Inspector Rishi(3 / 5)
Though genre walls might be crashing down in exciting new ways, Prime Video’s Inspector Rishi works within the genre conventions of the police procedural and supernatural thriller to create an immensely satisfying experience. If nothing else, the show shows that sometimes it’s enough to kick back and not reinvent the wheel if you stick to the genre and the story.
Streamer: Prime Video
Creator: JS Nandhini
Cast: Naveen Chandra, Srikrishna Dayal, Kanna Ravi, Malini Jeevarathnam, Sunaina, Kumaravel
It does it through the strength of its (exemplary) characterisation and (exceptional) world-building, to the extent that the characters become the heart of the show. And as for the writing, without any of the characters – or, really, anything that happens to any of the characters – the show would have been, at best, a good but tired exhibition of tropes. The show also avoids the temptation to tell audiences how to think – to distinguish between subjective and objective, to judge blasphemy and reverence, or theism and atheism. Viewers have to discern that all for themselves.
The CBCID officer Rishi (played splendidly by Naveen Chandra, he of the stilted English) never smiles. His face is forever sombre, and the higher-ups had spoken of his outstanding work in the past, which is why he’s been sent to investigate the death of a wildlife photographer in Thaenkaadu. Rishi never brags even when he’s gotten an eye destroyed, sitting like a tear-brimming goblet. His aides – Ayynar (Kanna Ravi) and Chitra (Malini Jeevarathnam) – too, are forever sad – a literary device that humanises the cops by making their case, personal lives, and their pasts accessible as content necessary for a viewer to tap into their psychology. This buries the needle in the vein of emotional depth the OTT audience is known to crave. Gone are the needless exposition, the garish tropes of commercial cinema, and the heroics and the clichés of a present that’s still far from a past.
In Thaenkaadu, Rishi is helped by the forest officer Sathya, who is played marvellously with sincerity and humanity by Srikrishna Dayal. Sathya is the necessary spiritual hinge between humankind and nature, a kind-hearted philomisoph of mother nature. Amid the fog and verdure of the jungle, a dryad named Vanaratchi rescues the jungle and its inhabitants, thus putting the show right on its path of supernatural horror.
It rarely dips too low in its depiction of the horror, immersing itself thoroughly in the dark, most of the mist, and in heart-thumping moments of eery atmosphere. There’s not the usual reliance on jump scares, beastie-feature tropes, or squawk-and-thud scores that enter the fray. It’s not even the immersive script of Big falter and plot-points, but the pacy way it thrusts from scene to scene, and Inspector Rishi excels in the drama of both character and interior turmoil. It’s good old-fashioned procedural police work into the bargain (the tables for expository case discussions and flimsies; the case unravelling so that the mystery remains even as it’s solved; the red herrings; people running.) Yet Inspector Rishi does all this at the same time as it tries to give significant emotional grist to the mill beyond the obvious creeps.
The thrills come thick and fast and only make the emergence of a nuanced, queer figure feel like more than tokenism But once you spend time with the characters in their homes, the horror part of the story becomes more slippery, and the tension falters in occasionally dowdy spurts – although the story picks up as it barrels toward its climax.
Inspector Rishi is about Rishi and his case, but it’s also about love, greed, and the age-old question of right and wrong.
