Danny is a genius. From being a loving father of a young son in dire need of a lung transplant, he transforms into a supervillain within a couple of episodes of Breathe, the new dramatic thriller series by Amazon Prime. He gives in to his dark side; he starts killing people, but only so that his son gets bumped up the transplant list.
One of those murders is of a young actress. He shows up at her house one evening pretending to be someone else. She lets him in. Then she agrees to practise lines with him. Then she orders pizza for him. And then, inexplicably, she volunteers to wrap her face in cellophane, lets Danny tie her up, and reads out a ‘suicide note’ into a camera. It’s all part of the scene they’re rehearsing, you see. Then, she suffocates to death.
In case it’s not clear enough from this one episode, Breathe is trashy TV. It’s about a man who kills off donors on a list that he somehow gets his hands on — but only those who match his son’s blood type — so that he can give the young boy a shot at a future.
In a daze
Alongside Danny’s laughably wicked serial murders is the story of Kabir, a young policeman from the Crime Branch who lost his daughter a few years ago. She chanced upon his gun and accidentally shot herself. Now, Kabir is this brooding drunk, forever clutching his trusted hip flask and estranged from wife Ria. She left him because he couldn’t get over the grief — and guilt — of his daughter’s death. So Kabir roams around aimlessly, getting drunk on the job, sneering at people, beating up corrupt cops in public, growing out his beard, tilting his head slightly every time someone says anything to him, and basically just being a total buzzkill.
Somewhere along the way, Kabir wakes up from his alcoholic daze. He’s also a brilliant cop (of course he is), so he figures out a pattern in all these seemingly random incidents — a road accident, a suicide, an old man in the ICU. He soon realises that there’s a serial killer at large, and the next target is going to be (you guessed it) his wife. He gets a renewed purpose in life.
Then follows a cat-and-mouse game. Surly Kabir, haunted by visions of his lost daughter, faces off with cheery Danny in a Biblical battle for justice. Given how little investment I feel for the characters and their journeys, the twists and turns that lead to the conclusion barely register. However, despite the amped up melodrama and the obvious plot holes and the stereotypes flung in my face, I don’t hate Breathe.
Trashy TV is actually a lot of fun. It’s easy fare where you feel no emotional connect with the characters. Without that burden, you end up appreciating the masala on offer. It’s what you watch while you’re doing something else, eating or chatting on WhatsApp. Often, you watch it only so you don’t have to face the silence inside your head, or the noise within. Breathe is entertaining if nothing else. For starters, there’s R. Madhavan playing Danny and clearly having a blast. He seems to forever be on the verge of bursting into loud giggles but somehow manages to keep it together. His famous face is covered here with an absurdly angular beard to give him an edgy look. And he uses it to full effect.
Ludicrous fun
Part of the thrill in this thriller is in discovering what palpably unrealistic scheme he’ll devise next to help his son. Will he start dating his son’s doctor? What if she discovers his plans? Will he give himself a heart attack? Will he coach a team of visually impaired players so he can plan another murder? Will he try to frame someone else?
It’s all so ludicrous it’s great fun. Sometimes, viewers want just that; not some pretentious work of art. And the fact that Breathe is clearly a high-budget production adds to the enjoyment quotient, since all the action is heightened to a grand scale.
But it begs the question: at what cost? Leaving aside the stuff they’re hosting on the platform, Amazon Prime’s first dip into original content was the equally trashy Inside Edge. Up next is a music reality TV show. Is this the plan then? Use a new medium in exactly the same way the old medium has been used for generations?
A freelance culture writer from New Delhi, the writer wishes he’d studied engineering instead
from Don T Breathe - Google News http://ift.tt/2IA0LeI
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