Special Ops Review: A slightly disappointing portrayal of an undercover mission

Picture Credit: Wikipedia

Special Ops marks the digital debut of the acclaimed film director Neeraj Pandey. Special Ops is an eight-part web series that is streamed on Hotstar in the month of March. It is created for Hotstar's label Hotstar Specials with Kay Kay Menon leading the cast.

Neeraj Pandey has produced some of the best Bollywood thrillers of recent times (A Wednesday, Special 26, Baby being the flag bearers) and has written this series along with Deepak Kingrani and Benazir Ali. He is also the co-director along with Shivam Nair and has Pandey’s Friday Storytellers as the production house.

Pandey has shown his fascination for subjects based on terrorism and thrillers which is quite evident from the films which he made. Because of such feats, one might expect the series to be cleverly crafted with great twists. One might also expect the series to dive deep into the topic of terrorism and its different aspects like political, religious, economic and the rest. But then, Pandey is also the man who delivered a disaster like Aiyaary. And unfortunately, Special Ops is more inclined towards the second category.

The series is based on the 19-year-old manhunt for the sixth terrorist and the presumed mastermind of the Parliament attacks of 2001. Every layman knew and believed that there were five terrorists as five were killed on the spot by the officers. However, Himmat Singh (portrayed by Kay Kay Menon) an officer of RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) believed that there was a sixth person, the mastermind, who slipped away. Singh is a very competent officer who is not afraid of defying orders if it is in the interest of the nation.

The story starts by portraying an internal audit committee being conducted on Singh and he is asked to account for the huge sums of money spent from the government funds. This garners attention (as usually there is little chance of portraying an officer being inquired) but it gradually fades away.

These episodes draw attention as Singh talks us through how he learned about the suspected sixth terrorist, i.e., Ikhlaq Khan. The existence of this terrorist was refused by all despite submitting evidence but Singh has been trying to trace him using his network of agents.

This network consists of five undercover agents, Farooq Ali (Karan Tacker), Ruhani Syed Khan (Meher Vij), Balakrishna Reddy (Vipul Gupta), Avinash (Muzzamil Ibrahim), and Juhi Kashyap (Saiyami Kher), who are placed in different countries of West Asia. While a lot of screen time, starting from his induction into RAW to the present day is given to Farooq, not much time is given to the other four. We can say that the agents are there for the need of the story and they revolve around Farooq. It seems that the director doesn’t really care about them.

Special Ops Trailer (Courtesy: YouTube and Hotstar)

This eight-episode series has had its fair share of ups and downs. At times the script and direction lose its grip and fails to be impressive while sometimes it becomes repetitive. The directors refrain from intricate details of planning of operations and of espionage at large. The show also has a considerable screen time for Singh’s family, which is quite irrelevant. Also, the show becomes repetitive from third to the fifth episode and moves at a snail’s pace.

On the sunny side of things are the performances. Kay Kay Menon does a fine job as a calm and cool officer and handles pressure efficiently and effortlessly even in the hardest of times. His expressions change within seconds, giving life to the character and his performance is a delight to watch.

Two other performances that stand out among the crowd are that of Farooq and Ikhlaq. Farooq does a fine job as an agent and is dashing throughout the series. Ikhlaq does full justice to the role of villain and stages a memorable performance. Overall, the performances of the cast have been quite impressive.

Another impressive fact has been direction. Although there are two directors directing the series, their styles are similar which makes it almost impossible to ascertain who directed which episode unless you see the names.

Overall we can say that Special Ops had great potential had the series focussed more on how a mission works and the varied aspects of terrorism. And if you can watch the first few episodes, then you are in for a treat at the last ones.