SCAM 1992: THE HARSHAD MEHTA STORY REVIEW

Starring: Pratik Gandhi, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Sharib Hashmi, Ananth Mahadevan

Directed by: Hansal Mehta and Jai Mehta.

Written by: Saurav Dey, Sumit Purohit, Vaibhav Vishal and Karan Vyas

What is it about:

SCAM 1992: THE HARSHAD MEHTA STORY is based on the life of Harshad Mehta and is an adaptation based on a book by Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu, titled THE SCAM: WHO WON, WHO LOST, WHO GOT AWAY. The story is based on the rise and the eventual fall of Harshad Mehta in the 80s and the 90s. The series starts off with Dalal played by Shreya Dhanwanthary, getting a tip from a SBI official Sharath Bellary (Sharib Hashmi) about a 500 crore scam. While she wonders if she can print this, the story goes off into a flashback to 1979. Harshad is living in a small home in Mumbai with his family. To improve his financial situation, he joins a stock broking company as a middle man. Time passes and it doesn’t take him long to learn the tricks and trade of the world of stock exchange. Soon he opens his own company along with his brother Ashwin Mehta (Hemant Kher) and Bhushan Bhatt (Chirag Vohra), who taught him the ropes. That marks his rise and he starts making things work for him and from a nobody he soon becomes The Big Bull. Everything seems to be working in his favour until April 23, 1992, Sucheta Dalal writes an explosive article that exposes his wrongdoings to the public. What happens next forms the rest of the show.

What we liked:

The story is gripping from start to finish. There is no real dull moment in the show. The story is a perfectly made cocktail of money, ambition and power, all of these things that drove the story and the lead character of Harshad Mehta. What really hooks you into the show is the rise of Harshad Mehta. Another thing about the series is that it does a brilliant job of simplifying the story and what may seem to be complex details of what came to be. The most important of details have been simply put for all to understand. The era has been set up brilliantly, in everyway; production design to the story to the costumes. Every detail seems to have been meticulously taken care of. Besides a well written plot, the ensemble cast perform their best and add to the depth of the show. The writing, as mentioned, has been fantastic and the direction has been equally great. The execution has been perfect and it’s what makes this show so engaging. The cherry on top of this deliciously baked cake is that the show consists of crisp 10 episodes, which somehow at the end of it, leaves you wanting more. One of the best shows of this year so far.

What we didn’t like:

The only thing which works against the show is that none of the secondary characters seem fleshed out they appear only along with Harshad and when Harshad is not there talk about what he has done.