‘Lukkhe’ review: Some highs in an overly ambitious show about drugs, rap music and crime

Set against the restless, neon-tinged underbelly of Chandigarh and soundtracked to Punjabi rap, Lukkhe wants to be many things at once. The Prime Video show created by Agrim Joshi and Debojit Das Purkayastha is a rap saga, a crime thriller, an addiction drama and a story about broken young people trying to regain their footing.

Intoxication, violence and tragedy are embedded in this world. Remorse, revenge and redemption follow.

The eight-episode series opens on a hockey field, an appropriately Punjabi image. In Punjab, drugs are apparently never far away, including for college hockey player Lucky (Lakshvir Singh Saran). But one heady night leads to tragedy and sets Lucky on the path of repentance and rehabilitation.

Sanober (Palak Tiwari), his recovery buddy at the rehab centre, is tackling her own demons. Support gradually turns into attraction. Back to reality, Lucky gets sucked into rap music and drug peddling, while balancing delicate relationships with his single mother, Sanober and a cop (Raashii Khanna) focused on making Punjab drug-free.

The enmity between two rival rappers Badnaam (King) and OG (Shivankit Singh Parihar) impacts the lives of all those around them, particularly Lucky and Sanober. The collision of these lives and subcultures places Lucky in increasingly dangerous situations.

The writing isn’t sensitive enough to the...

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