Taaza Khabar Season 2 Review: Bhuvan Bam Gives The Role His Best Shot

Bhuvan Bam's Vasant Gawde, Mr. Vardaan to the world owing to his ability to see events before they come to pass, is back seeking to make a killing from the prescient news updates that he receives on a mobile phone app.

This time around, the Taaza Khabar protagonist is either on the backfoot or, worse still, down on his haunches. His plight necessitates desperate measures as he faces new challenges hurled at him by a man who will stop at nothing. But the show, notwithstanding a series of dramatic confrontations, struggles to skirt around the pitfalls of an idea that is beginning to wear thin.

In Season 2 of the Disney+Hotstar series, Vasant still banks upon the power of miracles as he is put through the grinder by a vicious political power broker who not only demands more than his pound of flesh but also constantly alters the quantum of his demand, sending Vasant and his mates scurrying for cover.

The bad guy, suave, smooth-talking and slithery, is portrayed by Jaaved Jaaferi, the sole major addition to the cast. He is an addition indeed - he adds considerable value to the otherwise low-on-steam cat-and-mouse game.

The detestable character, who is always in need of funds for his political party and, his own words, does siyasat (politics) in the name of rehmat (charity), has enough clout to pass off coldblooded murders as suicides. A senior inspector of police does his bidding. His henchmen, too, are a handful.

Before he kills, he whips out a gun and a knife and asks his intended victim to choose the weapon that he wants to be slain with, but at most other times he does what his dark heart desires. It is he who drives the season, with the hero only reacting to the villain's provocations and whimsical and repeated goalpost-shifting.

Jaaferi is a seasoned pro. If only the vicious figure that he fleshes out were allowed to break free from the superficial dimensions that he is trapped within, the actor might have had the chance to somewhat elevate the desultory proceedings.

The flashbacks that are meant to give the audience a backstory are crushingly dull and do little to enhance our understanding of exactly why the man's mind works the way it does.

Since Taaza Khabar is meant to be a broad commentary on poverty, material wants, human susceptibilities, the wages of greed, sin and punishment, Vasant had, before Season 1 had wound down, received his comeuppance. He had gone from rags to riches and back to rags in the course of half a dozen episodes.

The young man's vardaan (boon) had turned into a shraap (curse), cutting him off from his parents Alpa (Atishi Naik) and Ashok (Vijay Nikam), his girlfriend Madhu (Shriya Pilgaonkar) and all the trappings that came with the big bucks that he had made in double quick time.

In Season 2, as predicted by a news report, he dies and comes back from the dead not so much by design as by compulsion. He continues to struggle to put his life and accounts back on an even keel as the spiteful builder, Yusuf Akhtar (Jaaferi), hounds him for the massive sum of money that he lost on a cricket bet.

Vasant is running away from his past but he isn't able to make a clean break from the acts and choices that fetched him pots of money before they landed him in a bottomless hole. He can anticipate the near future but fails to figure out a way of outwitting his bete noire, who seems to be always a step ahead of him despite not being privy to secrets hidden in the wombs of time.

One quibble that is to be taken as an aside: the hero wants to hide from the world after his illegal operations go belly up but he chooses to do so plain sight. He is like a scaredy-cat caught in a flash of light. It is difficult to fathom why a man trying to avoid being spotted would not think of changing his looks in order to acquire a new identity.

But from the point of view of the series at large, the avoidance of a makeover is probably logical. Bhuvam Bam, come what may, has to look like Bhuvan Bam. His bandwidth is perforce limited, as, by extension, are the artistic choices of the makers.

There is little that is particularlytaaza in Taaza Khabar Season 2. One isn't talking about the whale vomit or the goat poop that Vasant seeks to benefit from. The approach to the story and its 'moral' ramifications are more yesterday's news than tomorrow's prognostication.

Taaza Khabar Season , directed by Himank Gaur and written Aziz Dalal, Abbas Dalal and Hussain Dalal, is never more than an average good guy-bad guy story. Like so many hundreds of films have sone in the past, it ends in an abandoned, decrepit building that is not only minutes away from collapsing but has every major character herded into it.

Vasant's friends are the same and do the same old things all over again. Peter (Prathamesh Parab), his accomplice and best pal, makes Insta reels and fancies his potential as an influencer. The morose Mehboob bhai (Deven Bhojani) surfaces when the chips are seriously down for the tormented Vasant and never stops being a naysayer.

Bhuvan Bam gives the role his best shot, with the emotional spectrum having been expanded just a bit this time around. Not that its weight is anything to write home about, he carries the show on his shoulders.

His character has to deal with uneasy relationships with a sceptical father and a grievously shortchanged girlfriend that turn more tempestuous than ever. He sheds a tear or chokes on his emotions once in a while, but the lead actor never looks like a man going through hell. Does the unflappability come from years of producing viral YouTube videos?

In one sequence, Vasant and friends look for a priceless memory chip in a landfill. They rummage through garbage in the process. Moral of the story: you have to get down and dirty if you are to find a game-changing treasure. Taaza Khabar Season 2 certainly isn't a junkpile but it does end up in a puddly heap more often than is good for it. Go in with your eyes open.