City of Dreams, Hindi web series streaming on Disney+Hotstar since May 2019. It is a political-family-crime drama, with 10 episodes of 38-55 minutes average length.
Ameya Rao Gaikwad (Atul Kulkarni) Seating MP, a famous and strong leader in Maharashtra and soon to be a minister in Center. Poornima (Priya Bapat) Ameya Rao’s married daughter, manages his all financial accounts, shown her absorbed leadership skills in college, Ameya Rao stopped her from entering politics by marrying her to a professor. Ashish (Siddharth Chandekar) Ameya Rao’s son, a drug addict, a violent and short-tempered by nature, wants to be a successor of Ameya Rao and CM of the state. SI Wasim Khan (Eijaz Khan) Inspector in Mumbai police, encounter specialists, Ameya Rao used him to build his empire but did not give him any position once finished his work. Gautam (Vishwas Kini) simple a natured boy working in BPO and loves Katrina. Purushottam (Sandeep Kulkarni) Jiten’s honest accountant, having a secret code language to keep track of financial transactions, knows all-black money-related secrets of Ameya Rao and Jiten, he keeps track of it and manages accounts related to it. Manjari (Vibhawari Deshpande) Purushottam’s loving and poor wife. Jiten (Uday Tikekar) very close friend of Ameya Rao, manages his accounts and finances, his advisor, trusts Poornima, and sees her as a successor of Ameya Rao in Maharashtra, he doesn’t like Ashish’s violent nature, Purushottam’s boss. Katrina (Amrita Bagchi) prostitute who helps Wasim on various occasions and loves and cares for Gautam, Gautam called her for a loan and then they come close to each other, and Wasim keeps her in Gautam’s home as a safe house, Savio attacks her there. Jagdish Gurav (Sachin Pilgaonkar) CM of Maharashtra and a very close and trusted man of Ameya Rao, Ameya Rao helped him to rise in politics, wish to be a central minister. Mystery Women (Flora Saini) meets Purushottam in a movie theatre and having an affair and secret relationship with him, motivates him and makes him break his mental barriers. Shireen (Geetika Tyagi) young journalist having contacts in politics, ruined Wasim’s career in the past but now helps him on various occasions. Lipakshi (Pavleen Gujral) actress and close college friend of Poornima, loves her, supports, and motivates her to take the reins of politics in hand. Commissioner Roy (Rio Kapadia) close to Wasim but suspended by CM due to unofficial interference of Wasim in case. Kaushik Amre (Saurabh Goyal) Professor by profession and husband of Poornima. Amit Amre (Krrish Chhabria) Poornima’s son. Tripathi (Aayam Mehta) Leader from the center and messenger of party high command. Savio (Rishi Deshpande) Contract killer, tries to kill Ameya Rao in hospital and at his home. Narayan Ghatge (Amol Kulkarni) Purushottam’s friend.
The story starts with a major attack on Ameya Rao Gaikwad, an attack on him creates a blunder in Maharashtra politics. Ameya Rao becomes unconscious and goes into a coma during treatment. Then hot-headed Ashish plans to project himself as a successor of the Ameya Rao, but Jiten opposes this and wants Poornima to come ahead and take the reins of the party in hand.
Jiten informs Poornima and Ashish, that the health condition of Ameya Rao is loosening their hold on businessmen, where Ameya Rao has invested huge amounts. To threaten the businessmen, Ashish kills one of them, Jiten and Poornima don’t like this. Poornima with Jiten meets other businessmen and pressurizes and keeps them under control. Jiten asks Poornima to keep control of hot-headed Ashish so that he will not create more ruckus.
Parallelly Wasim unofficial investigate the case and arrests Ameya Rao’s attacker through the information he gets from Katrina. First, he meets Jiten but Jiten gets angry with him and tells him to hand over the attackers to the police and warns him to don’t ruin Ameya Rao’s plan to become a central minister. After this, Wasim tells about the unofficial arrest of the attackers to Ashish, when Shireen helps him to contact Ashish. Ashish kills killers after calling Poornima. After this Wasim knows Savio got a contract to finish the work. He follows the lead and tries to trap Savio by rumoring that Katrina knows everything about him. Somehow Wasim saves Katrina when Savio tries to kill her, Gautam gets injured in this. Through sources, Wasim knows the contract was given by Hyderabad Don, to whom Wasim helped in the past and Don tells Wasim that he got a contract from Don Raghav, who is in Tihar jail. Finally, after discussion with suspended commissioner Roy, they know who is the mastermind of attack on Ameya Rao. Wasim kills Savio when he tries to kill Ameya Rao at his home.
On another side, Ashish’s violent behavior rises day by day so Jiten convinces Poornima to come forward as a successor of the Ameya Rao. Lipakshi reminds confused Poornima, how Ameya Rao discriminated against her and gave the upper hand to the incapable Ashish and ruined her career. Angry Poornima agrees with Jiten and Lipakshi. With surprise, she ruins Ashish’s political rally and delivers a good speech, and declares herself as heir to Ameya Rao. After this angry Ashish kills Jiten in a dockyard, thinking he only motivated Poornima to come forward as successor, Purushottam saw this and Poornima also knows who killed Jiten but she doesn’t talk to anything to anybody. But businessman Ramanik knows this and blackmails Ashish.
Wasim meets CM Jagadish and tries to blackmail him by telling him he knows who gave the contract to kill Ameya Rao, and tries to crack the deal with him, but CM openly rejects it. CM immediately meets Ashish and tells him who gave a contract to kill Ameya Rao. They both join hands where CM agrees to make Ashish the next CM and CM Jagdish, himself will go to Delhi as a minister, which was his long-term dream. Jagdish asks Ashish to kill Wasim because he knows everything and can ruin their plan. Wasim’s wife gets killed by goons sent by Ashish.
Meanwhile, Ameya Rao wakes up from the coma and after knowing all the past events, who is responsible for the attack, and the truth about the attack, he still declares Ashish as his successor just because he thinks Poornima is not cruel and second she is not Gaikwad anymore. Poornima gets angry and opens front against Ameya Rao and Ashish.
After an attack on the family, helpless Wasim joins hands with Poornima and tells everything about Ashish and Jagadish to her and shows her the video he shot as proof. Tells her they both need each other’s help to rise. She calls Jagadish to meet and tells him to support her in the party meeting, else she will reveal everything in public also she gave the same offer which Ashish gave to him. CM agrees and joins hands with her. She meets Tripathi Ji also and asks him and the party to support her. Then Poornima finds Purushottam, who knows everything about the money laundering business of Jiten and Ameya Rao, Purushottam tells her that they have stolen 25000 Cr rupees from the black money, that came to them for laundering. She uses this money to buy the support of MLA for her in a party meeting, those who supports Ameya Rao. She kills Ashish through Wasim with drug overdose and proves Ameya Rao that she is cruel enough. Forces Ameya Rao to declare her as his successor in a party meeting.
This completes one cycle of politics, replacing Purushottam with Jiten, Narayan with Purushottam, and Poornima with Ameya Rao.
Who plans an attack on Ameya Rao and why? Why Ameya Rao supports Ashish only even after knowing the truth? Why Ashish joins hands with CM? What is the story of Gautam and Katrina? Why and how Wasim helps them? What is the story of Wasim? Why he was not promoted? Why he supports Ameya Rao and Jiten? How Poornima and Lipakshi’s relationship goes? Why Poornima marries Kaushik? Who sends Savio and How Wasim stops him? And many more questions will be answered in the web series.
The story is a mixture of political conspiracy, family power drama, gender-based discrimination, etc. Atul Kulkarni and Siddharth Chandekar did well in acting, other than them the acting is average. Sachin didn’t impress at all in CM’s role and the role is very weak as per the story. High-level killing is shown as a casual and frequent thing in politics that looks dramatic. Overall don’t keep much expectation from the web series. Overall web series is a package of average story, average acting which can be avoided. 6/10*
Chetan Nikam 