Tanaav Review: Faulty But Intensely Engaging Espionage Thriller

Cast: Arbaaz Khan, Danish Husain, Ekta Kaul, Manav Vij, M. K. Raina, Rajat Kapoor, Satyadeep Mishra, Shashank Arora, Sumit Kaul, Sukhmani Sadana, Waluscha De Sousa, Zarina Wahab, Aryaman Seth, Mir Sarwar, Ivana Kaur, Mikail Gandhi, Arslan Goni, Shahid Gulfam, Rocky Raina, Sahiba Bali, Manan Chaturvedi, Sheen Dass
Directors: Sudhir Mishra, Sachin Krishn

Sudhir Mishra's official adaptation of the hugely popular Israeli series Fauda transposes a similar set-up to Kashmir and goes about creating a generic spate of spy networks, secessionist ideals, terrorism and counter-terrorism killings, and the works. The Israel-Palestine conflict makes way for the three-way Kashmir imbroglio but without the humaneness of the original. It's not really about Kashmir and its troubles but about a fictional Elite, state-sponsored secret counter-terrorism squad meant to be an effective counterinsurgency strategy to keep terrorists and their jihad in check.

The Kashmir issue is way too complex for a generic series of this kind to address. The security implications of the conflict and the pattern of systematic human rights violations by all parties in Kashmir has been a critical factor in fueling the conflict that is often overlooked in favour of partisan fuelling of nationalistic hyperbole.

Sudhir Mishra creates a facile world of antagonists and protagonists and gets them to keep going at each other - collateral damage and all. So, Kashmir is merely an enabling backdrop for a series whose intent is entirely to be a fast-paced, breathtaking espionage thriller. The director pretty much succeeds in making that happen in spite of the unwieldy 12-episode duration.

The politics in Tanaav is rather opportunistic and plot-driven. The special task force is as ruthless as the terrorist lot and seems to be driven by more than just the love of the nation.

Kabir (Manav Vij) who is happily manufacturing apple jam is called out of retirement to lead a secret task-force set-up specially to capture dreaded terrorist Umar Riaz (Sumit Kaul), who was presumed dead but has now resurfaced. We don't really get why Kabir would put his life and that of his wife and kids in danger, but since he is the mainstay here, we just have to accept his special interest in bringing the terrorist to book. Thereafter it's a cat-and-mouse chase with the body count getting incremented along the way. It takes all of 12 episodes of Tanaav for Kabir to achieve his goal. In the interim, we are treated to a fast-paced, tension-ridden series of episodes that shift from personal to professional and back and forth with utmost ease.

Performances

Manav Vij as Kabir uses his eyes to express his steely determination to root out his bête noire. Vikrant (Arbaaz Khan) has the limited scope of herding the special task force team in the right direction. Arbaaz is passably convincing in the role, as he gets to throw a fit every time his team steps out of line. This is the first time he has shown some malleability in expression and body language on screen and that's a good thing for his acting ambitions in the future. It's just not enough here. Rajat Kapoor is casually on point here as the roving head of the team, Malik, and is quite the busy bee, as he suavely plays both sides in order to get the desired results. Sahiba Bali (Toshi), Satyadeep Misra (Uday), Arryaman Seth (Danish), Arslan Goni (Kunal), Amit Gaur (Muneer), Rockey Raina (Bilal) are the other members of the elite squad.

Sumit Kaul as Umar takes his jihad to a transcendent level. It's not an obvious performance but a brainy one. Shashank Arora, as Junaid, the most humane of the lot - wears his emotions on his face so we can see the conflict within him every time he is called to do an act that goes beyond his understanding of jihadi ideology. Junaid is the most well-rounded character in the entire series and Arora does a stand-out job bringing him to life. Most of the protagonists (Elite squad members) have little to show other than wear their patriotism on their sleeve while doing a hatchet job of controlling terrorism. Even the antagonists are poorly defined since their main agenda is never revealed other than through hollow talk. MK Raina as Mir Sahab makes for an ideal token representation of an elderly statesman-like jihadist.

The family aspect is written in just to give brutal killers from both sides some cover of humanity. As such it suffices to lend them a dimension that superficially papers over their inhumaneness. Ekta Kaul as Dr. Farah, Zarina Wahab as the mother of a jihadi, Sheen Dass as a vengeance-seeking almost-bride-turned-widow, Sahiba Bali as the token woman operative in the elite squad, Waluscha De Sousa as Umar's wife and Sukhmani Sadana as Kabir's wife play their secondary roles in this male-dominated terrorism drama with befitting ease.

As the title and the titling segment suggest, its tension all the way, with the narrative firing up on all cylinders, vigorously tumbling from one event to the next, providing a breathless, thrilling joyride for the audience. References to real-world issues are fleeting and they don't have enough punch to lend explosiveness to a narrative that is happy in 'chase'.

The casting of pre-dominantly Kashmiri origin actors is a plus here because they bring the lingo and culture of the region to the fore without obvious effort. Most of the actors in Tanaav are competent and do well to make their parts believable enough - even when they fail to lend much complexity to their individual performances.

Verdict

But then it's obvious that Sudhir Mishra is using his actors as mechanics for setting up a fluent, rousing, racy espionage thriller. The script is definitely faulty here but the performances are serviceable enough, the background score is enabling, the costumes are spot-on, the action choreography lends validity to the chaotic conflict, the camerawork and editing are kinetic, the sound and production design are top-notch and the tone and treatment are gritty and propulsive - fuelling enough interest to keep you glued to your small screens all through the long run.