‘Jazz City’ review: An overstuffed and muddled show about the creation of Bangladesh
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In 2023, Bangladeshi movie star Arifin Shuvoo played the country’s revolutionary leader Sheikh Mujibir Rahman in Shyam Benegal’s biopic Mujib. The new Sony LIV series Jazz City sees Shuvoo as a club owner in Kolkata, only vaguely interested in Rahman and the liberation movement he helped steer.
Created, written and directed by Soumik Sen, Jazz City sets out to capture the spirit of rebellion, valour and sacrifice that led to East Pakistan’s rupture from West Pakistan in the late 1960s and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Jazz City wants to forcefully remind Bangladeshis of India’s contribution to its freedom, even though sections of Bangladesh have decisively moved on from this period and Mujibir Rahman’s legacy.
“It is the story of a nobody who found the courage to become a somebody,” the voiceover declares (The Hindi-Bengali-English show is groaning with corny aphorisms of this type). The hectic plot plonks Shuvoo’s Jimmy Roy in between a covert Indian operation to aid the rebels that includes protecting three Bangladeshi students on the run from Pakistani military officials.
Jimmy holds court at Jazz City, patronised by the city’s elite and entertained by the resident singer Pamela (Alexandra Taylor). Pamela warbles songs with strange English lyrics and catches the eye of Jazz City’s new manager Rambahadur (Sayandeep Sengupta).
Indian intelligence officer Sinha...