Kanneda Review: What’s New in JioHotstar Crime Series?

Kanneda Review | Leisurebyte

Director: Chandan Arora

Date Created: 2025-03-21 00:00

Editor's Rating:
2

In JioHotstar’s Kanneda, a young Indian man tries to go through life in Canada battling racism and unfair prejudices against him with only one dream — to make something of his life and prove his worth. Passionate about singing and bringing his voice to the world, he jumps headfirst into his craft, unaware that dangers lie waiting right around the corner.

The series has 6 episodes, each with a runtime of around 45 minutes.

Kanneda Review

In JioHotstar series Kanneda, Parmish Verma plays Nirmal Chahal, or Nimma, whose desperation to do something with his life and stick it to the “goras” is what drives his life. Quick to anger and taking action before sparing one brain cell to think about the consequences, Nimma lives his life on the edge and hates the racism her faces in his everyday life. I can get behind his hatred for prejudices in his new home but Nimma seems to hate white people as much as they hate him. It’s an odd conundrum that viewers will find a bit confusing to accept and Nimma’s loose canon attitude has become a cliched part of OTT shows that I am getting very tired of at this point.

The series is mostly a crime-thriller, showcasing drug dealer Sarabh’s reign of terror and the ever-growing drug market and Nirmal’s place in it. He is, as mentioned earlier, a loose canon who will do anything to make a mark in the world and realise his dreams. It’s difficult, thus, to truly root for him when he becomes a drug dealer without a second thought. The series’s storylines move on a similar beat that we have seen many times before, with the protagonist getting sucked into shady businesses and eventually suffering because of it. Of course, Nirmal walks into the mess in this series and thus, it makes it difficult to feel sorry for his problems.

The series’s cliched plot and characters are its biggest downfall in my book. It’s an interesting story for sure, but one that we have watched too many times before. There isn’t a moment when the series will leave you shocked because it doesn’t try to really reinvent itself in any way. It’s also difficult to emotionally connect with a character who seems to have no moral compass and takes pride in being a part of a criminal organisation. The sequences feel disjointed at times and stall towards the mid-point of the runtime.

Either way, the series features good performances from across the board. Parmish Verma plays his role extremely well and there isn’t a minute when he doesn’t sell Nimma, regardless of how good or bad of a character he is. Arunoday Singh, as Sarabjit, is great as usual although we have seen him in similar roles in the past. Ranvir Shorey plays Bajwa, the shadowy criminal kingpin, who is great as well, although, again, his character is similar to what he has played in the past. Lastly, Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub plays cop Sanjay Rawat who is probably the only morally good character in the series with his own issues. I think their personalities clash with each other well

Final Thoughts

I don’t think Kanneda is memorable in any way because it treads the same waters as its predecessors. The Punjabi diaspora in Canada has become a talking point to such an extent that it’s not being reinvented in any way, making us watch a similar story over and over again. The performances are what save this series from being a bore, but they can only do so much.

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