Snakes & Ladders Series story

Gilbert, Santhosh, Irai, and Bala are four school students living in the hilly town of Rettamugadu. After a couple of thieves break into the house of Gilbert, the latter traps one of them in a cupboard leading to his death. Now, it is up to the four boys, and their friend Raagi, whose mother was attacked by the thieves, to clean up their mess and hide the body, and the truth from others. Meanwhile, the thief is a small clog in the larger scheme of things, with mastermind criminals looking after to capture the thief and his partner-in-crime.

Snakes & Ladders Series review

Nancy Drew, Secret Seven, Famous Five, Goosebumps. What do these story series have in common? The fact that they place pre-teens and teens into genres like crime and horror which are often relegated to adult protagonists. Prime Video’s Tamil original series Snakes & Ladders also comes in this order, that is to take a handful of children, make them commit a crime, and do their best to cover up the issue. But to what extent can children go to escape from a bunch of police officers and mastermind criminals behind their backs? The question however lays how interesting the makers choose to project and utilize the innocence of the under-age heroes and the competency of their adult counterparts to make the series an intriguing crime thriller. Well, Snakes & Ladders does not seem to want to touch this topic and conveniently makes child heroes mere human beings with adult minds in small bodies.

Snakes & Ladders has many characters and storylines going on. Gilbert and his friends have the task to hide the body of a deceased thief, their friend Raaghi (who is battling a disease that does not really contribute to the story) has to take care of her mother who was attacked, SP Chezhian (Nandha) and Irai’s father is at the helm of the case, Leo and Rico are criminals in cahoots who have to catch hold of the thieves, and Santhosh’s father Mahalingam (Manoj Bharathiraja) gets embroiled in a mess of his own soon into the series. If you think having the episodic format will help you entangle each of their story arcs, and come in coherence with each other, that is a wrong guess. For most parts, the series struggles to even bring a storyline together to make you invested in it. Much like the title, if you think the series is a canvas for various pawns to slip and slide to win the game, you are up for a huge disappointment because the narrative rarely manages to captivate you. In certain instances, you feel sorry for the boys whose unintentional attempts to cover up their crime fail, but in another instance, you are taken aback by the mavericks they are with the sheer confidence they go on par with notorious criminals to hide a body.

There are some recurring instances in the show, like the four boys being bullied by a senior, one arc surrounding a pimp, and a thief seeking redemption. They seem to take convenient routes as and when needed for the story, instead of coming together to tell one story. While the Prime Video show boasts a stellar cast delivering decent performances, and neat production values, the story becomes a shaky ground that cannot be salvaged by the positives. With each episode, new characters are introduced, and their half-baked presence weakens the plot of Snakes & Ladders which relies much on the nail-biting experience. With little to offer in that capacity, the show becomes a disappointing binge-watch title.

Snakes & Ladders Series verdict

Snakes & Ladders lacks cohesive storytelling and meaty characters to add to the narrative. Instead, multiple story arcs without being substantiated with logic and reasoning, make the series a bland show with too many pawns in the game.

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