The face-off between Vijay Sethupathi’s obsessive cop who doesn’t think twice before manipulating a minister to greenlight his operation and Shahid Kapoor’s streetsmart counterfeit currency-maker sets up the premise of Prime Video series Farzi. Here’s what we loved from this racy thriller, which also stars Kay Kay Menon, Amol Palekar, Bhuvan Arora and Rashii Khanna.
A brilliant mix of cops, con artists and counterfeit currency
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Shahid’s Sunny is a happy-go-lucky con artist who ends up printing counterfeit notes to save his grandfather’s (Amol Palekar) anti-establishment magazine. His partner-in-crime is Bhuvan Arora’s ever-loyal Firoz. Kay Kay Menon plays a scary Mansoor Dalal, a counterfeit smuggler who hires Sunny and Firoz to work on his operation. On the other hand is Vijay Sethupathi’s Michael Vedanayagam, a less-than-perfect cop at the head of a task force formed to crack down on the production of counterfeit currency. RBI employee Megha (Rashii Khanna) joins the task force and develops a machine that catches counterfeit notes. Sunny and Firzo get caught up in a high-stakes operation of printing counterfeit currency after their notes are the only ones that aren’t getting caught through the machine.
Sunny and Firoz’s bromance
Sunny and Firoz’s is what you call a perfect bromance. While Sunny’s artistic brilliance helps them develop the layout for the cash, Firoz’s printing skills come in handy while making the counterfeit currency come to life. The two constantly have each other’s back even when coming face to face with the barrel of a gun. At the most pivotal moments of the series, their loyalty towards each other shines through. In the final few episodes, the childhood friends not only enjoy the highs but also the lows of life together.
Vijay Sethupathi’s comic genius
Vijay Sethupathi’s deadpan delivery leaves us in splits throughout the show. The 45-year-old actor is at his best when he talks to Zakir Hussain’s Pawan Gahlot, a minister who is frustrated by the cop’s demands at all times. Vijay’s Michael drunk-dials Gahlot, blackmails him and ends the call with abuses, reminding us of Manoj Bajpayee’s Srikant Tiwari from The Family Man a little too much. Apart from pestering the minister, Michael coolly deals with criminals, showing a penchant for wry humour. After nabbing Bilal (Nilesh Divekar), the distributing head of Mansoor’s team, Michael cracks a joke with the smuggler and immediately shoots him in the leg, doing everything with a straight face.
Surprise cameos by The Family Man cast members
Not one but two surprise cameos come up in Farzi. The Family Man’s Chellam sir (Uday Mahesh) tips Michael off and throws out his SIM card after the task is done, much like he did it for Manoj Bajpayee’s Srikant and his team in the second season of the spy thriller series. Manoj Bajpayee himself makes an appearance as the tongue-in-cheek Srikant whom Michael asks for help with the counterfeit task force. The cameos make us speculate about a Raj & DK universe where we could soon see Vijay Sethupathi and Manoj Bajpayee come together for a showdown.
A memorable ending
After being discovered by Michael, Sunny and Firoz are on the run from not only the task force but also Mansoor Dalal who wants to silence the two before they get caught. Things take a turn for the worse after Mansoor ends up killing Sunny’s grandfather when trying to set their printing press on fire. Sunny sets out to take revenge and burns up crores worth of counterfeit currency. The final shot of Sunny drenched in red light as the notes turn to ash is a scene worth lingering on. The ending captures Sunny’s character arc from being an unhappy street artist to a counterfeit artist whose vengeance brings the most dangerous smuggler to his knees.
