mafia is possibly evidence that despite the advantage of trusted formulae, there has to be a speck of conviction, most importantly a vision in mind, to pull something off. Nobody is arguing a masterpiece could have been made here, but at least basic culinary choices and execution could have been exacted to a point where it could have been deemed fit for streaming , and not draining. Country Mafia, is instead, far too insipid, crass and poorly assembled and it can’t be redeemed, even by the determined Pushkar, or the evergreen Satish Kaushik. Not all or any stars align for this show that feels like a humbling misfire.

Manik Sharma writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between.

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