Never Ending Movie Carnival
Never Ending Movie Carnival
Brown review: intoxicatingly layered and hauntingly noir psychological thriller
Karishma Kapoor as the smoking, vodka-guzzling detective fights her demons both inside and outside in this crime de noir. Based on Abheek Barua’s book ‘City of Death’ where more than the crime it’s the character study of individuals, their flaws, guilt and redemption that strikes the cord in Abhinay Deo’s directorial.
Brown plot
Set in the evocative and shadowy lanes of Kolkata, Rita Brown (Karisma Kapoor), once a top promising cop is now a disgraced, alcoholic officer haunted by past.
A brutal murder of a young girl Aahana Jaiswal (Vaibhavi Malhotra) daughter of city’s influential business tycoon Dheeraj Jaiswal (Ajinkya Deo) sends shock waves around the city and Rita is called back to head the investigation accompanied by Inspector Arun Sinha (Surya Sharma) a no-nonsense cop who is also fighting his own demons from the past.
The investigation leads Rita to a dark, haunting, disturbing and probing world where morality, humanity, difference in the society, patriarchy, corruption, female abuse, dishonesty and bias media and more.
Amongst this atmosphere Rita has also to fight with a vicious media running a smear campaign against her and her department and the Jaiswal’s gung-ho in derailing and sabotaging her investigation and in between this another brutal murder of a young woman takes place.
Abhinay Deo (‘Delhi Belly’, ‘Blackmail’, ‘Savi’) is successful in creating a tense, haunting atmosphere making the viewer get invested in the seven-episode series right from the first shot of the first episode.
The major USP of ‘Brown’ as mentioned earlier is its ability to make the viewer not only search for the evil but also question the evils running in the society and later on it winningly manages the viewer to understand the pain and the suffering of the protagonist and antagonist.
Well-crafted and directed with the apt art direction by Asit Kumar Chhatui and Tapas Sarkar maintains the requires aesthetics of a crime noir and music by Gaurav Chatterji and Sparsh Agrawal adds the Bengali flavour to the core.
Performance
Karishma Kapoor – another major highlight of ‘Brown’, coming from the Bollywood glam culture where looks are important, the actress sheds her glam and delivers one of her finest performance not by her charm but adapting the character to the fineness.
Surya Sharma as Arjun Sinha is nicely subtle in a controlled performance that adds value to the proceedings.
Jisshu U Sengupta is calm and composed in playing a complex character that underlines his potential as a solid performer.
Ajinkya Deo is intensity personified.
Paresh Pahuja springs a surprise.
Vaibhavi Malhotra is good.
Nice to see Helen Khan but her role is insignificant.
Soni Razdan is fine.
Good support comes from Shaan, Meghna Malik, Aryann Bhowmik and Jayashree V.
Flaws
Unfortunately, I found out the killer before Rita Brown and also in the midst ‘Brown’ gets tangled in its own loop
Brown review – final words
Rita Brown played by Karishma Kapoor is a welcome noir edition to the female detectives/cop we see on screen in the league of Shefali Chaya, Priyanka Chopra etc. This intoxicatingly layered and hauntingly noir psychological thriller that has the potential to captivate the traditional lovers of the genre and also cater to those who look beyond the cat and mouse crime thrillers.
Looking for forward for more adventures of Rita Brown in future.
Going with a deserving three and a half stars out of five - 3.5/5.
Produced by Zee Studios, ‘Brown’ will premiere on June 5, 2026 exclusively on Hindi ZEE5.
A child born from life & fed by cinema. A filmi keeda from child & a film journalist for the last fifteen years. a father, seeker, foodie who loves crooning bollywood melodies twitter.com/cineblues More By vishal verma