CA Topper — Bank Crash Forces Accounting Director to Take to the Streets

The two biggest pitfalls of Indian serials are length and writing. I remember a film editor once telling me that directors are simply not open to editing their films. The result: too many scenes that suck and are awkwardly long. This is where foreign serials win – with their sharp writing and intelligent editing. So they are engaging and captivating in their imagination and storytelling style.

Tribune Mishra: CA Topper, Netflix’s latest foray into the world of series, has neither a novel idea nor a great narrative that is everywhere. Each of the nine episodes, running for almost an hour, is filled with silly jokes and characters that are simply unbelievable.

I can’t for the life of me understand how banks can close their shutters these days. They are all under the umbrella of the Reserve Bank of India and none of them can fail like this Tribune Mishra (Manav Kaul) does just that. From one day to the next, he finds himself penniless, with a wife Ashoklata (Naina Sareen) and two lovely children.

So what does he do? He busies himself with his desktop computer and enters the prostitution ring. Mishra is a handsome hunk (but with a wooden face that smiles once every Russian year) and soon becomes very desirable, with women swooning over him. He earns good money (paying monthly rent on his apartment) and is even considering insuring his fingers. They have magic, his women tell him – especially Bindi (Tillotama Shome, who is also wooden).

There are a few other characters in the film – Bindi’s husband Raja (Shubrajyoti Barat, who runs a sweet shop but is also a killer) and a few policemen. All these people cross paths at various points, leading us to a very disappointing climax, but not before a few embarrassing moments. Mishra’s confrontation with his brother-in-law and his wife during one of his escapades is supposed to be funny, but turns out to be quite the opposite.

The biggest plot blunder comes in the form of Mishra escaping from the law. Hey, how does he do that! Because of very poor writing.

Finally, I wondered why the auditing community is not shouting loudly, criticising the reputation and image of the series, which is directed by Krishna and Amrit Raj Gupta.

The author is a senior film critic.