Mumbai Mafia: Police vs the Underworld

Engaging narrative of how the underworld activities in the 90s were successfully curbed using "encounter specialists", but at the same time the documentary grapples with the question whether these encounter specialists went too far and took the law in their own hands by staging so called "fake encounters".

These specialists argue that irrespective of whether the encounters were staged or genuine, the end result was a dead criminal who in a normal scenarios would get bail if jailed and will be out on the streets terrorising people.

On the flip side, human rights activists argue that the dead criminals missed an opportunity to reform and lead a positive life.

At the end of the day, politicians were happy for encounters to take place while the crime rate was being brought under control but once it was controlled they had to sacrifice some of these so called encounter specialists to pacify the western governments and human rights organisations.

Would Mumbai have ended up as a terror state had it not been for the encounter specialists? No doubt there was collateral damage, but was it worth it ? Only a person living in fear in Mumbai in the 90s would know, and probably agree.

People who would be watching a Netflix docu are mostly young people who either were too young during the encounter days or weren't even born yet. So for most of its viewers its a history lesson. A unbiased history lesson.

Mumbai was growing rapidly, law and order wasn't growing at the same pace, opportunity for crime was increasing day by day.

In 90s A few key incidents happened which shook people of Mumbai and made police desperate to maintain law and order

This desperation resulted into police becoming the law enforcement, the judge and the punisher, and if they found you guilty, then the punishment was DEATH.

Was it morally right? No, did it bring peace for Mumbai? Yes.

This docu shows how it started, how it happened and what was the aftermath.

For me the best part was real interviews of key people involved.

Definitely worth a watch for everyone regardless their opinion on the topic.

Mumbai mafia:police vs the underworld is a crime documentary film directed by raaghav dar and francis longhurst.

This docu does many things right and some things wrong. The police and their functioning is basically the centerstage here. Ravindra angre, pradeep sharma and all the other members of the encounter squad are interviewed and their views are thoroughly shown. They are unapologetic but also remorseful at the same time. 'Nobody likes to kill people' is what one police officer says. AA khan resigns even. This docu does humanize the police officials in a controversial encounter story. The gangsters are hardly focused upon. Dawood's background is touched and not detailed. Minty tejpal and hussain zaidi make appearances here and it was an honour to listen to them.

The screenplay during the bombay blast aftermath becomes slow in the first half. It shifts attention and loses its grip.

I would rate this docu 8.5.

A nice documentary making me appreciate the cops who have encountered those who do not deserve a chance at life... thanks to Pradeep Sharma and the rest of the encounter specialists for making Mumbai what it is today. Hats off to them. However, the annoying liberal lady (and they are always at least 80kg) and the white soy journalist are a taint to the documentary. They sided with criminals and chose to humanise terrorists and but never the victims. My sympathy goes to the victims of the Mumbai bomb blasts and those terrorised by gangsters, and also Pradeep Sharma who was attacked by these malicious pro-criminal journalists.

This documentary is incredibly well done. The real footage from the 90s events mentioned is powerful, the reconstitutions have a real cinematic quality, and the interviews of the "encounter cops" are just fascinating. The whole story is wild and seems straight out of a movie.

The only criticism I have is that 3 our of the 4 journalists interviewed were very judgmental, in a way that came across as preachy and tone deaf. The female journalist literally says that the death of 1200 gangsters in encounters over the years was worse than the 1993 Bombay blasts... Obviously that's her opinion and it doesn't change how extremely well put together the documentary is, but it overall felt like the makers were trying to push the view that the encounter cops were as bad as the gangsters they killed, which I found to be a very manichean view.

But despite the caricatural opinions delivered by the interviewed journalists, the documentary is really worth a watch. The visuals, both old and new, are great and it's amazing to learn about the events through the very honest explanations of the famous encounter cops of the time.