Inspector Avinash Review: Masala At Best With No Room For Subtly But Knows Its Audience Too Well

Cast: Randeep Hooda, Abhimanyu Singh, Urvashi Rautela, Amit Sial, Freddy Daruwala, and ensemble.

Creator: Neeraj Pathak.

Director: Neeraj Pathak.

Streaming On: Jio Cinemas.

Language: Hindi (with subtitles).

Runtime: 8 Episodes, Around 45 Minutes Each.

Inspector Avinash Review : What’s It About:

Inspector Avinash Mishra is the most righteous cop with the attitude of a raged gangster. When assigned to clear the Baahubali menace in UP, he brings a storm for all the criminals as he hunts them down and shows them hell.

Inspector Avinash Review : What Works:

Every show is made with keeping its audience in mind and there is always scope for bringing in a new set of viewers who will eventually become your audience. When a certain projects fails to decide who their audience is, it doesn’t manage to make the dent, and one can see that very clearly since we have no parameter to gauge the success of streaming. While not a fan of Inspector Avinash, it is interesting for me to see how well-aware creator Neeraj Pathak and his team is of the audience they are catering to.

Starring Randeep Hooda as the titular character, Inspector Avinash from scene one makes it clear that this isn’t the nuanced content the niche audience keeps talking about, but this is the Dabangg for OTT. We are introduced to Avinash Mishra, a cop so righteous and brutal that he can be the Aquaman of UP and fire a bullet skilfully underwater. He walks out of it and stands tall in from of men with loaded big guns with his pistol while a thunderous music plays in the background. And this are just the initial 5 minutes. Told you, no room for Subtly. But the best part about it is that it knows the audience it is serving this to. Because while setting him up as a brutal cop whom the crime syndicate of UP fears, he is also pitched as a family man, and the wife is Urvashi Rautela. A casting done cleverly because the audience watching this content have seen her a lot. Try to find Sanam Re’s viewership on TV; you will know.

Even for someone who enjoys the nuances more, the masala of this entertainer works to an extent where it is the super cop using his wit and weird charm to get things done. He is confident and brave but also not corrupt because the two attributes can lead you to the dark side. It is a choice, and Avinash defines it well. Even some storylines are interesting, like that of Amit Sial, who plays Sheikh, a local politician who eyes the main chair. His back story tells you why he does what he does and what makes him a stone hearted brutal man.

Inspector Avinash genuinely has some very interesting moments. The sequence where a bomb is being hunt to defuse in Ayodhya is really interesting. And the fact that it is shot in the real locations is even more thrilling. The disclaimer says that that particular sequence is inspired from an actual event, and I will definitely read more about it. The writing never even tries to make you think otherwise.

The finale especially takes the drama notches higher. It is structured in a way that one will ask for more and be intrigued to get it. It is exactly the content you see people enjoying while on their daily local train journeys.

Inspector Avinash Review : Star Performance:

There should be a tutorial on how Randeep Hooda manages to use his physicality and facial features so well to create every single character that he does. The acting part aside because we know he is brilliant at that, but the way he creates Avinash Mishra visually is even more interesting. He doesn’t let Randeep peep out of him even once and embodies this no nonsense, witty cop the same way he does all those nuanced parts.

Urvashi Rautela plays his wife and a part that mostly serves Avinash and is an ideal wife. She does a decent job with a daily soap opera vibe.

Abhimanyu Singh plays Devi, a transwoman who runs an entire cartel. It is the most bothering branch in the show as it is filled with stereotypes and seen with a very weird gaze. You are only supposed to dread Devi, who is introduced while performing a bizarre pooja where are fires bullets in the most uncomfortable way. You are never allowed to see her world in totality. Like they give Sheikh a flashback, Devi never gets one.

Talking of Sheikh, Amit Sial is a go-to politician in the world of OTT. The actor now understands what is expected out of him and delivers that well. His present, for the most part of it, walks on the stereotypical route, until you get to know his past.

Inspector Avinash Review : What Doesn’t Work:

The randomness of it all. The show is shaped as one story of Avinash Mishra using a thread to tell episodes from his illustrious career. He walks into the courtroom to defend himself in the first episode, and the shows goes into flashback to tell you the story. The courtroom drama is entirely forgotten. Like you are not even told about the outcome of the row.

Even the sequences and cases that are joint to makes an entire show lack glue. There is a visible attempt to intervene them by bringing characters from one plot to another, but that doesn’t help much, and it all looks like a disjointed mess at one point because the glue needed to bind it all is highly missing.

For example, a love story of a cop is thrown somewhere in between without any context or mention or effects of it on the main storyline. It just exists to fill in those gaps and nothing more. The show could have been the same without it. There are many more subplots that only exist and go nowhere.

The gaze towards women is stereotypical and shapes them as primarily helpless because they have no agency. Representation of the strong woman is so sidetracked that it makes no sense in front of the weakness associated with the gender that shines.

Inspector Avinash Review : Last Words:

Randeep Hooda, of course, does the heavy lifting in this setup where the content is shaped to serve a specific set of audience.

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