Chamak review: A mechanical musical thriller about the Punjabi music scene
The biggest dissonance of Rohit Jugraj’s Chamak, a six-episode revenge series, remains the fact that the intention and execution never meet each other in the same room
There is nothing more disappointing in the life of a critic than a film or a television show that sets itself up for failure. I’m not talking about shows or films that have mediocrity stamped onto them since the inception of the project. Neither am I talking about the star-studded outings that need rescuing from themselves.
Rather, I’m talking about the kind of projects that have nearly everything going for them — ones that seem so perfect on paper that we, as audience, can exactly visualize just how sparklingly the source material would translate onscreen. Even the thought of such projects being waylaid from their respective courses isn’t something that arises in our minds simply because, how could something set up so easily for a triumph choose to disregard it altogether?
Rohit Jugraj’s Chamak, a six-episode SonyLiv revenge series set in the backdrop of the violence of the Punjab music industry, shows us how. On paper, these six episodes were meant for greatness: the show stars Paramvir Singh Cheema, the breakout star of Tabbar, the streaming platform’s homegrown flawless series, as well as Meel Patthar, and Kohrra’s Suvinder Vicky, a performer with a tendency to convey a lifetime-worth of pain and negligence with a mere glance alone.
Then, there’s the electric 28-song soundtrack, encompassing a host of music influences that permeate Punjab, straight from gritty rap and pop music to soulful classical ballads from emerging and established names. But more than anything, there’s the context itself: the setting of the badlands that have been mined by storytellers to tell stories that makeup a fascinating genre of film that can be best described as Punjab nihilism.
Handicapped storytelling, half-baked subplots
It also helps that the premise of Chamak boasts cultural value and narrative weight — borrowing from the murders of artists-turned-stars like Amar Singh Chamkila (Diljit Dosanjh is set to essay him in Imtiaz Ali’s next biopic) and Sidhu Moosewala, Chamak revolves around Kaala (Singh Cheema), a small-time rapper and convict who flees Vancouver.
It’s only when he returns to Punjab that he peels the layers of its identity, finding out that he is actually the son of Tara Singh (Grippy Grewal), a legendary singer, who was assassinated on stage, along with his wife. The revelation serves both as coming-of-age and as fodder for the series to turn itself into a revenge thriller. But the biggest dissonance of Chamak remains the fact that the intention and execution never meet each other in the same room.
The show also stars Suvinder Vicky (of ‘Kohrra’ fame), a performer with a tendency to convey a lifetime-worth of pain and negligence with a mere glance alone.
Jugraj serves as creator, director, and co-writer of the series (having also curated the soundtrack, easily the show’s highlight). It’s the kind of multi-tasking that appears as a burden for Jugraj, considering Chamak meanders and drags its way right from the first episode to the very last. The craft is shoddy, undermining not just the social milieu of the show’s setting but also the talents of its lead performers.
Vicky, for instance, is reduced to a role that seems to exist as a gimmick, a character so devoid of any substance that anything he does naturally works against his craft. The writing is similarly handicapped, its storytelling crowded with multiple, half-baked subplots that distract from the essence of its plot. The lack of conviction shows to such an extent that even six episodes — otherwise a welcome respite from the standard 10-episode-length of most series — appear as a drag, every minute impossibly unearned.
The distance between art and content
As a result, Chamak’s primary investigation into the price that artists pay for their quest for stardom in the backdrop of a demanding industry rife with power dynamics then, awkwardly translates on screen. Worse, it never manages to reach the potential that it might have had on paper. The heavy-handedness of its maker is a key culprit here, simply because there is at once, a lack of rhythm in the proceedings as well as any depth.
The stylistic flourishes are few and far in between and most of the actors (especially Isha Talwar) are expected to rise above the hammy outlines. In fact, the endless subplots and character detours become all the more frustrating as episode after episode, we witness Jugraj visibly unable to juggle them in a way that allows for the show to have coherence or even structure.
It’s only by the end of the last episode does the show pretend to gain any momentum — although even that occurs largely in service of the next season. When a whole season of storytelling exists just to set up another non-existing season, that’s when you are fully able to gauge really the distance between art and content. Even disappointment then, seems like an understatement.