The second season of this well made family political drama City of Dreams – is here upon us now trending on Disney Hotstar. All you wanted to know how politics works and what people do to remain in power is a lesson beyond that one learnt from Mahabharat as there the fight for power was between cousins but here it is within the family, between the brother-sister in the first season with the brother ending in a watery death at the hands of the sister and now in this season the tussle for power is between daughter and father.
The series is structured well as far as the story-screenplay combo goes however it is not entirely seamless as it regresses in flashbacks without warning. The acting department is well managed with veterans Atul Kulkarni and Sachin Pilgaonkar enacting important characters around whom the series usually revolves.
There are two surprises though in the form of Ejaz Khan who brilliantly reessays his role of encounter specialist cop Wasim Khan with a latent held back verve which suits the character perfectly with the right kind of aggression and is not shown as a gung-ho cop beating the pulp out of the criminal, the character comes out well.
The other notable character is that of the protagonist played by actress Priya Bapat who brings freshness to the role and conveys the sincerity of her character, the role is a very well defined female lead role with different layers and is well written and superbly executed by her, looking naive in the role of a CM in the beginning then slowly growing into it.
City of Dreams is a work of fiction based in politics in Maharashtra. However there are some really weak points in the story as it seems that all opposition parties are but caricatures of themselves as the supposed most powerful opposition is made to look like run by buffoons. Also who is this high command to whom the antigonist Saheb keeps going to in Delhi when he is supposed to be the satrap of his party and looks like a regional party.
This season also eventually ends in a death of an important family member, you will need to see it to know more about this. There are other tracks in the story which do take the story forward and contribute the required parallel to the main plot and keeps you entertained and light overall and makes sure you are not overawed.
– Review by PAWAN GUPTA
Cast of City of Dreams 2
Priya Bapat as Poornima Rao Gaikwad
Atul Kulkarni as Amey Rao Gaikwad
Eijaz Khan as SI Wasim Khan
Sushant Singh as Anna
Devas Dixit as Raja
Sandeep Kulkarni as Purushottam
Rakesh Dubey as Inspector Siddhesh Laad
Sachin Pilgaonkar as CM Jagdish Gourav
Shishir Sharma as Ramnik Bhai
Flora Saini as Mystery Women
Ivan Rodrigues as Nambiar
Geetika Tyagi as Shireen Ali
Credits of City of Dreams:
Production companies – Applause Entertainment, Kukunoor Movies
Produced by Sameer Nair, Deepak Segal, Nagesh Kukunoor, Elahe Hiptoola
Created & Written by Nagesh Kukunoor, Rohit Banawlikar
Directed by Nagesh Kukunoor
Theme music composer – Tapas Relia
Original network – Disney+ Hotstar