Mirzapur 2,Choked With Performance Anxiety

Except for the supremely suave  Pankaj Tripathi   everyone  in  Mirzapur 2 seems anxious to look  violent aggressive and murderous. It is that tone  of mass destruction that made the first Mirzapursuch  an enduring favourite  on  the  OTT  platform  .

The  bloodbath in  the  back of the beyond in some godforsaken dusty town in North India run by a  mafia  family,  shook the nation. Mirzapur caught  the  fancy  of  anyone who  cared for blood on the  livingroom wall. There is a lot more bloodshed  this time, a lot more aggression in Mirzapur 2, as  the world around  Akhanda Tripathi’s  family goes  up in  flames.

Going by the frenetic trailer it is very difficult to make  out if the second season  of the cult series succeeds  in going  at  least a few pegs  above the  first. There are  glimpses of  effective acting  specially  by Pankaj  Tripathi and  Divyendu Sharma who  is one  of  our cinema’s most underrated actors. I can also see  the female   characters struggling to make their  place in a tale so rugged  it makes  steroids  seem effeminate.

These  characters are  seriously high on provincial violence. While the  pacing  is  breakneck, the narrative  looks bottled  up and  choked. Maybe  it’s just  a trailer thing. But I wished the  storytelling would  stop running so hard.  I wanted the characters  to take  a deep breath and exhale.

Life is short and brutish. And there’s hell to pay.  But  I hope the characters  haven’t forgotten what they  were  born to  do .Breathe.Live.