IC 814: Kandahar Hijack Review
New Delhi:
The captain of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane fixes a clogged toilet pipe The passengers applauded. No need to clap for me, says the man, I was just doing my duty. Has a Bollywood rescue drama hero ever made his debut so selflessly? But, then, aside from its genre, there is little IC 814: Kandahar Hijack That’s conventional.
The response of pilots, flight attendants and intelligence officers, bureaucrats and a foreign minister defines the elements and scope of the panic-inducing crisis. IC 814: Kandahar Hijack Narrative It’s taut and tense six-episode Netflix series inspired by true events gives it an instantly engaging rhythm.
Indian film fans have seen several hijack thrillers in recent years, including an over-plotted, messy fictional Malayalam actioner starring Mohanlal and Amitabh Bachchan (Kandahar, 2010) IC 814: Kandahar HijackDirected and co-produced by Anubhav Sinha, finds its own way to fly.
None other than Captain Sharan Dev (Vijay Verma) pushes the series in that direction. By being imaginatively conceived and fleshed out, he gives a new spin to the idea of heroism. In doing so, he freed the show from the constraints of genre conventions.
Varma is not rocking the action like Siddharth Malhotra warrior Or talk tough like Akshay Kumar bell bottom. The choices the character makes don’t lead to superficial thrills but to life-threatening conflicts that test his true mettle as a man and a pilot.
In the face of grave danger and provocation – his plane, en route from Kathmandu to Delhi on Christmas Eve 1999, was hijacked by five masked terrorists and forced to fly to Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and finally with rapidly depleting fuel tanks. KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The captain displayed exemplary courage and presence of mind.
It’s all in a day’s work for a man trained to keep his cool in the most adverse situations. But unfortunately for him and the distraught crew, the ordeal lasts an entire week. Captain Dev has 180 passengers on his watch. Saving their lives is his top priority.
The robbers became increasingly restless. There is no end to the patience of panicked passengers. And the crew begins to wound up as agony gives way to torture. The series, however, does not limit the plight of those on board. It is also the reason for two journalists running into a newsroom covering the frenetic discussions and stories of constant change initiated by the crisis management team in Delhi’s corridors of power.
Investing the plot with dramatic energy and surprising elements was the greatest challenge before the research and writing team. They prove equal to the task. IC 814: Kandahar Hijack Striking a fine balance between the real and the imaginary, the concrete and the hypothetical, the imaginary and the speculative, without letting the imaginary overshadow the real.
The highwire thriller is firmly on the ground. It amplifies multiple conflicts and flashpoints. From the interpersonal to the geopolitical, the immediate to the historical, they are interwoven in the build-up to the climax in a face-off in the sky and a negotiation between Indian officials and the ISI-backed hijackers.
The series presents events as they unfold without undue embellishment. A voiceover occasionally provides context while sporadic snippets of news footage emphasize the gravity – and ‘reality’ – of the situation.
The extensive details of the events that took place on the plane that crashed 25 years ago are public knowledge, especially if one has read the real-life accounts published by the pilot.
Sinha (in his streaming debut) led a writing team that included co-producer Trishant Srivastava (Netflix’s Jamtara: Sabka No. Ayeaga) and British journalist Adrian Levy (who shares story credit with Srivastava). They deliver a show that is never hampered by the formula of big Hindi cinema.
The series has an inescapable dominance of visual effects. The camerawork by Ewan Mulligan and Ravi Kiran Iyagari is superbly effective, and the sudden and frightening explosions bring the edge-of-the-seat action and anticipation to life. Yet the series has a restrained near-documentary quality.
IC 814: Kandahar HijackFilmed in Jordan, Nepal and Mumbai, originally based on Captain Devi Sharan’s book Flight to Fear. The script used additional input from another book, Anil Sharma’s IA’s Terror Trail, which chronicled 16 hijackings of Indian airliners from the early 1970s to the late 1990s.
Apart from what the solid research and script carries to the series, a great ensemble cast elevates it IC 814: Kandahar Hijack Above normal. The show features more than 100 actors, many of whom are little known, including those playing the passengers on the plane. However, each of them contributes to enhance the impact of the play.
Vijay Verma in ‘Pilot’ show as a man whose planned annual vacation with his wife and daughter is ruined by a mugging. The actor’s subdued intensity conveys tenacity rather than showy bravado, a characterization technique implicit in the writing itself.
Patralekha is superb as the flight attendant Indrani whose inner turmoil is accentuated by the fact that she has to leave her ailing father at home. She’s not the only female in the series but she’s in almost as much action as the show’s other main characters.
The series builds considerable purchase on the emotionally draining personal aspect it juxtaposes with the professional tragedies that pilots and airhostesses face in the line of duty.
Dia Mirza plays a newspaper editor who believes in the virtues of caution. Amrita Puri has been cast as an indomitable newshound. Working together, the two often clashed with each other on professional matters. The clash of their different approaches gives an extra dimension to the show.
IC 814: Kandahar Hijack It wouldn’t be half the series without veteran actors Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapoor, Arvind Swamy, Kumud Mishra and Manoj Pahwa. They add immeasurably to the depth and weight of the show.
The camera pans around them. They hover over each other. They grapple with contrasting perspectives that underscore inter-disciplinary heterogeneity. Individually and together, these past masters of their craft are a treat to watch.
Kanwaljit Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Sushant Singh and Divyandu Bhattacharya are somewhat underutilized, which is perhaps inevitable in a mini-series with a wide array of characters to vie for. But there is nothing else in between IC 814: Kandahar Hijack Can find fault with that.
Authentic and to the point, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is as good a web series as we’ve seen this year.
