In The Name Of God Review: A laboured crime drama that makes for an arduous watch

What do you call a never-ending web series that stuffs a cuss word a minute, a physical attack every two minutes, an evil motive every ten minutes, and a lame stunt every episode? 'In The Name Of God', written and directed by Vidyasaagar Muthukumar, is all that and more. There is one or another image of a God throughout. But what worries the viewer is the pathological obsession with expletives rather than the superficial indulgence of Gods and their ugly children. 

Aadhi (Priyadarshi Pulikonda), a cabbie, seeks to have fun with Meena (Nandini Rai), the young wife of Ayyappa (Posani Krishna Murali). Meena's extra-marital affair with Thomas (Vikas) ends in a disaster when she murders her husband in cold blood. Fearing conviction, the Meena-Thomas duo decides to scapegoat Aadhi thinking he is weak and naive. But Aadhi turns out to be an unpredictable beast as the story progresses. 

The three lives are intertwined with a few dangerous men and women. For one, there is Rossi (Mohammad Ali Baig), whose deliberately irritating laughter is a facade. Fakir (Uma Maheshwar Rao), a ruthless wielder of street power, has to secure five crore rupees. Vishnu (Chandrakanth Dutta) is another claimant and he also has a personal enmity with the elusive murderer of Ayyappa. As days pass, Aadhi realizes that he is in deep trouble.

The dark world of shady deals is juxtaposed with some relatable lives. But most of the situations spun around them are either mechanical or too artificial. Posani's character makes a living from the crass objectification of women's bodies in his B-grade movies. Priyadarshi is notorious for being a lousy performer in bed ('He has got a tower but it has no signal'. Okay?). When the characters are pushed to the corner, their worst instincts creep up. But what flows from these promising premises is just bland drama.

Director @megopichand gaari KrackING response to #InTheNameofGod! 

The story moves from one place to another, but the rhythm goes missing all the time. The viewer is spoon-fed about the non-linear narration. We see a dead body and the written lines literally say that last rites are on. 

'ING' is surely not a crime drama that uses a murder plot point as a tool. There are emotional characters and their feelings do hit the right notes at times. But the proceedings are not dramatic despite the many perils in the lives of its characters. 

Thrashing is a running affair throughout the series. If two or three characters are arguing (which happens all the time), it's most likely that one of them will turn furious and pounce on someone. This happens episode after episode and it gets extremely tiresome to watch. On top of it, the viewer is bombarded with a steady stream of swear words that wear down the impact, ironically.

The series is not clever in staging potentially thrilling moments. For example, the sequence of events in the segment where a thug explains why he loves his pet dog so much and gets violent when it gets accidentally killed should have been reversed. Imagine making the viewer wonder why the thug is enraged at the death of his pet. 

When the series is not about street violence, it's about domestic violence. It's not like bloodbath shouldn't be there, but too much of it being crammed into the space of a few days is the problem.  

Barring Priyadarshi, who is shockingly good even in violent scenes, the web series is a damp squib. Even its BGM is shoddy.

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Check out trailer of In the name of God here: