Duranga review: An adaptation that creates neither drama nor dread

In a scene from Zee5’s Duranga, a police investigator tells his subordinate while racing a car to a crime location, "Ye mentally disturbed case naa khud ko bhi mental kar deta hai." He is referring to, of course, investigating a sociopath. Duranga is the kind of true-crime/romance procedural that neither sends the heart racing nor the mind meandering down shadowy alleys of misdirection. It is instead a blunt, almost dated adaptation of a K-Drama that treats streaming as the site where all refuse can still be quantified as usable matter. Unfortunately, Duranga isn’t even poor or tacky in a goofy way so it can be enjoyed for how it flip-flops through a premise that though intriguing, isn’t helped by pretty much everything else.

Duranga is the story of a sociopath trying to live a normal life. The premise is promising enough but the delivery the creative boxing of this material is so lethargic and uninspiring it lends to farce, but not even in the extravagant, awe-inspiring way that pulpy messes unintentionally do (think Ek Villain). Gulshan Devaiah plays Sammit, a metal artist/sculptor I presume who has a shady past he hides on the inside. This little nugget of information the series throws in your face right at the start. Devaiah is then forced to look shadowy, inaccessible and whisper in the kind of monotone that when not reminiscent of introverts is supposed to imply a murderous history.

Sammit is married to Ira, a police officer played by Drashti Dhami, who has either been dubbed or has her voice manufactured into an unnecessarily deep baritone that, I’m assuming, is supposed to imply she is a serious policewoman. Again, the premise itself of packing evil into a neat little frictional relationship with intended good is delicious, but for some reason the series is performed by actors that live inside Teflon coated skins, scarcely opening up to emote or even allow an emotion to touch them. Devaiah, easily the most accomplished face from the cast, isn’t helped by a script and writing that feels like it has raced off from a table of the CID writing room and merged itself into this strangely outdated view of storytelling. Unfortunately, its largely the tumorous external growth that is visible as opposed to the handful of moments that carry some emotional heft.

The police work, which is largely supposed to shoulder such shows for pace and authenticity feels manicured, almost frustrating. The police officers for example work inside an office that looks more like a yuppie start-up. While that might be closer to fact, there is simply no character to the surroundings, just as there is no contribution of Mumbai, the city, to the show’s progress or setting. It could have been set anywhere with its basements and private art galleries/operating rooms etc. Then there is the awful writing. In one scene, as a nurse is being pinned down by Ira after she has just been attacked, her young, overenthusiastic colleague, rather than help or feign adrenaline, says healf-heartedly “I can’t believe this, isne actually appe attack kiya.” I can’t believe this series is almost as unglamorously written as it is emotionlessly performed.

Devaiah, who has proven himself repeatedly, finds himself between a rock and a hard place, in a show that also seems to exist in limbo between a promising premise and a never-quite- ascertained-potential. At some point it feels that there simply wasn’t even talent or skill behind the camera to make a decent meal about a series that clearly could have been milked for its eerie sensationalism. Instead, Devaiah is forced to act as if he has just walked in from the cable Tv era. He mumbles words, looks shadily from certain angles and mouths inanely exposed dialogue like “Main bilkul mere baap ki tarah hun. Thanda khoon hai mera. Kisi ka dard samjh nahi ataa.” Even the good bits that this series could have hung onto for major reveals, are flashed one after the other, like cards at a table in Vegas. It’s almost as if the creators are in a rush to tell us this story is far more complicated than we think, without letting the story do it for us.

Not everything in Duranga is a miss, but it is one largely kamikaze act of destroying promising source material. Hell, I’d take the campy, more bollywoodized version of serial killer hysteria any day. Here everything is hammily written, and executed with the conviction of people who aren’t sure what place, age or era this is supposed to be situated in. Even the parts where Devaiah manages to summon some withheld secrets to perpetuate a history of grief are presented with clunky, racy transitions that resemble a kind of mindless devotion to the surface of a story, instead of what it carries underneath.

The author writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between. Views expressed are personal.

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