Sacred Games (2018–2019)
9/10
A gripping Indian crime drama
15 February 2022
This series opens in modern day Mumbai; disillusioned honest cop, Inspector Sartaj Singh receives a phone call from a man claiming to be Ganesh Gaitonde, an infamous crime lord who hadn't been heard from for sixteen years. He tracks him down and Ganesh tells him that he has twenty five days to save the city before committing suicide. After this the action is split between two different time periods. In the present we see Inspector Singh and other members of police and security forces trying to discover whether the threat is real and if it is figure out how to stop it. Back in '90s Bombay, as Mumbai was then called, we see Ganesh's rise to the top of the local crime scene; move to Kenya where he is forced to help an officer from RAW, the Indian Intelligence Agency, then join a religious group before his ultimate return.

I thought this was a really solid series. The opening quickly grabbed my attention and once Ganesh had made his threat it was great watching the events that followed as the police investigate the threat and the flashbacks of Ganesh's rise; the way the two story lines were intertwined managed to avoid confusion while keeping things interesting. The action is fairly gritty with some disturbingly violent scenes; it isn't just the criminals that are violent, early on we see a police officer shooting a fleeing, unarmed suspect and suspects are frequently severely beaten. There is also a lot of robust language and some sex and nudity so this definitely isn't family viewing. The cast is impressive, most obviously Saif Ali Khan, who plays Inspector Singh and Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Ganesh. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anybody looking for a gripping crime drama.

These comments are based on watching the series in Hindi with English subtitles.
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