If I had a penny for every show trying to win a Mirzapur-lookalike contest, I’d have enough money to buy a streaming platform that bans men-and-gang-war shows with fake hinterland accents. Or maybe not. I’d probably have enough money to buy myself two beers after reviewing them. Blame inflation. This genre has begun to aim for second-screen viewing, which is strange, because it’s almost like the makers don’t really want you to be too invested but be just interested enough to notice the cast and hear the bullets. It gears into fourth-screen viewing at some points, but then there will be a plot twist that makes you get annoyed for not paying enough attention. It’s a troubling pattern across most Hindi shows of this ilk; Clean Up Company is another brick in this digitally erosive wall.
Here goes. The lawless town is Saribganj. Names like Borda, Sultan, Abbas, Laila, Dharam, Halua and Sariful roll off the tongue. The dreaded ‘king’ is Mezda (Jisshu Sengupta, in the most Jisshu Sengupta role again), a new IPS officer (Saswata Chatterjee) arrives to shake things up, and a power struggle erupts between the very Bengali Mezda (who we know is a deviant because he has sex with his wife while watching porn on his phone) and two sidekicks who turn against him. They operate in the shadow of a late kingpin named Borda, Mezda’s elder brother who was once betrayed by his own. But look no further than the title to know where this show behaves like a diversion from the usual testosterone-and-masculinity-fuelled fare. This game of thrones unfolds from the perspective of three young friends: a ‘crew’ responsible for getting rid of bodies, evidence and cleaning up crime scenes. These working-class underdogs — Raju (Vishal Jethwa), Swapan (Amey Wagh) and Goldie (Ajitesh Gupta) — get caught in the crossfire. But they soon find themselves teaming up with an exotic dancer, Laila (Tuhina Das), who is on her own revenge arc.
The four of them play games with the warring factions, of course, until the storyline reaches a point that can best be described as Mirzapur-as-a-messy-Priyadarshan-comedy. The tone is a problem, because there’s the normal blood and gore and high-stakes shootouts, but there’s also the misplaced pursuit of humour in the bumbling protagonists. Scenes like Raju struggling to get it up with his girlfriend in the morgue don’t quite have the punch and timing they should; the buddy-movie vibe feels like a desperate attempt to revitalise a done-to-death template. It doesn’t fit in for the most part, yet the series insists on being the equivalent of the loud family-gathering uncle who cracks jokes that seldom land. An entire subplot features the boys and Laila manipulating every side into believing that Borda is not dead; that he has returned, and he is disappointed with present-day Saribganj.
I also have this new pet peeve that revolves around non-UP-or-Bihari cast members who overdo the musicality of the dialect; the ‘performance’ of speaking is, again, something I will always blame Mirzapur for. Decent actors like Vishal Jethwa and Amey Wagh succumb to this condition, especially when the trio go through the mandated beats of friendship, conflicts and danger. At least the characters played by Jisshu Sengupta and Saswata Chatterjee are Bengalis themselves; it’s almost interesting that Mezda is not as menacing as he thinks. Given that we’ve been living in Ravi Kishan’s viral world lately, his cameo — as the voice-over and ghost of Saribganj past — feels like the show’s brainwave to become a franchise. Tuhina Das’ Laila is probably the most intriguing character of the lot, but the execution of her track leaves much to be desired.
Perhaps if Clean Up Company had trusted in the premise of a special crew that struggles to do their scammy job, the series might have been able to locate some situational humour and coming-of-age tropes. But the decision to turn them into pawns who are out of their depth in a generic landscape backfires; the ‘gimmick’ of the company itself is lost. The show also furthers a serious issue with the Indian OTT ecosystem. We know this is more of a director-for-hire medium, but the filmmaking functions at a level of homogeneity that now works against the writing. It’s impossible to tell one town and its bars from another, but even the conversational exchanges and soundtracks and colourful banter merge into each other like cinematic slop. It’s deflating to watch across 8 episodes that count on introducing the viewer to a role-playing universe. It’s easy to get distracted, but I suppose that’s the ambition of passive entertainment. If I did get all those pennies, imagine buying the memory-wiping device from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind only to realise it’s useless because the show is designed to be forgettable.