CAST : Manish Chaudhari, Regina Cassandra, Armaan Ralhan, Aadil Khan. Anjali Barot, Makarand Deshpande
DIRECTED BY: Kanishk Verma, Samir Khan
In trying to create a desi Top Gun Franchise, India’s most lethal form of defense comes off looking amateurish. In a scene from Disney+Hotstar’s/ Hulu’s Shoorveer, a Pakistani spy who has infiltrated one of India’s most covert, secretive defense institutions tells his handler based in Pakistan about having fruitfully simulated his boss’ phone. “Pistol jail mein aa chukka hai,” he says, pretending to use a secret code.
You can tell a series which wants to be a cool wannabe about modern warfare, cutting edge mil tech and border defenses has taken its inspiration from Sholay’s dialogues when someone uses the world ‘pistol’ even in a secret code. Someone on the writing team just did not research enough to make this story stick. And we say this upfront before we deep dive into why
Shoorveer is a mediocre series. It is often inexplicable about its sub-plots, characters and sometimes you feel someone just put stock videos together to make the patch work stick.
A select team of soldiers from each of India’s three defense forces brings a lot of mantastic moments, unnecessary nutflex and cold overswagulation.
WATCH OUR REVIEW HERE
What it purported to be was a mix of Top Gun, but it was way worse than Sea Hawks, a once popular show on Doordarshan, which, was a brave attempt at world building in a domain that by default requires vision and scale.
Shoorveer is the story about a special unit, one that India puts together as a fairly simple fix to its first responder’s problem. The premise of the series is too basic, too shrimpressive and can be swatted off in seconds.
In any case, the Ministry combines the army, navy and the air force into one unit and they are called the Hawks.
“What will be the chain of command sir?” a soldier asks, to which his superior responds with “Depends on the mission”. Not a risk that even Pete Effing Mitchell will take.
Makarand Deshpande plays NSA chief Milind Phandse who believes “Red Tape Chokes India”- the Hindi literal translation to that was so funny sounding that I almost choked on my soda.
Manish Chaudhuri as the straightforward leader of this new elite unit looks dapper. Chaudhuri plays his character with great strength – never for a second sounding or looking out of depth with his arc.
Then there are the young crew, mediocre actors who tried to play their bits but are short-changed by just how slim the substance of the show is.
It’s unbelievable that realizing that there are so many talented writers and screenplay playwrights in India, yet no one has evolved the science of writing good espionage material that can imagine the, writing hasn’t evolved to a point where pilots aren’t just avatars of Pete Mitchell and his crew and the army isn’t portrayed as one nationalist body.
We will definitely judge Shoorveer against the finesse of film-making standards in air combat, action sequences that Tom Cruise set this year, but the beauty of Top Gun was its trademark authenticity. Shoorveer looked like someone tried to plagiarize the Top Gun spirit on a Patriotic Derangement Syndrome bus.
The thoughtlessly dynamic sequences, some gussied-up looking cockpit shots and some truly mehpressive CGI, makes you wonder if a show about the defense forces ought to have been so ambitious that it looks like a failed project.
Many such espionage series on netflix and prime are led by fine actors and supported by some terrific content. In Shoorveer, the rookie actors fail and with no meat in the script that is a real blow to the shot.
