Recently ,The Railway Men web series based on the real tragic incident of Bhopal Gas Tragedy that happened in the year 1984,has been streaming on Netflix. The web series is cut off in four episodes and has Bollywood’s phenomenally talented actors Kay Kay Menon, Juhi Chawla, and Irfan Khan’s son Babil Khan seen in the web series.
The Railway Men is directed by talented director Shiv Rawail and all the actors have given stellar performances in the series however the story and the series still fails to create an impact on the audiences.
The craft,the story graph, the performances by all the actors, the diligent design of production and an impossible story showing human courage are all in place yet the series fails to throw an impact on its audiences according to the recent reviews of the series,streaming on Netflix.
The Railway Men : Premise
It is dead difficult to narrate or portray a story as difficult as this and how does one do that? Well,Sunny Hinduja as a reporter informs us as to how a corrupt system guards its perpetrators in the beginning.
Gandhi’s ideals hold little reason with tolerance and nonviolence when Sunny Hinduja says an eye for an eye makes the world blind and zooms in. Subtlety and nuance is certainly not the strongest core of this series on Netflix.
Every character has an individual back story and the series begins in the phase much before the gas leak incident happens. Talented actor Kay Kay Menon plays the character of a station master named Iftekaar Siddiqui and he has played his character really very well just as his films and other series so far.
He is persistently haunted by flashbacks of a child whom he just could not save some time back and these turn into complexities and conflict of his character. He takes account of the young intelligent Imad whose character is portrayed by the terrific Babil Khan who is just as talented as his father Irfan Khan. He informs of how one of his close friend betrays him and acts like a scapegoat before the gas leak tragedy.
There is also a character of a thief who represents himself as a Railway officer. This thief might also have some runtime later.
The Nambi effect fame actor R Madhavan plays an iconic character in the series named Rati Pandey and is the General Manager of the Central railways.
Meanwhile Juhi Chawla also plays an important character as the Chief of Personnel asking answers at the top. The series also shows a parallel track of a Sikh woman badly stuck in a sudden communal riot and is played by the popular actress Mandira Bedi. She is helped by a Train official played by Raghubir Yadav.
The series being pumped with the flesh of so many individual developing stories of the different characters and parallel tracks makes it feel very crowded and somewhere the main core of the story i.e Bhopal gas Leak is simply worn off midway somewhere .
Final thoughts on ‘The Railway Men’
Eventually the gas leak spreads and tragedy happens,creating a havoc in the area. People eventually and gradually begin to die. The tension and crisis occurs through these characters however they miserably fail to create any impact or adrenaline rush in the audiences.
The characters simply fail to hold any exposition in the four episodes as they one after the other unfold.
The story has multiple distractions added simply to add flesh however it does not hold the story as a matter of fact. Various subplots such as the wedding night being disrupted because of the gas leak and tragedy on one end and German scientists having an argument on a project going wrong could have been given a miss.
The Railway Men tries hard to implement the influence and hard efforts shown in the HBO series ‘The Chernobyl’, however they do not seem to have got the hold of it by their textures.
Corrupt managers, irresponsible bosses and corrupt officials and neglect over the dead bodies as well as disrupted system standards are all evident right through the beginning.
By the end of all of it ,the series seems to be too occupied in somehow portraying the chaos, the tragedy, and is statement oriented in showing the drama that seems to be a big disaster.
