The powerful wildlife crime thriller is co-produced by Alia Bhatt
Unsung government officials are at the center of the difficult and laborious task of protecting Kerala’s wildlife the poacherA tightly crafted eight-episode Amazon Prime Video series written and directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Richie Mehta and executive produced by Alia Bhatt.
As forest rangers wage an uphill battle against poachers, the overstretched (and sometimes conflicted) men and women tasked with bringing criminals to justice prefer not to blow their own trumpets. As with the risks involved in stirring a hornet’s nest, they keep moving away with intent as they continue to grow.
Besides everything else that does the poacher A highly watchable show, the series offers a refreshing break from the hollow bluster and empty rhetoric about cops and spies, goons and terrorists and traitors and patriots that we see in Indian web shows (and movies).
the poacherRestrained and focused, a powerful, precisely narrated wildlife crime thriller that weaves seamlessly into an urgent environmental cautionary tale. It works perfectly as both.
It reveals the brutality of poachers, the vulnerability of the magnificent tusks they hunt, and the tenacity of investigative forest officials who struggle to juggle work and family.
The series doesn’t deny its genre trappings. The heroes are on a mission to destroy a network of snow poachers and illegal ivory suppliers, traders and end buyers. They will do whatever it takes to achieve their ends.
They are heroes in the making. But even though they operate within the narrative construct of good-guys-versus-bad-guys, these people, real and relatable, don’t resort to bombast and purpy grandstanding.
The multi-location, multi-faceted manhunt that Pochar revolves around – spanning from cities, villages and wildlife sanctuaries in Kerala to an art gallery and secret storehouse in Delhi – is exciting, immersive and full of suspense.
Forest officials and their associates conduct surprise raids, set up stakeouts, gather intelligence and analyze all available call record data much like secret agents and crime investigators, but what unfolds in Poacher bears a striking resemblance to the plot dynamics of a police drama. Espionage thriller
the poacher (Malayalam, English, Hindi and a bit of Bengali) By all accounts, streamers have a much stronger thrust than most Indian crime dramas.
It presents an impeccably mounted fictional account of the true events that unfolded in 2015 around the investigation into the country’s largest elephant poaching case. It is a systematic one that is mounted with a strong sense of place and purpose.
A young Indian Forest Service officer, Mala Yogi (Nimisha Sajayan), is plucked from a bird sanctuary and reassigned to an elephant poaching case when the confession of a repentant gang member opens a can of worms.
He has a pressing personal reason for jumping on the mission, but it has nothing to do with the relationship he ended. Her worried single mother is concerned about her daughter’s personal well-being.
An experienced officer, Neil Banerjee (Divyendu Bhattacharya), an Indian intelligence cadre man with counter-terrorism operations in Kashmir behind him, leads the anti-poaching operation while reckoning with serious health problems, a rocky marriage, and inter-departmental problems. Laziness and complexity of dealing with multiple organizations.
Alan Joseph (Roshan Mathew), a computer programmer assigned to a wildlife protection NGO in Delhi, to analyze call record data of suspected poachers and accomplices. He, too, often works around the clock at the cost of his duties as husband and father.
In the opening moments of the series, Aruku (Suraj Pops), a forest watcher in his 30s, shows up at a forest department outpost and confesses to killing 18 elephants. In an exact reenactment of how it played out in real life, the officer he complains to doesn’t take Aruku seriously.
A subsequent botched raid on the hideout of suspected smugglers reveals a deep root problem in a soup with Forest Department and Bhumi Forest Range Officer Vijay Babu (Ankit Madhav). He has been placed under suspension. But the nature and scope of the operation is such that people play an on-off role in it.
The professional challenges that forest officials face complicate things on the home front, further complicating the arcs of key players and making the plot around them more layered.
Mala, Neil and Alan emerge as well-rounded individuals who ooze with emotions that the audience can relate to even as they, on one level, rattle the wheel of an elaborate narrative with people, places and details.
With its steady writing, solid execution and top-notch performances, Poacher draws us deep into the world of forest officials and their workplace. Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew and Divyandu Bhattacharya, leading an ensemble cast, deliver outstanding performances.
Kani Kusruti (in a cameo as a Thiruvananthapuram-based official who pays the price for sticking to his promise) and Suraj Pops as a forest guard who blows the lid off an illegal ivory trade.
letter in the poacher And the actors who play them are in perfect sync with each other, lending the series a level of authenticity that elevates a crime-and-punishment story to the level of an essential chronicle of India’s largest-ever anti-poaching operation.
Tiskars and their habitats as well as other wonderful creatures of the wild that live in the jungle are a constant presence in the series. A slain elephant, shot in the head by the king of poachers, slowly decomposes at the site of the hunt and ants, maggots and vultures feed on its remains until the dead animal is hollowed out and reduced to dust.
Almost all of the eight episodes open with the camera panning over and around gruesome crime scenes – serving as a powerful metaphor for the extent, nature and consequences of the threat facing the pachyderm population in Kerala’s forests.
Working with his Delhi Crime technical team of cinematographer Johann Heuerlein Edt, editor Beverly Mills and composer Andrew Lockington, Mehta orchestrates a masterful display of how to blend fact and fiction in the service of a play designed to entertain, engage and provoke.
the poacher Extravagance is not given but throbs with life. It packs a huge punch and knows exactly when, where and how to land it.
