A fairly attractive cast and a somewhat new premise for an Indian web series notwithstanding, Clean Up Company uses every familiar element from the many crime shows on OTT, and comes up with a mostly unpleasant glop, that teeters between violence and farce.
Directed and co-written by Rohan Ghose, set in a fictional Bihari (or maybe Bengali) town of Saribgunj, that is overrun by the usual gangsters from a seemingly common casting pool, and ruled by a politician Sitesh Burman aka Mejda (Jisshu Sengupta). He is waiting for elections, when he will be elevated to the position of MP, so he is hassled by the appearance of an honest cop Indranath (Saswata Chatterjee), and a rivalry between two criminal factions heating up. On one side is Dharam Yadav (Shaji Choudhary) and on the other, Sultan (Vijay Shrivastava) and his henchman, Abbas (Resh Lamba). The voice of Ravi Kishan playing Borda, brother of Mejda, narrates the story, but he makes a late appearance just to ensure that Season 2 will have his star presence.
Three young men are caught up in the gang shenanigans, when one of them, Raju (Vishal Jethwa) is roped in by his pal Halua (Salim Hussain Mulla) to drive a car for a kidnap job. The man they have abducted dies, and they manage to dispose of the corpse in the brick kiln owned by the family of Goldie (Ajitesh Gupta). The third friend is Sapam (Amey Wagh), who wants to become a civil servant and is a reluctant member of the gang.
When they are paid a huge sum for the job, they get greedy, and start a ‘business’ of cleaning up the bodies that the gangsters pile up during their fights. The kiln comes into use, and nobody suspects a thing; Raju’s girlfriend Manisha (Siddhi Potdar) conveniently happens to be a coroner, who provides them with the knowhow of leaving no trace.
The watering hole of the town is Regal Bar, where a new dancer, Laila (Tuhina Das) appears from Kolkata, with her own hidden agenda. Indranath is not able to make much of a dent in the well-oiled crime scene of Saribgunj, as the two gangs, and the trio of ‘cleaners’ run riot.
After a couple of episodes, the plot goes haywire, there is a carnage at the bar, an attempt at usurping the crime throne of the town, deceit, double cross and convoluted schemes the three pals and Laila hatch to get themselves out of the hole they have dug for themselves, get the cops and gangsters off their backs and save their families, who have no clue what they have been up to. Except for Goldie, who at least gets queasy, the other two are not even disturbed by the awfulness of what they willingly do for money.
Because there is so little that’s fresh in the series, it loses its grip very soon, and is kept afloat only by the performances of the lead actors.
Clean Up Company
Directed by Rohan Ghose
Cast: Amey Wagh, Vishal Jethwa, Ajitesh Gupta, Ravi Kishan and others
On Amazon MX Player