
It was thought that they were merely five home wives. In the daytime, they ran a not-so-fancy dabba (tiffin) service in Thane. By nighttime, however, their neatly packed lunch boxes had something far more dangerous than home food inside. This is no business; this is a cartel.
Made by Excel Entertainment, produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, Dabba Cartel is set to be the next major Netflix India crime thriller beginning February 28. Directed by Hitesh Bhatia, the series was created by Shibani Dandekar, Vishnu Menon, Gaurav Kapur, and Akanksha Seda. And already it is being called “Narcos: Thane”-in contrast to the Netflix versions of the drug cartel sagas.
The teaser released by Netflix India gives a glimpse into the world of an empire built on lies and deception. The women (played by Shabana Azmi, Nimisha Sajayan, Shalini Pandey, Anjali Anand, and Sai Tamhankar) began selling homemade food, only to take a dark turn when they moved on to smuggling drugs in their tiffin boxes.
The rules are simple. The punishment? Death.
Their once-silent operation starts becoming chaos, and, all of a sudden, the women find themselves neck-deep in a high-stakes pharmaceutical drug syndicate run by the Viva Life men—a powerful company under government investigation.
Lillete Dubey plays the ever-watchful conscience, warning Shabana Azmi’s character:
You have tasted blood. There is no going back now.
The teaser creates a build-up of suspense to a truly chilling moment when Jyothika steps in and says to Shabana Azmi’s character: “Toh ye hai tumhara Narcos Thane?” (So this is your Narcos Thane?)
A Cast That Commands Attention
With Gajraj Rao and Jisshu Sengupta in an excellent ensemble, Dabba Cartel promises to be one of the hardest-hitting crime stories from Netflix India.