Breathe Into the Shadows Review: Let Down by Poor Casting and Insipid Writing!

Breathe Into the Shadows, the new Amazon Prime Video Original, stars Abhishek Bachchan, Nithya Menen, and Amit Sadh in the lead roles with Mayank Sharma in the director’s seat once again. Premiered on July 10th, the second season is not a direct sequel to the first, and this as much as I’m was excited about the show, it disappointed me from the very first episode.

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Mayank Sharma’s earlier work, Breathe starring R. Madhavan in the lead role, was one of the most intriguing series’ I have ever watched. It had a well-crafted script, a crisp screenplay, and it brings everything together in eight episodes and concludes it on a high note. And I certainly expected a similar treatment for his next venture, but Mayank Sharma instantly lost his grip over the storyline as his execution was all over the place.

Breathe Into the Shadows built on the concept of how far an individual would go to save someone they love, the base idea of the second season is similar to its predecessor. But it was treated by delivering a distinctive perspective and by adding a psychological angle to it, however, I could not stop myself from comparing it with movies that have a similar story.

Avinash Sabharwal (Abhishek Bachchan) leads a peaceful life with his wife, Abha (Nithya Menen), who works as a chef, and his six-year-old daughter, Siya. Eventually, out of the blue on one very normal day, his daughter goes missing when the family attends a birthday party together. And months after her disappearance, when everyone almost believes that she is lost forever, Avinash receives an odd package from a stranger with a video recording of Siya alive and asking Avinash to murder someone.

Interestingly, the stranger has a weird demand, a set of instructions on how the murder should be done. Completely lost by this unexpected call, what Avinash and Abha do to save their daughter, entangling themselves with the Delhi Crime Branch officer Kabir Sawant (Amit Sadh), forms the remainder of the narrative of Breathe Into the Shadows.

[Spoilers Ahead]

One of the films, which has a similar plot to this show, is the 2005 Shankar directorial, Anniyan starring ‘Chiyaan’ Vikram, where the lead suffers from a split personality disorder, and they are unaware of the person and not in control of the personality committing a felony. Not only the character, but the climax of the series was very much similar to the film.

Mayank Sharma and the writers of the series – Bhavani Iyer, Vikram Tuli had compelling reasoning for the character to commit the murder, which happens to be the only positive I could separate from this monotonous series. Subsequently, they ruined it with their terrible screenplay, bringing in unnecessary characters and the irrelevant subplots that added to the already lengthy episodes. And adding to the misery is the pace at which each episode moves that only tested my patience. A 45-minute episode seemed like an eternity to complete.

A series of this genre requires some racy elements, thrills, and stirring music to make it engaging. But the makers provided zero to nothing to elevate the series. I am more disappointed because of the fact the story had all the potential to offer quality content, yet Mayank Sharma and his team failed in a multitude of various aspects.

At least, did the lead actors try their best to provide some entertainment? Abhishek Bachchan had this dull and dreary face throughout the series as he continued to return a lifeless reaction in every single scene. His offbeat character required someone who could emote, bring out the emotions of a person going through turmoil, and I felt that Abhishek Bachchan was a wrong fit for this role. On the other hand, Amit Sadh’s performance was on par with Abhishek Bachchan and failed to offer something different. Nithya Menen as the female lead did whatever she could with her role, but, she was overshadowed by our boys with their wearisome acting.

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Breathe Into the Shadows, if trimmed, could have been a better product with an eight-episode structure. The unwanted deviation from the primary objective, and focusing more on the subplots that did not even make sense by the end caused a myriad of setbacks to the narrative of the show. It had the potential to tell an unorthodox story, but Mayank Sharma and his team took all the life out-of-the-show, excluding a few good scenes. Overall, Breathe 2 is an utter mess principally due to the screenplay and performances. Watch ‘Breathe Into the Shadows’ on Amazon Prime Video here.

Rating -  2/5 | Grade – C

Images via Amazon Prime Video