Inside Edge (Season 1 & 2)
With the ongoing IPL season excitement and my family urging me to write a review on an Indian series, I thought what better way than to pen down my review on the sports drama series- Inside Edge for our cricket enthusiasts. Cricket is more than just sports for us, it’s a religion. I am sure everyone can relate to when I say that the most silent whatsapp groups are also active when we have an overwhelming match. Well, Inside Edge series gives us a fictional angle of some similiar situations.
This series revolves majorly around Mumbai Mavericks (MM), one of the teams in Power Play League. Being the best for 5 seasons of the league, the Mumbai Mavericks (MM) team were keen on winning the title for 6th season as well. Business woman, actor and owner of MM Zarina Malik tries to find a new investor for her team. In just 20 episodes and hopefully more to come, this series gives a 360° view of the IPL scam, challenges faced by team players, struggles of a coach and captain, a gamble between what’s right and what’s wrong and a journey of a business woman trying to fit in the men’s world.
For me, this series had a good blend of drama and sports based on what one would wish to see. It’s not just cricketers and their life, but it also focuses on their personal and emotional aspects. Quite a few times it shows how sportsmanship is less important than business and ethics. As audience we get upset when our favourite cricketer doesn score good runs or take wickets or drops a good catch for that matter. But we have no idea what he/she is going through. This series does highlight the mental health facet of the players as well.
Direction & Screenplay
The dialogues and and story line are really impressive. As I said above, this series focuses on alot of altitudes, every character has a major role to play. Director Karan Anshuman deserves all the appreciations for an in-depth research and a well directed series. Definitely this series was worth an Emmy nomination. I didn’t feel that any character is underwritten or didn’t have a chance to showcase his/her skills. As like Mirzapur and many others, with Inside Edge Karan has another feather on the cap.
Performances
If this series was released in theatres, there would be whistles and applauses mainly for Vayu (Tanuj Virwani) – star batsman of Mumbai Mavericks and Arvind (Angad Bedi)-captain of Mumbai Mavericks. I liked Zarina Malik (Richa Chadda) and her dialogues were just cherry on the cake. Vivek Oberoi as Vikrant Dhawan was very well suited for his foxy role as the owner of MM. Rohini (Sayani Gupta) with soo many fabulous roles is now one of my favourite small screen actor. I liked acting of Prashant (Siddharth Chaturvedi) as newbie in the Mumbai Mavericks team as well.
Conclusion
This series does have some dull moments between episodes with loads of drama, but overall it’s a must to watch for a cricket fan. We don’t have many series/films representing the internal struggles faced by sportsman. I surely recommend this one. Waiting for Season 3!!!