Bombay-Dilli Productions

Full Bambaiyya Swag, Zero Soul — When Style Goes Bindaas and Substance Takes a Chhutti

There’s something almost filmi about the way Matka King arrives—full swag, full atmosphere, proper Bambaiyya underbelly on display—but also carrying the unmistakable baggage of Nagraj Manjule’s recent trajectory. Because let’s be honest, boss: ever since Fandry, it’s been a bit of a downhill scene. Sairaat was the big dhamaka—runaway success, cultural tsunami, the works—but after that, the filmmaking has felt increasingly… thoda diluted, thoda lost in its own hype.

Matka King continues that pattern—solid on the surface, but scratch it and you’ll find a certain creative fatigue setting in.

Now, full marks where due. The series looks the part. Old Bombay is recreated with genuine mehnat—its claustrophobic dens, sweaty addas, the rhythm of a city running on risk and rumour. The way Bombay is shot has real cinematic ambition. There are passages where the camera lingers, almost lovingly, over the city’s architectural memory—especially around Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus—and you can see the thought behind it.

The use of AI to erase contemporary clutter and restore a more pristine, period-accurate skyline is quite slick. It’s not loud or gimmicky—more like a quiet flex. For a bit, you’re like, arre wah, someone’s thinking visually, not just narratively.

But then, boss, the storytelling kicks in—and things start going thoda off-track.

The cinematography has flashes of brilliance—moody lighting, textured frames—but no consistent gaze. Editing? Arre yaar, kaafi loose. Scenes overstay their welcome, the pacing drags, and the tension never quite builds the way it should in a world driven by chance and consequence. Direction-wise, Manjule seems to have traded instinct for control. Where earlier he trusted silence, here he over-explains. Emotions are spelt out, conflicts underlined—everything feels a bit too designed, too safe.

And then we come to performances—where things get really interesting, and not always in a good way.

Vijay Varma as Brij Bhatti has presence, no doubt. He brings that simmering intensity he’s built a reputation on. But the character feels like it’s carrying a hangover—part Gully Boy, part Darlings. The body language, the pauses, even the emotional beats—there’s a sense of déjà vu. It’s like he’s revisiting familiar territory rather than discovering something new. Effective in parts, yes—but also a bit been-there-done-that.

Siddhartha Jadhav brings a welcome groundedness—earthy, spontaneous, with that effortless Bambaiyya rhythm. He feels the most at home in this world.

Sai Tamhankar delivers with restraint and control, as expected. But again, the writing doesn’t quite give her enough to chew on. She elevates the material, but you keep wishing the material would meet her halfway.

Jamie Lever as Sulbha, though, is where things really go haywire. For someone who’s a household name thanks to her mimicry, the performance screams unpolished craft. The now-on-now-off Malayali accent is frankly distracting—kabhi hai, kabhi gayab—and the emotional beats feel forced. Instead of inhabiting Sulbha, she seems to be performing her. It sticks out, and not in a good way.

And then there’s Kishore Kadam as the corrupt politician Bapat. A fine actor, no doubt—but here, he’s saddled with a role he’s played zillions of times before. The archetypal neta—smug, manipulative, morally bankrupt—it’s all there, but there’s nothing new to discover. It feels like autopilot, both in writing and performance.

This brings us to a deeper, more troubling issue: the painful homogenisation of accents and characterisation across the series.

Everyone seems to be slipping into neat, predictable boxes. Dialects blur into a generic “Mumbai underworld” soundscape. Cultural specificities are flattened. The Parsi characters, for instance, are so pat and 2D they might as well have walked in from The Archies—all quirks, no complexity. Accents become affectations, not identities. It’s like the series wants diversity, but only the cosmetic kind.

And that’s where Matka King really falters.

Because Manjule, at his best, was all about specificity—the sharp edges of caste, class, language, lived experience. In Fandry, every gesture, every silence carried weight. Here, everything feels smoothed out, standardised, made palatable.

Yes, there is craft. Yes, there is ambition. Yes, there are moments that remind you of what could have been. But the soul—the raw, uncomfortable, deeply political core that once defined his cinema—feels missing.

End of the day, Matka King is decent timepass, even engaging in patches. But it leaves you with that very Bambaiyya aftertaste: boss, sab kuch tha—budget, actors, setting—but asli jaan kahan gaya?

And with Nagraj Manjule, that question hits harder than it should.

This one's almost as exciting as a picnic on a wet afternoon..

Rating; ⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The legend whose films revolutionised Indian Cinema.. He was an institution in himself.. RIP