Friday, April 3, 2020

Hotstar Specials Web Series: Special Ops (17 Mar 2020)


Genre: Espionage Thriller
Language: Hindi
Country of Origin: India
Season: 1
No. of Episodes: 8
Running Time: 44-55 minutes

Writer: Neeraj Pandey, Deepak Kingrani, Benazir Ali Fida
Director: Neeraj Pandey, Shivam Nair

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Vinay Pathak, Parmeet Sethi, Kali Prasad Mukherjee, Karan Tacker, Meher Vij, Saiyami Kher, Vipul Gupta, Muzzamil Ibrahim, Sajjad Delafrooz, Sana Khan, Sharad Kelkar, Divya Dutta

Composer: Advait Nemlekar
Cinematographer: Sudheer Palsane, Arvind Singh
Editor: Praveen Kathikuloth

Introduction:

Special Ops is an engaging espionage thriller, constantly shuffling between flash back and present time, to show the years long tedious process involved in locating and nabbing a dangerous terrorist, responsible for masterminding the Indian Parliament attack in 2001, followed by 5 subsequent attacks all over India.

The web series also justifies the need to grant elaborate espionage budgets by demystifying the usage of the same.

Plot:

The series starts with Himmat Singh (Kay Kay Menon), a senior analyst at Research And Analysis Wing (R&AW) being questioned by Mr. Abbas (Parmeet Sethi) and D K Banerjee (Kali Prasad Mukherjee), the two officers handling the inquiry commission established to probe the reasons behind 28 crores worth of expanses incurred by Himmat to establish and run R&AW's UAE desk, ever since there was terrorist attack on the Parliament of India in 2001 by five armed terrorists who got killed on spot.

During the inquiry, at first Himmat flatly refuses to divulge the identities of his 5 hand picked agents and any explanation about the aforementioned expanses, all of whom he had put under the category 'miscellaneous'!

But when the inquiry officers delve deeper into the accounts and case at hand and ask him about his theory behind the Parliament attack and his following discoveries and actions, Himmat re-lives and speaks about his last 19 years, wherein -

- He was the only official with the theory that the Parliament attack was carried out by not 5 but 6 people, the sixth one being Ikhlaq Khan, considered to be a progeny of Himmat's imagination by most of the officials around him.

- He had recruited 5 different agents, 2 ladies and 3 gents and placed them in different middle eastern countries with fool proof identities. These agents were Farooq Ali (Karan Tacker), Ruhani (Meher Vij), Juhi (Saiyami Kher), Bala (Vipul Gupta) and Avinash (Muzzamil Ibrahim) and they were placed as businessman, homemaker, traveller, chef and shooter respectively.

- His quest covered the wide arena of the following locations for the last 19 years - India, Turkey, Jordan, Azerbaijan
Dubai, Tehran, Tbilisi, Istanbul, Amman and Baku.

- Even after meticulous planning and putting their respective lives on risk, his agent(s) missed Ikhlaq Khan by a hair's breadth more than once!

- Alongside, he was also living the simple life of a husband and father, constantly trying but unable to give sufficient time to his family and undergoing the usual perils of a clueless father with a growing-up daughter.

You need to see the series to see how Himmat and his team continue with their quest of catching Ikhlaq Khan and terminating his future terrorism plans, amidst the ongoing inquiry and it's final decision to release no more funds to Himmat and his team.

Analysis:

It's a wonderfully made series with good script, casting, direction, acting and cinematography.

Kay Kay Menon shines throughout the series with his brilliant acting, both as a committed and shrewd RA&W agent and as a worrisome and guilt struck family man.

Rest of the cast has also performed well.

Conclusion:

If you are an espionage thriller enthusiast, then do watch the series for it's brilliant take on solving a mammoth puzzle with the minutest of clues and mildest of links available

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