Barun Sobti in a still from Asur.
Voot Select’s latest web series Asur is a crime-thriller (with a generous dose of Indian mythology) which stars Arshad Warsi, Barun Sobti, Anupriya Goenka, Riddhi Dogra and Sharib Hashmi among others. Having watched the first episode of the show, it is safe to say that the adjective ‘intriguing’ certainly befits Asur.
At nearly fifty minutes long, Asur sometimes seems a bit scattered and slow. However, what works in its favour are credible performances and the mystery. The editing could have been snappier perhaps and the screenplay more aligned.
Barun Sobti’s character teaches Forensic Science at FBI headquarters. He has a wife (Anupriya Goenka) and a daughter. But the man is not happy. His true calling is to be out in the field, dissecting dead bodies and solving crimes. But that is not what his partner wants, and so he is constantly torn. The tension in the marriage is depicted ably by Sobti and Goenka. The scene then switches to New Delhi where we meet Sharib Hashmi, Riddhi Dogra and Arshad Warsi’s characters. They work for CBI and are caught in the middle of multiple murders that have been committed by a man who likes to completely disfigure his victims. The officers reach out to Sobti’s character Nikhil Nair for help. The rest of the narrative takes off from there.
What is interesting about Asur is that it is dipping its hands into a lot of things – a dissolving marriage, love, crime, mythology and psychology. To juggle these and simultaneously make a watchable show is a task. Only future episodes would reveal how well they have accomplished the task.
Asur is currently streaming on Voot.