Neeraj Pandey’s Khakee: The Bengal Chapter would have been the perfect crime thriller were it not for a couple of incongruous performance which impede the other-wise pitch-perfect crime thriller, arguably the best we have seen in ages. Khakee: The Bengal Chapter boasts of razor-sharp writing and unexpected twists and turns all through.

A coiling-recoiling raga of rage plays itself out in the combustive length and breadth of the lengthy parable on crime and violence in the ‘City Of Bhoy (fear)’, as a character describes the crime situation in Kolkata.

The series kickstarts in a stunning swirl of bloodshed and deceit when an honest cop, Saptarishi (Parambrata Chatterjee), is slayed by the goons of a gangster, Bagha (played by tonally attuned Saswat Chatterjee). The ensuing bedlam in the City keeps up the cops all night, as we, too, sleepless until the lengthy but never dull episodes are done.

Embracing the...