Apologies! Apologies! Since the past few weeks, you have been catered to early bird reviews wherein every new release was reviewed and put up by Friday morning. Unfortunately, this week I am back with a review on a Saturday. Web Series do take some time to finish and hence the reason for being a day late. What actually made matters worse was that this week’s release, Breathe : Into The Shadows is 12 episodes long with each episode almost 45 mins each(barring the hour long last episode). Is it worth your time, lets find out.

It is raining serial killers this quarantine season, this is another one from the sane genre. Set in Delhi, Breathe follows the story of Avinash whose 6 year old daughter is kidnapped. The twist in the tale occurs when the kidnapper wants Avi to commit murders in exchange for his daughter. The story is intriguing. The screenplay is really a curious case and suffers from the same fate as Aarya. After the excellent opening sequence, things slow down immensely. It is here that you might begin to lose your interest. In addition, the identity of the kidnapper is revealed a tad too early for my liking(at the end of episode 5). But, once that is done, the gears change and your interest in the thriller is reinforced out of nowhere. You begin to really enjoy the spine chilling murders which eventually culminates into a thrilling finale! But having said that, if it was me writing the screenplay, I would have mounted it similar to Asur, with two parallel tracks(past and present) being run together with the big revelation right at the end. Not to mention, would have trimmed the flab from the first 4 episodes, limiting it to only 8 episodes in total. The dialogues, especially in the latter half, keep you hooked coupled with a compelling BGM. Director Mayank Sharma, who has also directed the first season of Breathe(Highly Recommended), takes time to warm up but then finds form midway through and eventually ends up maintaining it!

Resham Shrivardhan as Gayatri has a good vibe about her. Ivana Kaur as the little Siya looks cute and has done a good job. Shruti Bapna as Natasha has her moments too. Saiyemi Kher as Shirley is good though her character is underwritten and doesn’t contribute much to the screenplay. Shradha Kaul as the wily Zeba is quite good. Nizhalgal Ravi as Principal Moorthy is endearing and conflicting at the same time. Plabita Borthakur is such a natural as Meghna and such a positive spot in this drama. Shrikant Verma as JP and Hrishikesh Joshi as Prakash are outstanding and share a great chemistry between the two. Also, their comic timing is impeccable. Amit Sadh is highly underrated and he delivers yet another fine performance as Kabir. Nithya Menen as Abha is excellent and wish to see more of her in the future. Abhishek Bachchan as Avi is the star of the show. An outstanding comeback of sorts, he is absolutely outstanding especially in the climax. He is one actor that literally has to live under the shadows of his superstar father, yet he has an identity of his own and he has been proving it time and again. This is a performance to savor and remember!

Breathe : Into the Shadows would have been an outstanding watch if not for the slow start. However, even at a slightly lower rating, this is available on Amazon Prime and Highly Recommended!

PS : I am tempted to give a 4 on 5! If only for the slow start…