A reputation has to be maintained, the seminal value of the espionage drama held high, and the thriller quotient and scale must obviously be preserved and enhanced at the same time. What’s more, the nation’s interests must be served and the emotional quotient upheld, the latter a must in all successful action dramas.
In all these aspects, Friday Storytellers scores high with the second season (there was a mini 1.5 Season that spoke of the backstory of the protagonist, RAW officer Himmat Singh, portrayed by Kay Kay Menon) that maintains everything needed. It amps up the pace, soul and intensity for which the franchise has become synonymous with the crème-de-la-crème of espionage entertainment on the Indian screen.
By Season 2, Himmat Singh is now more than respected by his superiors (including the political top brass) and is not questioned in-depth anymore about his actions, operatives and way of functioning. It is remarkable how the man is here, there and everywhere simultaneously, operating with great alacrity and amazing efficiency across the globe just with two mobile-phones from his base in the Delhi. His global contacts span the world and include Pakistan!
At the same time, he is also looking after his devoted family of wife Saroj (Gautami Kapoor) and daughter Pari (Revathi Pillai), using hi-tech to trace his daughter and even quickly settling a minor family turbulence whose base was in Season 1.5. There is devoted local cop, sub-inspector Abbas (Vinay Pathak), still devoted to working for him, while an aggrieved former trainer, Subramanyam (Prakash Raj), now retired, has to be emotionally gratified so that he does not blow up the North and South Blocks of the Rashtrapati Bhavan!
And why is that? Because the government has allowed one Jignesh Dholakia (Hitesh Dave) to abscond after conning a bank so that account holders cannot withdraw their own money, and Subramanyam’s wife (admitted in hospital) dies as a result. This is the emotional angle given to the story that shows that defaulters like the real-life Nirav Modi can be brought back with a bit of political will.
Coming to the main villain, it is a man named Sudheer Awasthi (Tahir Raj Bhasin), who is a master at cyber-attacks. Based abroad, he owes allegiance to no one but himself, and is supporting China in a mission to destroy Indian economy, while also getting the US to reward him for info on China!
His identity is not yet known, but Himmat, along with his intrepid team of Farukh (Karan Tacker), Juhi (Saiyami Kher), Avinash (Muzammil Ibrahim), Ruhani (Shikha Talsania) and Abhay (Vikkas Manaktala) must hunt him down. This is mainly because he has kidnapped Dr. Piyush Bhargava (Asif Zakaria), who is our ace at AI and in the Cyber zone, as only he can help Sudheer complete his nefarious agenda. Of course, Sudheer is helped by a mole in RAW.
All these intermingled threads coalesce into a neat 7-episode story that garnishes its solid emotional and nationalistic scale with awesome locations and terrific action. Neeraj Pandey, Deepak Kingrani and Benazir Ali Fida write an electric script and Neeraj seamlessly co-directs with Shivam Nair, the latter mainly doing the Indian gripping sections. But I personally felt that the Subramanyam’s extreme rage angle (which also hints at the frustration some retired army, police and RAW personae might experience after they retire in the grind of daily life) should have been a shade modified (and mollified!) as it gives an unpalatable and even absurd angle to this otherwise delightful saga.
Advait Nemlekar’s terrifically relentless and mood-inducing background score enriches the narrative. Praveen Kathikuloth’s editing is sharper than a razor, and the cinematography by Sudheer Palsane, Arvind Singh and Dimo Popov is supreme grade. The aerial shots, the entire climax and major action sequences and location shots especially are just bewitching.
The script is fantastic, and only terrible actors could have wasted the opportunities here. Happily, the unit does not have any. I do not need to speak about Kay Kay Menon really—as always in the Special Ops character’s role, he is devastatingly brilliant as he mainly has to act with his eyes, tone and body language. I must specifically single out Tahir Raj Bhasin for his deadly devilry as Sudheer. The man is ruthless to the core and his psychological manipulation with his menacing smile puts him at a Gabbar-like peak. Kamakshi Bhatt as Dr. Harminder Gill is just superb in her shades.
Standing out among the rest are Hitesh Dave as Jignesh Dholakia, Gautami Kapoor as Saroj, Revathi Pillai as Pari and the old stalwarts of the franchise, Kaliprasad Mukherjee as Dr. Bannerjee and Parmeet Sethi as Naresh Chaddha. Himmat’s young team is in sync as always, and among them, Saiyami Kher is fetching and a little more ardent than the rest. I found Arif Zakaria a shade awkward, but then his character probably needed that.
Neeraj Pandey and his dedicated team need to work extra (twice that word over!)-hard now to come up with Special Ops 3. There is a hint in the series that Himmat will “retire in a few months” and a politician enquies if he cannot still keep working with them. The reply he gets is that Himmat would be reluctant, as he also firmly believes in a retirement age for politicians as well!
It is these extra touches (like some mentioned above) that sets this franchise miles ahead of the rest.
Rating: ****
JioHotstar presents Friday Storytellers’ Special Ops 2 Created by: Neeraj Pandey Produced by: Shital Bhatia Directed by: Neeraj Pandey & Shivam Nair Written by: Neeraj Pandey, Deepak Kingrani & Benazir Ali Fida Music: Advait Nemlekar Starring: Kay Kay Menon, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Vinay Pathak, Saiyami Kher, Karan Tacker, Muzammil Ibrahim, Kamakshi Bhatt, Arif Zakaria, Kaliprasad Mukherjee, Parmeet Sethi, Dalip Tahil, Prakash Raj, Hitesh Dave, Shikha Talsania, Gautami Kapoor, Revathi Pillai, Vikkas Manaktala, Tota Roy Chowdhury, Darren E. Scott & others
(Used under special arrangement with NIT)
