The lead-in to Lootere, in which a cargo ship containing a dodgy container from Ukraine is overrun by Somalian pirates, could remind you of Tom Hanks’s piracy-on-the-high-seas tale Captain Phillips. But the detailing in this eight-part web series is all its own beast, as it toggles between the doings of Vikrant Gandhi (Gomber) a businessman of Indian origin coming up with a ploy of hijacking his own craft, RK Singh (Kapoor) the captain of the ship and his crew, and the pirates, led by the level-headed Barkhad (Bachamen) and his hot-eyed men.
Things backfire. Badly. It leaves an embattled Gandhi, trying to recover his position in the Mogadishu port authority, and his loyal right-hand man Gupta (Vora) between several rocks and hard places. It turns Singh into a prisoner on his own ship, as he tries to stand as a buffer between his subcontinental crew, which includes two women, and mortal danger. And as the face-off stretches, things become increasingly tricky for Barkhad, as he tries keeping a sharp eye on the negotiations, and preventing his men from turning into rapacious beasts.
The difficulties in keeping a grip on a dense if rewarding plot, by Vishal Kapoor and Suparn S Varma based on a story from Anshuman Singh, is evident in a couple of strands which feel extraneous. A local lad, the son of a domestic worker in the Gandhi household, has gone missing. Mrs Gandhi aka Avika’s (Khanvilkar) determination to get to the bottom of the mystery is a constant distraction. Similarly, the real-estate taken up by Gandhi’s louche business partner (Sanyal) and his father comes off as unnecessary, seemingly there just to bulk up episodes with a lengthy run-time of 45-50 minutes.
But despite these wasteful sideshows, Lootere, which comes from the Scam 92 team of director Jai Mehta and showrunner Hansal Mehta, stays on course even when it is becalmed. Tension on the ship is maintained, offering a parallel to the knife-edge situation in the African nation, teetering on the brink of anarchy. Some lines are Hindi movie-fied, but the series, showrun by Shaailesh R Singh, mostly stays conversational, and we stay invested.
And that’s got to do with a fine ensemble cast. Gomber goes full-tilt camp at his Gandhi, yelling-shouting-chain-smoking, but is never less than entertaining. Kapoor, as the captain who convinces us that he will be the last man standing, is solid. Sharma, as the middle-man who wants to be on the winning side, makes a good weasel. Bachamen is excellent, making us wonder about how some men do what they do. This is a tense, high-wire hostage drama which doesn’t dial back on danger, and manages to keep its stakes high: I enjoyed it, and the addictive title theme by Achint Thakkar is my newest earworm.
Lootere cast: Rajat Kapoor, Vivek Gomber, Chirag Vora, Martial Bachamen, Gaurav Sharma, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Amruta Khanvilkar
Lootere director: Jai Mehta
Lootere rating: 3 stars
(Two episodes are out on Disney+ Hotstar. Each of remaining six will be out every Wednesday at midnight)
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