Vidit Bhargava
For someone as disinterested in stocks as me, Scam 1992 came as a pleasant surprise with its gripping storytelling and careful placement of stock market jargon, making the show approachable without dumbing it down. Scam 1992 is a very good attempt at historical re-telling, it largely skirts away from drama and focuses on its central characters instead.
The casting choices are top notch. Pratik Gandhi (as Harshad Mehta) and Shreya Dhanwanthary (as Sucheta Dalal) are great picks for the lead characters. Supported by an ensemble that includes good actors like Nikhil Dwivedi (Good to see him back after a long hiatus), Satish Kaushik, and Rajat Kapoor in a cameo role.
The filmmakers do a good job setting up a period drama. The cars, the computers are all on point. There’s a scene in the show where Harshad Mehta’s character can be seen using Lycos(dot)com; it’s the sort of little detail that pays off and gives a proper nostalgic vibe to anyone who used computers in the late 90s or early 2000s. (My first email was on Lycos Tripod, it was a moment of nostalgic accuracy to see that website pop-up on Mehta’s computer)
But good acting and such consistently engaging screenplay only invite further scrutiny. And that’s when the cracks show up. Harshad Mehta’s story is a tightrope walk between the illegal, the morally questionable and being a wolf in a wolves world. It’s not easy to tread a story like this one. And despite its best attempts, Scam 1992 does falter on numerous occasions. The makers show Harshad Mehta’s story as one that of rags to riches, a shrewd businessman, a family man, and his fall as ultimately one that of someone being made a scapegoat in an industry that worked actively to protect its incumbents. While much of it is true, it’s also a lopsided take. In reality, Mehta’s schemes weren’t very smart and were designed for him to profit off them through means that can only be described dubious at best. The story however, draws sympathy towards Mehta’s character but never really makes the viewer fully appreciate the wrongs of his deeds. It’s never able to show the extent of the greed that powered him.
The show’s dialogues aren’t particularly great either. The characters, especially that of Harshad Mehta consistently talk in Idioms (in all three languages at that!). Perhaps Mehta talked in this manner, but the way they’re presented never really come off as genuine. It sticks like a sore thumb in an otherwise impeccable performance by Pratik Gandhi.
Another major issue with Scam 1992 is it’s choppy characterisations. While the leads get enough to sink their teeth into. A lot of characters I felt were left under developed, or their arcs rushed through. K Madhavan’s (played by Rajat Kapoor) character for example never gets a proper character arc. It’s a two episode cameo that’s rushed through. Sucheta Dalal’s is another character this time a leading one, that also falls prey to some poor writing. It’s a character that vacillates between professionalism and being easily offended. The two traits that often collide when in the presence of the show’s other lead. Dalal’s character seems to randomly pick between the two.
Despite the choppy characterisations though, these are characters that left a strong mark, primarily due to the exceptionally talented actors that portray them. Rajat Kapoor as K Madhavan leads by example. He packs a punch in the small role he gets. It’s just two episodes but Kapoor’s performance stayed much longer in memory than a lot of others. Same for Shreya Dhanwanthary, who makes Sucheta Dalal’s character believable despite its flaws. She’s done a far better job than the character that’s been written for her.
The show’s creator, Hansal Mehta reuses a lot of tropes from one of his previous films, ‘Omertà ’ ( a spectacular yet under appreciated drama), for example mixing real world footage with the shot frames. Using a different viewport for showing the “recorded” information and finally leaving much of the judgement to the viewer, this final thing is both good and bad. While Omertà was a clear black and white character study of a person whose crimes need no explanation for their heinousness, Scam 1992 is a little more nuanced and involves a lot more gray area. And leaving the judgment to the viewer’s intelligence is on one hand asking for a lot, but on the other it’s good that a show leaves you with something to think about. It’s a double edged sword, it could leave people with a well rounded view of the scam, but could also lionise a largely imperfect figure.
Despite its flaws, Scam 1992 is a consistently engaging watch. It’s incredibly well acted, and leaves you with something to think about, and sometimes it’s all you want from a show, something engaging and sensible. The creators of Scam 1992 provide that in ample quantities. Making the show much greater than the sum of its parts.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, even though the show’s not perfect.
Rating: ★★★ ½
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