PremiumCrime Beat Review: Sudhir Mishra’s show is happy being on the surface level with no intent to dig deeper
Crime Beat Review: Out on Zee5, the show is about the unrest and the sensitive political landscape of the Northern part of the country, but it does nothing new.
Last Updated: 12.23 AM, Feb 21, 2025
Crime Beat Story: A rookie investigative journalist, Abhishek Sinha (Saqib Saleem), wants to save his job at a legacy media house and is willing to go to any extent to do so. He stumbles upon a lead that a wanted gangster (Rahul Bhat) has returned to the country and begins investigating it. The case leads to bigger revelations and has the potential to make him the star journalist he always aspired to be. He starts making risky decisions, venturing into dangerous territory to get close to the gangster. He eventually comes face-to-face with him, but destiny has different plans.
Crime Beat Review:
With the booming streaming space in India, the audience is spoiled for choice. There is a tsunami of content, with viewers taking their weekly dips into it. However, with abundance also comes the risk of repetition, where many offerings feel similar or mere replicas of one another. Adding to this is the industry’s obsession with thrillers, espionage, and cross-border stories where larger-than-life grey figures take center stage, transforming the leading common man. To make a show with that formula work, one must be Sudip Sharma and Avinash Arun (Paatal Lok), who continually reinvent the genre with their writing and direction. This time, veteran filmmaker Sudhir Mishra jumps into the pool to try his hand, but he merely scratches the surface—deep diving remains a distant dream.
Crime Beat, created and directed by Sudhir Mishra along with Sanjeev Kaul, is shaped by nearly every cliché available in the market today. A rogue journalist, an influential father’s daughter as his colleague, a righteous boss, a nefarious gangster, and a beautiful sidekick skilled in combat—you name it, and the show has some version of it. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, the problem is that Crime Beat fails to go beyond these clichés. The story follows a wanted criminal responsible for a young boy’s death, returning to India. The Indian police, news agencies, and intelligence agencies are all after him, but he constantly stays one step ahead.
With such an abundance of clichés, there are only two possible outcomes: either deliver a drama that, while not novel, remains entertaining, or create a predictable affair where logic takes a backseat. Crime Beat chooses the latter. The show is so determined to stay on the surface, avoiding deeper exploration, that nothing can save it—not even Danish Husain, who delivers a strong performance despite being underutilized.
What truly diminishes the impact of Crime Beat is not just the inconsistent, superficial script but also its flawed post-production. The editing disrupts the geography, making locations feel disjointed. Timelines are haphazardly mixed, with mere color tone changes used to indicate flashbacks—an inadequate approach. Characters seem to travel between Kashmir-like landscapes and Delhi as if they were just a 15-minute drive apart. Furthermore, none of the main storyline’s characters are compelling enough to invest in. Rahul Bhat’s character kidnaps people for bizarre reasons, and the ending attempts to redeem him completely—but to no avail.
Sudhir Mishra attempts to infuse his signature touch, taking jabs at the socio-political landscape and the political circus. However, these elements fail to evolve into a meaningful plot or a compelling message. The newsroom setting offers nothing new—news desks operate like school classrooms, and a journalist absurdly joins the police on a high-risk manhunt during an intense gunfight, armed only with a digicam. Let that sink in. We’ll refrain from further details.
Crime Beat Final Verdict:
Perhaps asking, "What’s new?" should be a prerequisite for creators and platforms funding these projects. Crime Beat bears similarities to countless other shows, and while drawing parallels could be an interesting exercise, none of its elements come together to create something novel or exclusive to this series.
Crime Beat streams on Zee5 from February 21, 2025. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more updates on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.