REVIEW: CANDY (Web Series)

Producers- Rajsh Bahl, Vipul Shah and Ashwin Varde

Director- Ashish R Shukla

Star Cast- Ronit Bose Roy, Richa Chaddha, Manu Rishi Chaddha, Ridhi Kumar, Vayu Ranawat, Mihir Ahuja, Anju Alva Nayak

Genre- Thriller

OTT Platform- Voot

Illogical but with Twists & Turns!

Rating- *** (Three)

Jyothi Venkatesh

The edge- of- the- seat show is set in the hill station of the tiny hill station Rudrakund in Uttarakhand. Mehul Awasthi (Mihir Ahuja), a student from a popular co-ed boarding school, is found brutally murdered while his best friend Kalki Rawat (Riddhi Kumar) is missing.

The incident shocks their mentor and teacher Jayant Parekh (Ronit Bose Roy). He and his wife Somalika Parekh (Anju Alva Naik) are already deeply affected by the untimely death of their young daughter.

Senior police officer Ratna Sankhawar (Richa Chadha) takes over the case. The initial suspicion falls on three students who used to bully and torture Mehul but the villagers are of the view that a demon named Masaan is behind the murders and this is not the first time it has committed such a crime. But Ratna is not ready to believe this theory.

Jayant finds out that many students in the school have fallen prey to a drug being supplied in the form of Lick Me Candy.

He also stumbles upon the bitter truth that the wild and crazy Vayu Ranaut (Nakul Roshan Sahdev) is behind the racket.

Vayu is the son of the evil local legislator Money Ranaut (Manu Rishi Chadha). However, Ratna bullshits his theory as cock and bull one.

As far as performances go, it is Rohit Bose Roy who shoulders the entire plot and gets into the character of a tough mentor, who is also an emotional father.

Anju Alva Naik is convincing as an emotionally affected but strong-minded lady. Riddhi Kumar, who gives a brilliant performance as Kalki, is a brilliant as well as natural actor.

Richa Chadha is brilliant as the cop struggling to balance her professional and personal life Kudos to her for getting into the skin of her character of Ratna the dirty cop who isn’t all black or white by shedding her inhibitions with ease.

Manu Rishi Chadha has at last got a role Manu Rishi Chadha plays a local politician who seems to be the ‘baahubali’ of the town with his tailor made role which will make him be remembered for a long time.

Nakul Roshan Sahdev as his son makes the character of Vayu believable. Gopal Datt and Vijayant Kohli render impressive performances as Headmaster Thomas and Father Marcus, respectively.

Ridhi Kumar is a revelation as Kalki the vulnerable kid while Nakul Roshan Sahdev as Vayu Ranawat is simply superb and will blossom into a versatile actor in no time.

To sum up, though the eight episode web series, with each episode with a duration of 40 minute on an average, has too many layers as well that many characters which pop in and out at frequent intervals, the series has a lot of interesting twists and turns, though it is wee bit predictable on the whole and even illogical at times!