Written by: Hurmat Majid
Posted on: July 29, 2022 | 
| 中文
Saba Qamar as Maya Nisar and Ahsan Khan as Tabraiz
A drama that explores the life of a woman conned into her first marriage, and forced into rapidly taking a decision about a second marriage, makes for an intriguing premise. However, if you drag any premise long enough, viewers are bound to lose interest.
Adnan Samad as Nail and Saba Qamar as Maya
Starring the enigmatic Saba Qamar as Maya, Ahsan Khan as Tabraiz, and Mikaal Zulfiqar as Shan Kumar, the ARY Digital drama has been produced by iDreams’ Abdullah Seja, written by Zanjabeel Asim and directed by Saqib Khan.
Mikaal Zulfiqar as Shaan and Asma Abbas as his step-mother
The drama begins with Maya’s father, Nisar (Mehmood Aslam), aspiring that his elder daughter marry into an affluent family so that she improves her social status. The obsession with marrying her off to a wealthy man is such that he even refuses his own sister’s son as a possible beau for his daughter. Tabraiz (Ahsan) and his fake parents seem to be the answer to all of his prayers. Soon Maya is married off and on her honeymoon train, she is abandoned by Tabraiz, who not only leaves her stranded but also does away with all of her jewelry and dowry.
Tabraiz and Maya's wedding scene in Fraud
One would think that an experience this traumatic would open Nisar’s eyes toward his obvious lack of judgment when it comes to marriage proposals, but that is not the case. Soon after Maya returns home, Nisar is seen trying to push Maya into thinking about marrying again, presenting marriage as a sort of antidote to the trauma she has just endured.
Saba Qamar (Maya) and Mehmood Aslam (Nisar) as father-daughter
On the other hand, we see Tabraiz enjoying his new wealth and also planning his next con with Khawar (Saife Hassan) and Jahanara (Annie Zaidi). 12 episodes down the road, neither has Tabraiz gone through his next con nor has Maya married someone, and to top it off, Shan Kumar (Mikaal), the wealthy man that promos suggest Maya will eventually end up with, has still not fully entered the storyline, although we can see glimpses of him here and there. With such poor progress, one is bound to lose interest even if the storyline is interesting. The drama has all the makings of a show that creators will drag to 40 episodes.
Annie Zaidi, Ahsan Khan and Saife Hassan in Fraud
In terms of acting, Saba is flawless as usual, but by no stretch of the imagination does she look like she is 21. Playwrights and directors need to be wary of stating a character’s age when it does not match the actor’s persona in the drama, and nor is it relevant to the storyline. Ahsan Khan is a brilliant actor, that said, an actor of his caliber should not choose roles similar to each other in back-to-back plays, and that’s what we have seen Ahsan do in the past couple of years. The way Tabraiz dresses is identical to the way Rashid dressed in Qayamat, and Murad dressed in Qissa Meherbano Ka. The character traits of these men are also hauntingly similar, and it looks like Ahsan is choosing to be safe rather than his usual bold self when picking his roles. The lack of diversity in the roles, however, cannot be mistaken for a lack of acting prowess as whenever Ahsan takes a role, he does complete justice to it. We haven’t seen enough of Mikaal on the screen to make anything of his role yet.
Ahsan Khan as Tabraiz
Now to gush over our pool of veteran actors: Mehmood Aslam Sahab, we feel, is not given enough credit for the way he takes on any role he is given, ranging from comedy to a downright negative persona, and makes it his own. He has done the same here. It is refreshing to see Ainee Zaidi in a non-saas/mom role, and she has carried herself well in this new persona. Saifee Hasan has this unique quality where he does the bare minimum to his appearance and the way he talks, but one can still somehow distinguish any one of his roles from another. Nida Mumtaz is another one of those actors who is typecast as the resident Ammi in any drama, and we feel that’s a shame.
Mehmood Aslam and Nida Mumtaz in Fraud
We feel like we keep pointing this out over and over again, but since showrunners are not changing the way they strategise, it needs to be said yet again: no one, absolutely no one in the audience wants a 40 to 50-episode-long drama. It is tiresome and repetitive. The plot loses its meaning completely and by the end of it, you lose any positive messaging that could have made an impact on the audience’s mind. We understand that this is a business, but please find a better way to make money than to put audiences through the torture of watching hours upon hours of flashbacks and meaningless filler scenes.
Nida Mumtaz as Shehnaz with her daughters, Maya (Saba Qamar) and Maila (Rabya Kulsoom)
Overall, if Fraud does not pick up its pace in the next three episodes, it will completely lose its charm, and probably, a large chunk of its audience.
Ahsan Khan as Tabraiz in Fraud
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