Cast: Anil Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ravi Behl, Saswata Chatterjee, Tillotama Shome, Jagdish Rajpurohit
Director: Sandeep Modi
Language: Hindi
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The idea to split the Hindi adaptation of The Night Manager into two parts is debatable. We have seen the first four episodes in February and now Disney Hotstar drops the final three. Of course, it all continues from where it all ended. Aditya Roy Kapur, that swashbuckling soldier turned night manager is now Abhimanyu Mathur, Shelly’s (Anil Kapoor) business partner. This partnership not only allows him to dig deeper into this Shaitaan’s (this is what Tillotama Shome calls him in one scene) sins but also acts as an opportunity or maybe excuse for the show to travel across different parts of the world; from Dubai to Dhaka, where it all began. It was the lusciousness of Sri Lanka in part one. For starters, the cinematography by Benjamin Jasper and Anik Ram Verma, is seductive. So is the way the actors have been styled, particularly Kapoor, who owns the narrative and chews the scenery in designer clothes and devilish ambitions.
But the contrasting colors of the frames never reach the characters: Kapoor goes from shades of grey to pure black, Kapur is white as ever, and so is Shome. Even Sobhita Dhulipala, all battered and bruised in one key scene, doesn’t go beyond a suspicious wife who’s sexually and emotionally attracted to the man who works for her husband. There are some perplexing loose ends too, Mrinal’s (Rukhsar Rehman) absence, Shelly‘s sudden coldness towards his right-hand man Jayu (Ravi Behl), Brijpal (Saswata Chatterjee) never confronting Shelly and exposing Shaan’s real identity, Lipika and her colleague casually using their mobile phones and sending anonymous tips in the middle of an interrogation. Also puzzling is how Shaan is so easily able to eliminate anyone who’d threaten to blow his cover.
But because the story and screenplay have been credited to Shridhar Raghavan, the series cannot be a dead duck for sure. One of the episodes is called Magic Trick and there’s a nice twist in the end. Also intriguing is how Shelly ultimately discovers who Shaan really is. But it’s hard to decode Kapur’s performance; is he wooden or just being too courteous throughout since he’s a night manager, managing to charm one and all with just a smile and limited expressions? The other Kapoor, loses all his restrain in the final episode, ultimately done, dusted, and defeated, which also throws an unexpected twist. The show is called Imarti, and the reason has something to do with one of the episodes of part one. The Night Manager is a mixed-bag with an eye-watering camerawork but not enough depth. But if it’s all style you’re looking for, this may not be a bad option. We don’t have too many series that can make blood look beautiful anyway.
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