Good Cop/Bad Cop

Good cops, bad cops, mad cops, cop-sponsored-goons, cop-turned-goons, be it on big screen or on OTT, it seems cops are everywhere and in every shade.

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January had ended with Rani Mukerji taking charge as Senior Superintendent of Police, Shivani Shivaji Roy in Mardaani 3—a big-budget franchise film saw the actress playing the role of the fierce and unyielding supercop with precision, channelling the energy of the divine feminine that destroys all evil, but this time indulging in stylised, over-the-top ‘macho’ action of conventional cop-heroes of the masala movies, moving away from the more realistic portrayal of women in uniform of the previous two instalments. February saw grittier and more nuanced take of the police force—while Kohrra Season 2 (streaming on Netflix) and Daldal (streaming on Prime Video) were layered police procedurals that also dealt with grief and trauma, Kennedy (streaming on ZEE5) and O'Romeo (expected to drop on Prime Video on March 27.)were neo-noir thrillers dealing with cop-criminal nexus unfolding in the dark underbelly of Mumbai. While all four were in various degrees let down by their writings, there were some glorious performances. While Shahid Kapoor absolutely killed it as the gun-toting womaniser, contract killer and police informer, Ustara—the titular Romeo in Vishal Bhardwaj’s gangster drama, another performance that stood out for me was that of Nana Patekar as DCP Ismail Khan (the character that reminded me of his Inspector Sadhu Agashe in