‘Choona’ series review: This crazy Jimmy Shergill showreel is hamstrung by endless posturing and detailing

Pushpendra Nath Mishra mounts a desi ‘Money Heist’ that starts rambling after promising a cracker of a ‘con’-test between a slimy politician and his desperate victims. Once a chocolate boy, Jimmy Shergill these days is known for playing overbearing characters who get swindled in the business of love and politics. In Choona, the latest Netflix series title after the metaphor for conning someone in the Hindi heartland, he is incredibly believable as the vindictive Shukla for whom politics is business and vice versa. For him, MLAs are the currency that he buys and sells to build his political capital. His party is called Swachh but there is hardly anything that is clean about him. His only weakness is perhaps his unstinting belief that planetary positions will decide his place in the political hierarchy of Uttar Pradesh. What happens when the people he has wronged along the way combine to bring him down by planning a perfect heist?

Directed and co-written by Pushpendra Nath Mishra, the first season is devoted to the build-up and the makers spend a lot of time introducing the characters and establishing their motivation to bring Shukla down. There is Ansari (Ashim Gulati), a cocksure local goon whose father-like mentor was eliminated by Shukla. Ansari’s friend Bankey is a police officer who was publicly humiliated by Shukla for trying to show the long arm of the law. Bishnu (Chandan Roy) is the brother-in-law of Shukla who seeks to avenge the treatment meted out to his sister.

Then there is JP (Vikram Kochhar), a contractor who suffered because he didn’t take Shukla’s fascination for vastu seriously. Similarly, Panditji (Atul Srivastava) makes it to the team because he was punished by Shukla for guiding his rival. Triloki (Namit Das) is an imposter who also brings a semblance of ideological layering or moral centre to the audacious act. Jhumpa (Niharika Dutt), an emerging cyber thief, and Bela (Monica Panwar), a wannabe police officer who ends up in a newsroom, are the female representatives in the boys club.