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Review of Snakes & Ladders: This is a mediocre game. The follow-up would have to be more powerful.
Four inseparable schoolboys, some cops scurrying for clues in a robbery and assault case and a gang of vicious criminals whose depredations vitiate a fictional hill town populate Snakes & Ladders, a moderately engaging Tamil web series created by Kamala Alchemis and Dhivakar Kamal.
The uneven and low-intensity show, which Karthik Subbaraj is creatively producing, uses the cops-and-thieves thriller tropes to explore how friendship and family can be strongholds in the face of serious and unexpected danger.
Occasionally, a flurry of action and confusing comings and goings in the town and in the gang’s hideout interrupt the meandering flow of the Amazon Prime Video series. The resulting life is not stable enough to endure the long-term consequences of the crime and the police investigation.
That being said, Snakes & Ladders is still worth seeing. The subplots that focus mostly on the boys’ relationships with their parents—particularly their fathers—and with one another are particularly noteworthy. These produce some of the more erratic tracks on the show.
However, the main focus of Snakes & Ladders is the cops, the criminals, the boys, and a girl with whom they all form a bond. It is here that the show needed a more generous injection of excitement, energy, and intrigue.
A full-fledged sprint never replaces the show’s gentle canter. Occasionally, the language seems to match the relaxed lifestyle of the charming town of Rettamugadu (Kodaikanal is used to represent the town). At other times, it seems excessively burdensome, even a little indulgent.
Like other boys their age, Gilbert (M.S. Samrith), Iraiyan (Surya Ragaveshwar), Sandy (Surya Kumar), and Bala (Tarun Yuvraaj) are drawn to misadventures. In the process, they run afoul of their guardians, the headmaster of the school, and the wider, riskier adult world beyond their immediate surroundings.
The bad choices the teenagers make under pressure or in a hurry exacerbate their issues. They search for the little pleasures that seem to elude them at home by riding their bicycles around town.
Their impetuous behaviour unintentionally puts them in conflict with a group of thugs who are interested in a valuable artefact in a museum dedicated to indigenous art. Two burglars enter the town on the orders of a criminal organisation and steal the valuable item.
Then, as he is leaving, Blade, a borderline psychopath, makes the spontaneous decision to break into and rob two bungalows. That move backfires. They both wind up in different places they would not have expected.
Alchemis (two episodes), Bharath Murlidharan (four episodes), and Ashok Veerappan (three episodes) are the writers and directors of Snakes & Ladders. It is set in a made-up town in the middle of the 2000s where the police have been largely idle for years.
The cops go on a manhunt that takes on the unpredictability of a game of snakes and ladders due to the series of events set off by the two robbers and numerous other cunning people who follow them, most notably Richard “Rico” (Muthukumar), who is extremely hot-headed. They move much more backward than forward.
Leonard (Naveen Chandra), a man with many secrets that could result in a big discovery, exacerbates the situation. He enters the town covertly and rents a home from a policeman who also happens to be the father of Irai, the class topper who is nerdy.
A schoolteacher (Srinda) has her home invaded in the first episode of the nine-episode series. The robbers, before they decamp with their loot, attack the lady, leaving her in a coma and her haemophilic young daughter, Raagitha (Sasha Bharen), in a state of shock.
Gilbert and his gullible friends are drawn into the confusing aftermath of the violent robbery and another similar attempt that ends in a kitchen closet.
Gilbert lives in a bungalow with his grandfather, a former military man, and his wife when one of the burglars breaks in. For the boy, an unintentional act of self-defence spells disaster. To deal with the fallout and figure out how to get out of the mess, he enlists the help of his friends.
Things get worse for the four boys stuck in a quagmire the more they attempt to divert the police and criminals from their secret. Chezhian (Nandha), Irai’s father, works as a sub-inspector for the police. However, the uniformed man has no idea what his son and his pals are up to. He does not even know what tricks Leo has in his bag.
Gilbert, known to his friends as Gilly, laments that it has been over five years since he last saw his parents. The audience is only informed that the separation is about the end; the reason for their absence is never disclosed.
A disobedient young man named Sandy has a tense relationship with his factory worker father, Mahalingam (Manoj Bharathiraja), who frequently overreacts when he reprimands him.
Inspector Rajendran (Sreejith Ravi), the plot’s other father, leads the investigation into the robberies but finds it difficult to control his son Vinay. The four junior boys strike the high school bully in the face, leaving him feeling deflated and angry. The bully is carrying his own petard.
There are a lot of thieves chasing after a box that holds a painting enclosed in a locket pendant. The man who was supposed to be in possession of the stolen item has disappeared, as has the item itself. The fact that the jewellery was taken from the schoolteacher’s home makes the hunt for the treasure—and the attempts to conceal it—even more desperate and complex.
The story does not end here, and the Rettamugadu boys are still in danger. There are plans for another season. In the last scene of Snakes & Ladders, the largest snake of them all appears; we do not see his face, but we can guess who he might be.
This is a mediocre situation. The follow-up would have to be more powerful.
Ensemble:
Vettai Muthukumar, Srinda, and Naveen Chandra
The director
Ashok Veerappan, Bharath, Muralidharan, and Kamala Alchemis