‘Bob Biswas’ review: Lots of bodies and the living dead in ‘Kahaani’ prequel

In Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani (2012), Bob Biswas, the assassin posing as an insurance agent, dies after being run over by a truck. In the Kahaani prequel named after the character, we learn that Bob Biswas not only had a rich past but a different face and body too.

Diya Annapurna Ghosh’s Bob Biswas, which is out on Zee5, replaces the original actor Saswata Chatterjee with Abhishek Bachchan. If Chatterjee brought menacing drollery to his handful of scenes, Bachchan’s performance is tinged with remorse and passivity.

Perhaps the inertia that washes over Bachchan and much of Bob Biswas has something do with the bodies that keep piling up across Kolkata. Or perhaps it’s because Bob has emerged out of a lengthy coma. His memory wiped clean, he is a blank slate onto which anything can be written. But only one word eventually is: “killer”.

There is the prospect of a new beginning, presented in the form of Bob’s knockout wife Mary (Chitrangda Singh), her daughter Mini (Samara Tijori) from a previous marriage, and their son Benny (Ronith Arora). But Bob’s old handlers want him to continue the good work, especially since a drug called Blue is rippling through the city’s youth.

It gets personal when Mini becomes addicted to Blue. And it gets a bit…

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