Gangstars

Gangstars is a 2018 Indian Telugu-language crime drama television series by Amazon Prime Video, and produced by Swapna Dutt, Chakravathi Gutta, Sanjay Reddy, and Anil Pallala, under Early Monsoon Tales and Silly Monks Entertainments. It was directed by Ajay Bhuyan and created by B. V. Nandini Reddy. The series stars Jagapathi Babu, Navdeep, Shweta Basu Prasad, Siddu Jonnalagadda, Apoorva Arora and music is composed by Sai Karthik.
It is the first ever Amazon Prime Video original series in Telugu, and has 12 episodes with dubbed versions in Tamil and Hindi.

Plot

The series is set in the backdrop of the film industry and involves two movie stars, two ex-lovers, and one gangster. How one incident sets up a chain of events in motion and interconnects the lives of all these characters, interspersed with a murder is the intriguing crux of the narrative.

Cast

Main

Jagapathi Babu as Kumar Das "K.D.", a gangster who has been informed that he has cancer and is going to die
Navdeep as Vishwa, an arrogant and controversial film hero.
Shweta Basu Prasad as Aishwarya, a haughty film actress
Siddu Jonnalagadda as Ajay, who tries to become a film director. He is the manager of Aishwarya.
Apoorva Arora as Keerthi, who tries to become a film producer, manager of Vishwa

Recurring

Sivaji as C.I.Anjaneyulu, a corrupt police officer
Posani Krishna Murali as Blockbuster Paala Subramanyam, a film producer who produces the movie for helping KD
Thagubothu Ramesh as Rani Rajkamal, Aishwarya's make-up
Krishna Bhagawan as P.K.R., Vishwa's father
Rahul Ramakrishna as Red, K.D.'s brother-in-law
RJ Hemanth as Vicky, Ajay's friend
Radio Mirchi Kiran as Director of the film
Ranam Venu as an ad film director
Raja Ravindra as Ajay's father
Dhanraj as a choreographer
Ananth as a producer
Rallapalli as astrologer
Sanjay Reddy as a doctor
Uttej as Gopal, ward boy in the hospital who has taken debt from K.D.
Annapurna as Keerthi's grandmother
Aishwarya as Priyamwada, Keerthi's mother
Sri Lakshmi as Keerthi's aunt
Hari Teja as Girija, K.D.'s wife
Mounima as Jahnavi / Jaanu, a journalist
Gayatri Gutta

Reception

Haricharan Pudupeddi of the Firstpost called the series a "wasted opportunity". He added that "Despite having so much of talent at its disposal, the show fails to rise above a very predictable story of action and comedy." Hemanth Kumar CR writing for The News Minute stated that "Gangstars feels like a missed opportunity to create something unique and charming. It has its moments, when it takes a sly dig at the film industry, but when it focuses on its own story, it becomes too self-aware of what it wants to do and it never finds its groove."