To set the record straight, Raj-DK’s Indian avatar of the Citadel streaming on Amazon Prime Video is vastly superior to its original American franchise. And yes, the bright young Kashvi Majumdar who plays Nadia, the character in this prequel who grows up to be Priyanka Chopra in The Citadel, is as good an actress as Priyanka.
Citadel : Honey Bunny is a lesson casual tautness.
Clambering assuredly into the Citadel franchise, Raj and DK along with their regular script enhancer Sita Menon,deliver a bolt from the brew: the crazily speedy concoction is heady and always steady on its feet.
Many a times, I felt the narration would topple over under the burden of risky briskness. Somehow ,the plot is pinned to a position of unwavering steadiness even when the characters stand on shaky ground.Simran and Sikandar Kher play underdeveloped characters but never allow you to feel their inadequacies.
And even when the narration cuts to the chase, literally, there is always a sense of imminent redemption peering fixedly from behind the narration’s shoulder.
The espionage-centric plot deconstructs the clumsy cloak-and-trigger formula of Priyanka Chopra’s chic but vacuous antecedent to show her character Nadia as a little girl on the run with her mother Honey (Samantha, delivering a strong argument for the shero without the crutches of the hero).
Kashvi Majumdar is a prized find. Her scenes with her screen mother exhale more energy than anything between Varun Dhawan and Samantha.Varun , as it turns out, is the weakest link in the taut plot. His boyish personality makes him look like an amateur in a team of professionals. He has major confrontation sequences with Samantha and the indomitable K K Menon. Varun comes out distinctly weak with both, even when KK’s part cries for a rounded closure.
Luckily Varun’s pale performance doesn’t impede this series from being a certifiable showstopper. Indeed Citadel Honey Bunny is a lean sinewy flab-free narrative, with the characters never failing to form a pyramid of intrigue. Even the minor characters are effectually portrayed by actors who are in this for the long haul.
Soham Majumdar who plays the computer geek in the espionage organization gets a few personality strokes(his aversion to physical touch) and he’s on.Everyone is an individual in this cohesively built jigsaw of spying and counter-spying. The core concern remains a mother’s anxiety to protect her daughter from harm.
Sharply written and expertly formulated the Samantha-Kashvi chemistry is exceptional, as is Samantha’s furious face-off with her adversaries in Episode 2.
Nothing in Citadel: Honey Bunny calls for a truce. Ferociously uncompromising in its quest for thrills, the pace never loses its grace even when the long-legged narration gets ahead of itself.
Set in two time zones, the execution of the intricate plot never falls short of breath. Is this the best series of 2024? Probably, as long as the ingrained cleverness of the plot doesn’t make you uneasy. Watch out for tongue-in-cheek references to Ramesh Sippy’s Shaan, Prayag Raj’s Ghair Kanooni , Alisha Chinai’s Ah, Alisha and yes, Sriram Raghavan’s Agent Vinod.
