Prime Video put the Raakh trailer out there and the atmosphere is as grim as they come. You have an investigative thriller on your hands, with some serious mystery in the mix. Before it makes its debut on the 12th, the film has already set the stage for a tense run. Don’t expect a showy whodunnit; this is a slow-burn with teeth.
It all starts with one jolt: two kids are gone. From there, the promo paints a picture of a city on edge. A family comes apart, the neighbourhood gets quiet, and you start to wonder who you can trust. An officer goes after the case from one end of the country to the other, and in the process, the trail of him is being altered as much as the one he’s on.
What the trailer tells you
Raakh isn’t in it for the cheap thrills. It will make you look at the criminal and the shadows in a normal person’s life, then leave you in the middle of the wreckage. The violence you see is earned, born of hard choices and old wounds. There are no simple fixes here.
The more the net is cast, the more the officer’s steel is put to the test. The trailer is full of moral grey areas, not the kind of tidy justice you see in some shows. This is a crime drama that lingers with you.
Star power and the word on the street
Fazal has a way of holding the screen, and with Bendre and Aamir Bashir in tow, there’s a very real feel to it. The people at the platform are feeling good about it. “We had a great script for Raakh, but what we put on screen has been even better,” says Nikhil Madhok, head of Originals for Prime Video India.
He gives kudos to Prosit Roy, Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket for a story that is as hard-hitting as it is engrossing, and he has words of praise for the ‘extraordinary’ work from his leads. In plain English, they believe in this one.
The numbers
If you’re making room in your queue, here’s what you need to know:
– Hitting screens: June 12
– Where: Prime Video
– Reach: India and 240+ countries and territories
– On top: Sonali Bendre, Ali Fazal, Aamir Bashir
– Type: Investigative crime
The minds of Raakh
You have Prosit Roy as director and an executive producer. Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket are the ones who put the series on paper and co-direct, with Ayush Trivedi on the dialogues. As for production, it’s an Endemol Shine India effort with BhaDiPa, from Deepak Dhar, Rishi Negi, Mrinalini Jain and Shyam Rathi.
For Roy, it was as much of a labour of love as any project. He was after a manhunt that would also be an unvarnished study of human nature. “It was a pleasure to be back with Prime Video after Paatal Lok,” he adds.
And that is the point. They’ve put in the work to get the details right and to find the nuance in the writing. Put simply, it’s made to be talked about, not just put on in the background.
Your viewing options
Mark your calendar for June 12 when Raakh debuts on Prime Video. You can stream it from India or well over 240 other places. The trailer is up now and I’d bet the first round of reviews will be fixated on the performances and the coldness of it all.
Then again, if you like your tension to be a bit of a reality check, put this at the top of the list. Sure, it’s about two missing teens, but the real draw is how deep a hole you can fall into when you’re looking for the truth.
