Breathe: Into The Shadows review: A promising psychological thriller becomes a slog

Cast: Abhishek A. Bachchan, Amit Sadh, Nithya Menen, Saiyami Kher

Director: Mayank Sharma

Rating:

There’s a plethora of thrillers in the OTT space across platforms. There have been quite a few thrillers coming from Indian OTT scene since Sacred Games thrilled the audience a couple of years ago. Needless to say, it’s been an overdose of thrillers (of all kinds). So much so that you start thinking about who could be the criminal from the first episode itself. The makers have to be great with the craft to hide any clues that would give away the suspense. Unfortunately, I could guess the criminal in Amazon Prime Video’s latest original Breathe: Into The Shadows in the first episode itself. Note: Actors with unique/popular/easy to guess body language need to be filmed smartly in psychological thrillers like this one.

Trailer of Breathe: Into The Shadows:

In Breathe: Into The Shadows, a 6-year-old girl from Delhi is kidnapped and as a ransom, the kidnapper asks the parents to kill some commoners. Abhishek Bachchan (as Avinash Sabharwal) and Nithya Menen (as Abha Sabharwal) play these parents. The killings have a theme. The ten emotions of Raavana – anger, lust, fear, attachment, insensitivity and so on. In a culture which is under a huge influence of mythological stories, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea for a thriller.

As said earlier, the overdose of thrillers makes you want to think ahead of the filmmaker. What could happen in a ‘psychological’ thriller? You start guessing, and if you can catch a few little things early on, the revelation of the kidnapper becomes a matter of time – get to it quickly, will you? At 12 episodes long, (each episode approximately 45 minutes) Breathe: Into The Shadows becomes a slog after the kidnapper’s identity is revealed.

Also read: Rasbhari on Amazon Prime Video review: A scattered tale with no Ras

Abhishek Bachchan plays a hot shot psychiatrist, the father who goes on killing commoners as told by the kidnapper. Apart from his hybrid accent, he does a reasonably good job in portraying this character. Nithya Menen as his chef wife Abha is fascinating but doesn’t have much to do here. The best of the lot in this series is Amit Sadh as Kabir Sawant, the bruised crime branch cop seeking redemption. There should have been more for him to play here. Unfortunately, he’s reduced to standard cop elements/arc. Plabita Borthakur has a pleasant appearance as Meghna, a wheelchair bound girl who becomes a voice of reason for Kabir. There’s also a wasted character of Shirley, a striking call girl played by Saiyami Kher.

After taking long enough to reveal the kidnapper, the series indulges into his backstory which has nothing novel to tell. The creepy music seems unnecessary when it is slapped on every cut prolonging the cat and mouse race between Avinash Sabharwal and Kabir Sawant. Result is a series of disoriented, standard sequences that eventually gave me a headache. The writing shows some sparks in the first few episodes but then becomes inconsistent.

Also read: Aarya review: A thoroughly enjoyable crime drama

The connection between Raavana and emotions overshadow the morality of Avinash Sabharwal and his wife. In spite of the backstory, you don’t feel anything for the kidnapper either. Human mind works in mysterious ways. But there’s not much reason to be considerate for in Breathe: Into The Shadows. There’s more to write about what went wrong in this show, but that would require giving away the spoilers. What starts as a promising psychological thriller ends up being a slog.