General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Chronicles of the 4.5 Gang

The Chronicles of the 4.5 Gang (Malayalam: Sambhavavivaranam Nalara Sangham, സംഭവവിവരണം നാലരസംഘം) is a 2025 Indian Malayalam-language crime comedy web series created and directed by Krishand, released on SonyLIV. It follows five young men from a slum in the fictional town of Thiruvanchipuram, modeled on Thiruvananthapuram, who turn to petty crime in the hope of earning enough respect to sponsor their local temple festival.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Sambhavavivaranam Nalara Sangham (സംഭവവിവരണം നാലരസംഘം)³
Creator and director	Krishand, a National Award-winning Malayalam filmmaker⁴
Format	1 season, 6 episodes of about 55 minutes each³
Release	Premiered on SonyLIV on August 28, 2025, a day before the announced August 29 date⁵
Languages	Malayalam, with dubs in Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil⁵
Lead cast	Sanju Sivram (Arikuttan), Jagadish (Maithreyan), Niranj Maniyanpilla Raju (Althaf), Shambu Menon (Maniyan), Sreenath Babu (Kanji), Sachin Joseph (Moonga)³
Age rating	A (adults only)¹

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The series is framed as a memoir in progress. In 2018, an older Arikuttan hires the writer Maithreyan to ghostwrite his life story and recast his gang's violent past in a flattering light.¹ The narrative moves between Arikuttan dictating his story to Maithreyan in the early 2010s and the gang's formative years in the early 1990s, and it repeatedly contrasts Maithreyan's embellished, self-mythologizing version of events with the harsher history Arikuttan actually recounts.⁶

The title's "4.5" counts the gang's five members: four young men and their friend Moonga, who has dwarfism, hence the half. The writer Maithreyan even pauses early in the story to ask whether the half-point reference is politically correct.²

The gang's criminal career begins when, after failing to make headway in their studies, they fall under the wing of the corrupt police inspector Suresh (Rahul Rajagopal). Their money-making schemes stay deliberately small-time: pilfering milk, then capturing Thiruvanchipuram's flower-supply business around the temples, while contending with rival racketeers with colorful nicknames such as Bruce Lee (Prasanth Alexander), Pyelakuttan (Vishnu Agasthya), Airport Saji, and Cracker Unni.²^•⁷ A 2004 gold-smuggling heist marks a turning point in Arikuttan's life, and the six episodes trace the escalation from petty theft through gang wars to arson and murder.⁸

Episodes

All six episodes of season 1 were released together on SonyLIV:⁸

"Attack on the Cop" – a violent heist in 2004 changes Arikuttan's life; fourteen years later he arrives in Auran looking for a ghostwriter.
"Gangster Take Over Ponakavu" – a revenge act pushes the boys into their first crime.
"Ponkashi Milk Mafia at Large" – the gang enters the milk business while the police close in.
"Goons Take Over the State Capital" – retaliation from Senthil's family unleashes city-wide gang wars.
"Cold-blooded Christmas" – SI Suresh draws the gang into a plot involving arson and the murder of Pookada Vava.
"Gunfires at the Festival" – Arikuttan finally leads a temple festival as vengeance and betrayal spiral into chaos.⁹

Development

Krishand, a National Award-winning director previously known for the films Aavasavyuham and Purusha Pretham, traces the idea for the series to his student years at IIT Bombay, 12 or 13 years before release. A professor there urged him to write from his own roots, and Krishand, who grew up in what he calls a Colony in Thiruvananthapuram, drew on the world around him. He began pitching the series to streaming platforms in 2015, considered reshaping it as a two-part film, and finally received a green light in 2020.⁴ Lead actor Sanju Sivram said he was part of the project from the planning stage and that the idea was first pitched to SonyLIV in 2020.¹⁰

Krishand has said the storyline did not change over the years of development, but the character of Maithreyan became wilder. Reading first-person accounts in which criminals whitewashed their own actions inspired him to make the ghostwriter more unhinged.¹¹ He also reworked the script after watching Angamaly Diaries to make the series more entertaining, and noted that he saw similarities between his material and films such as Gangs of Wasseypur and Angamaly Diaries, which released while he was writing.⁴

Cast and crew

The crew includes Jomon Jacob as producer, Vishnu Prabhakar as director of photography, K. Sasi Kumar as editor, and Sooraj Santhosh and Varkey as music composers.¹² The soundtrack spans 25 tracks across the six episodes, moving between hip-hop, orchestral pieces, and native nadan elements.¹³ Supporting cast members include Darshana Rajendran as Ramani, Indrans as Arikuttan's father Balachandran, Santhy Balachandran as Kingini, and Vijayaraghavan.²^•¹⁴

Reception

The series drew strongly positive reviews. The Indian Express gave it 4.5 out of 5 and called it a near-perfect gangster comedy, crediting the actors playing the central gang for much of its effect.¹⁵ The Week described it as a gangster epic that is Malayalam cinema's answer to Gangs of Wasseypur, noting its metaphors, mythological references, and wordplay.¹⁶ The Scroll review praised the sharply etched characters and performances while calling the show densely written, leisurely paced, and self-consciously messy, with some scenes that run long.² An OTTplay review rated it 3.5 out of 5.¹⁷

Reviewers highlighted the show's use of the distinct Thiruvananthapuram dialect and its blend of dark comedy with the gangster genre, including comic-book devices such as split screens and an unreliable narrator.¹³^•² Krishand said in an interview that the series was being compared to Gangs of Wasseypur and Vada Chennai.¹¹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026