IANS Review: ‘Your Honour 2’: Noir characters and complex plot elevate this series (IANS Rating: ***1/2)

By Troy Ribeiro

Series: 'Your Honour 2' (Streaming on Sony LIV). Duration: Each episode of approximately 40 minutes.

Director: E. Niwas. Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Vinay Vishwa, Bhupendra Chouhan, Richa Pallod, Zeishan Quadri, Bhumika Dube, Pulkit Makol, Gulshan Grover, Mahie Gill and Mita Vashist.
IANS Rating: ***1/2

Set in Punjab, 'Your Honour' is the story of a good man uncovering dark truths about himself and his capacity for compromise and corruption under pressure.

Picking up immediately after the happenings of its first season, the man is Bishan Khosla, a judge in Ludhiana, who is due to be promoted to as a High Court Judge. Each episode gives us a glimpse of how Khosla, who fights systemic injustice, is sinking into the quicksands of corruption while trying to protect his son.

Khosla's son Abeer (Pulkit Makol) is in prison for a hit-and-run case and the person he killed in the accident is the son of a local mafia leader, Satbir (Mahaveer Bhullar).

How Khosla, battling ethical quandaries and potential nuances of his position to keep his son safe, and using his knowledge of the law and his professional connections to stay one step ahead of the bad guys, who would like to see him corrupted, forms the crux of this series.

Each episode is played with astonishing emotional and psychological acuteness and is rooted within an intense story that keeps you hooked at every turn. As the plot unfolds, we realise how the honourable judge willingly breaks the law to shield his son.

The narrative of the first three episodes is propelled by a complex web of characters trying to get their foothold in the narrative. They are cops, shady politicians, ruthless organised criminals, gang leaders, victims of circumstances and judges delivering justice. These characters sometimes come off as mere plot devices, but by the fourth episode, the jigsaw starts getting assembled, and we realise that the plot points and characters were to complicate Bishan's illegal mission.

From the fourth episode onwards, the script too often relies on showing Abeer's frustrating foolishness, whose torment isn't enough to explain the stupid things he does that risk outing him as the real culprit. Presume this would be explained in the episodes that follow.

On the performance front, while Jimmy Shergill and Pulkit Makol bring gravity and charisma to Bishan and Abeer Khosla, it is Mita Vashisht with her colloquial twang who holds her fort with panache as the lady SHO Kiran Sekhon.

Suhasini Muley, who turns up in a few episodes as Abeer's cigarette-puffing grandmother, is over-the-top and loud. Mahie Gill as Yashpreet, Gulshan Grover as Gurjot, Zeishan Quadri as Jagda, and Kunj Anand as Satbir's younger son Harman are all effortless in their performances, and they have their moments of on-screen glory.

This review is written based on five of the ten episodes of this series streaming on Sony LIV. It is the official adaptation of the Israeli series 'Kvodo', which is produced by Applause Entertainment in association with Sphereorigins, yesTV and Koda Communications.

Overall, the noir characters and elements of intrigue that will keep you glued to the screen.

Source: IANS