Who said stories about the freedom struggle always need to be dark and sombre? It can also be as grand, action-packed, full of drama, and edge-of-your-seat thrilling as Nikkhil Advani's The Revolutionaries, which is currently streaming on Prime Video.
But most importantly, the eight-episode show opens up that chapter of our freedom struggle that we hardly talk about, read about, or show in films...and this was way before Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad or Udham Singh happened.
First things first. Director Nikkhil Advani doesn't waste even a minute but dives straight into action, and we quite appreciate it. Bhuvan Bam as Rash Behari Bose was surely one of our favourites from the show. Bollywood, you must surely cultivate this man. Such great control over his actions and expressions; onscreen, he felt like a seasoned actor without the baggage. Gurfateh Singh Pirzada as Jatindranath Mukherjee, aka Bagha Jatin, was good; however at felt he was just there for the action. While he was, of course, known for his strength, it could have been better if his character was provided with a little more dialogue, sharing insights into the person he was. We felt Gurfateh was highly underutilised in the show.
But both Pratibha Ranta (Pratibha Lahiri) and Rohit Saraf (Sachindra Nath Sanyal) were revelations. While we have seen the versatility of Pratibha Ranta, the graph of a docile 'Chote' Sachin becoming 'Dada's' trustworthy accomplice was very well portrayed by Rohit.
With a host of other very good actors, most playing pivotal characters in the show, including Jason Shah, Tota Roy Choudhury, Neil Bhoopalam, and K C Shanker, Paoli Dam undeniably stood out as Jugantar Boys' Pishima, aka Nanibala Devi, who probably was the first woman state prisoner in British Bengal.
Now, you may ask, did all of these incidents happen? Well, mostly yes. The rest? A filmmaker's liberty. For example, the depiction of Pratibha Lahiri. Sachin, in reality, was betrothed to a six-year-old Pratibha, but in the show she is much older, went on to become an active participant in the freedom movement, and became a figurative symbol for all those young women revolutionaries who left their everything to join the movement, and all those women too, who kept being the aide to the freedom fighters, directly or indirectly.
Also, we loved how each of the episodes ended on a hook, giving a really well-made, thriller-like energy.
Firstly, there was an overdose of Pratibha and Sachin's love story, which felt very distracting at times. The editing could have been way more crisp, and the usage of songs, except the last one, felt extremely unnecessary. Also, since Kolkata (Calcutta), Banaras and Bengalis had a very important role in the setting of the show, the makers should have been a lot more mindful of Bengali pronunciations. And the Durga Puja sequences felt anything but early 1900s: too modern, not-so-Bengali outfits, too much pomp and show, and red-and-white saree-clad women dancing on the streets? Uh-oh, grow up, Bollywood, and stop typecasting!
Based on Sanjeev Sanyal's (great grand nephew of Sachindra Nath Sanyal) non-fiction book Revolutionaries: The Other Story Of How India Won Its Freedom, the show is born in the shadow of 1857’s failure, four young bloods driven by a mad passion for justice, liberty, and freedom, set out to challenge the British Raj, with guns in their hands and rebellion in their hearts, they awaken a sleeping nation, and set out to do the unthinkable.
The series follows the four revolutionaries as they wage an armed resistance against British rule, with the formidable General Dyer closing in at every turn. Expansive visuals and visceral action sequences bring the era to life, capturing the scale of a rebellion forming against the might of an empire. At its heart, the series is a story of youth, friendship, conviction, and sacrifice—with natives, led by four young Indians, risking everything for a free nation they may never live to see.
So, while the web show might be a little lengthy, it has all the elements, making it binge-worthy. So, are you watching it this weekend?
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