Mrigaya 1.5 mirrors the harsh realities of digital crimes, packed with powerful and emotional performances

The most hard hitting and factual truth that sums up Abhirup Ghosh’s latest directorial Mrigaya 1.5: The Hunt Continues, is the dialogue, “We are dealing with the digital mafia”. The movie wins hearts because it depicts the harsh realities of the digital world and how the definition of crime itself is evolving.

Setting the premise

The narrative kicks off in 2006, showing a flashback of how Ritwick Chakraborty was guided to becoming OC Debanjan Dutta in the present timeline by ACP Agnishwar Chatterjee played by Mir Afsar Ali. What is brilliantly portrayed as a 5-7 minute flashback sets the premise for the case that they grapple with in 2026. It also portrays how easy it was once to find out anyone breaking the law and the reasons for it were simple and honest. Cut to modern times, Debanjan now works with a diligent and hard-working team comprising the hot headed officer with a medical kit Joyeeta Sen (Koushani Mukherjee) and sub-inspector cum Bengali dictionary, Paritosh Saha (Arpan Ghosal).

Four things that work for Mrigaya 1.5?

First, what seems to be an unfortunate incident of minor rape triggers a fascinating web of crime that deepens into self –stage crimes, honey-trapping, extortion, robbery, phishing, morphing and of course, gang wars and murder. It exposes how today’s youngsters who are adept in using technology can go wayward and become high IQ criminals and a threat to the society. Mrigaya 1.5 is not just a movie, it’s a mirror to the cruel world in which one exists today, one that is capable of bettering life and degrading it, depending on how one uses technology. While the first half talks about delivering justice to a minor, the second half picks up pace and completely flips the script to the actual crime.

Second, Soumit Deb’s dialogues, especially with the pun intended Bengali words. It lends to the movie the much needed comic flavour without making it look forced. It complements Debasis Datta’s story and lyrics to bring out a crime thriller package with just the right touch of everything – drama, emotion, comedy, action, and facts.

Third, the power-packed performances by the lead actors made it a winner already in the first few minutes. While Ritwick’s action sequences, Koushani's rough and tough police role, while fighting an internal emotional struggle all along and Arpan Ghosal’s pure Bengali with its comic punch established them as great performers in the movie, the actual star of the show was Ananya Bhattacharya playing Sreyangshi. The range of emotions essayed by her in a time frame of 2 hours made her enter the race of one of the most promising actors to look out for in the Bengali industry.

Fourth, a much awaited cameo during the climax reunites two of the most able inspectors of the movie franchise. With this unison, hints are also dropped for a probable third installment of the franchise, although no concrete details have been confirmed yet.

Despite such powerful narratives and actors, we felt, the make-up could have been slightly better in some places and certain cinematic cliches like not recognising the crimninal under one's nose could have been avoided. But, the overall aura of Mrigaya 1.5 was so enthralling, hooking, and gripping, that these minor slips can be overlooked. It is thus safe to say that Ghosh's cop franchise is progressively moving forward with good storylines and powerful cast.

Mrigaya 1.5 is streaming on Bangla ZEE5 from today

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