City of Dreams Review

'City of Dreams' is essentially the story of Poornima (Priya Bapat) and Ashish Rao Gaikwad (Siddharth Chandekar), the two children of Ameya Rao Gaikwad (Atul Kulkarni), who’s a prominent political figure in Maharashtra and has eyes on New Delhi. A failed assassination attempt on the senior Gaikwad, which has rendered him comatose, leads to a polarised power-tussle between the petulant, man-child brother, Ashish, and his suave, thinking and even-tempered sister, Poornima. The assassination attempt is described as ‘flashback style’ by the cops — as a throwback to the 90s, and we see that style sporadically rearing its head all through the show.

The aftermath of the assassination brings the other story arcs into the mainstream narrative. The search for the two assailants brings in the disgraced ‘encounter Wasim’ (Eijaz Khan), a police officer who’s seeking to redeem himself and his vardi. Credited for having cleansed Mumbai of the underworld in the late ‘90s, he now rides his Enfield everywhere, wears aviators and has a network of informants that includes the local butcher and bar dancers, who serve as veritable mines of information. Wasim, at one point, mentions that he was discriminated by the department on account of his religion, but it’s not built upon much. There is also the ‘hooker with a heart of gold’, who goes by the name of Katrina and helps out with the good cause, and dispenses pearls of wisdom like “Mumbai ka paisa, Mumbai main hi rehta hai”.

City of Dreams has a couple of parallel narratives running, but at least one of them about a prostitute, Katrina (Amrita Bagchi), and her lover-boy (Vishwas Kini), appears completely redundant. And there are far too many scenes that could have been edited out, making the series tighter and an easier watch.While it is much too glossy, making the whole series look like the setting of a rich-fat Indian wedding (with Bapat and Chandekar appearing all dressed up all the time), the tendency to paint Ashish all black and Poornima all white is like letting the cat out much too soon.

Overall 'City of Dreams' is eminently watchable, binge-watch-worthy material.