Janaawar—The Beast Within’ Review: An Honest Look at a Familiar Thriller

By Shreyas Pande
Published: 26 Sep 2025, 1:19 PM
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)

Janaawar – The Beast Within, directed and edited by Sachindra Vats, attempts to tell a crime story set in the rural heartlands but struggles to move beyond formula. The show embraces a direct, almost barebones narrative style—with minimal twists, low stakes, and little to no deviation from genre tropes.

From its opening sequence—a grisly murder in a forest—to its depiction of a gruff senior officer denying leaves and a politically powerful MLA demanding justice for his missing brother, the series treads a well-worn path. The premise, visual tone, and even its name feel reminiscent of other gritty Indian thrillers, particularly Paatal Lok, with its focus on the animalistic instincts hidden within humans. However, Janaawar never really digs beneath the surface of its themes. It remains content with a superficial take on violence, caste, and justice.

Set in a Chhattisgarh police station, the story unfolds through Sub-Inspector Hemant Kumar (Bhuvan Arora), a sincere and soft-spoken officer trying to balance his professional duties with personal responsibilities—especially towards his pregnant wife. Coming from an oppressed caste, Hemant faces regular humiliation, most notably from an upper-caste colleague, Motilal Sharma (played by Vinod Suryavanshi). His plans to take time off are derailed when a headless corpse is discovered in the forest, setting off a rather standard investigation.

Strong Setup, Weak Execution

While the setup holds potential, the execution is disappointingly straightforward. Hemant’s investigative approach is more physical than cerebral—interrogations quickly turn into violent beatings, which the show seems to endorse without much critique. One supposedly clever twist involves a fellow cop being told to bring in “Sudhar Singh”—only for that to turn out to be the name of a thick leather belt used in beatings. The show’s cavalier treatment of police brutality is troubling, especially as it treats these moments with a strange sense of pride or dark humor.

The script also lightly touches on caste discrimination, but rarely explores it in a meaningful way. While Hemant is repeatedly reminded of his social position—be it through casual slurs or the discomfort of others around him—the writing chooses pity over depth. The character of Kailash, a tea vendor from the same marginalized background, is treated similarly: his caste identity is only used to explain his suffering, with no real resolution in sight.

The writers, Sonalii Gupta Srivastava and Shreyas Lowlekar, introduce interesting threads—caste dynamics, personal guilt, institutional decay—but never tie them together cohesively. Instead, we get a series of disjointed events, including a strange subplot involving a man possessed by a local deity who miraculously leads police to a body. These elements feel inserted to tap into current storytelling trends rather than to serve the narrative meaningfully.

A Missed Opportunity

Despite each episode being under 30 minutes, the series soon feels repetitive. Bhuvan Arora, who showed spark in Farzi (2023) as Shahid Kapoor’s partner-in-crime, is restrained here, perhaps too much so. His performance is committed but constrained by writing that doesn’t fully allow his character to evolve. His emotional depth, physical presence, and moral conflict are hinted at, but never fully realized.

Ultimately, Janaawar – The Beast Within feels like a checklist of popular themes—rural setting, caste-based tension, grim aesthetics, and a murder mystery—but it doesn’t give any of these the weight they deserve. The story doesn’t deepen; characters don’t grow; the atmosphere doesn’t linger. The show ends up being a collection of elements that never quite coalesce into a compelling whole.

Cast: Bhuvan Arora, Bhagwan Tiwari, Atul Kale, Vaibhav Yashvir, Eshika Dey, Vinod Suryavanshi, Amit Sharma, Badrul Islam, Deekshha Sonalkar Tham
Directed by: Sachindra Vats
Streaming on: ZEE5