The captain of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane fixes a clogged toilet pipe. The passengers applaud. No need to clap for me, the man says, I was only performing my duty. Has the hero of a Bollywood rescue drama ever been so nonchalantly self-effacing? But, then, barring its genre, there is little in IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack that is conventional.
The response of the pilot, the flight attendants and a phalanx of intelligence officials, bureaucrats and an external affairs minister to the panic-inducing crisis defines the substance and scope of the IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack narrative. It gives the tense and taut six-episode Netflix series inspired by true events an instantly gripping rhythm.
Indian movie fans have seen several hijack thrillers in recent years, including an over-plotted, messily fictionalized Malayalam actioner starring Mohanlal and Amitabh Bachchan (Kandahar, 2010). IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, directed and co-created by Anubhav Sinha, finds its own flight path.
Nobody does more than Captain Sharan Dev (Vijay Varma) in pushing the series down that route. Imaginatively conceived and fleshed out, he gives the notion of heroism a fresh spin. In doing so he frees the show from constricting genre conventions.
Varma does not swing into action like Sidharth Malhotra of Yodha or talk tough like Akshay Kumar of Bell Bottom. The choices that the character makes do not yield superficial thrills but spark life-threatening conflicts that put his true mettle as a man and a pilot to the test.
In the face of grave danger and provocation - his aircraft, on the way from Kathmandu to Delhi on Christmas eve of 1999, is hijacked by five masked terrorists and forced to fly with a fast-depleting fuel tank to Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and finally Kandahar, Afghanistan - the captain demonstrates 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 harried crew, the ordeal lasts an entire week. Captain Dev has 180 passengers on his watch. Saving their lives is his top priority.
The hijackers turn increasingly antsy. The panic-stricken passengers run out of patience. And the crew begin to falter as torment gives way to torture. The series does not, however, limit itself to the plight of those on board. It also factors in the frenzied parleys initiated by the crisis management team in the corridors of power in Delhi and the moves of two journalists in a newsroom covering the constantly shifting story.
Investing the plot with dramatic power and elements of surprise would have been the biggest challenge before the research and writing team. They prove equal to the task. IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack strikes a fine balance between the factual and the imaginary, the concrete and the conjectural, the sanguine and the speculative without letting the fictive overshadow the tangible.
The highwire thriller keeps its feet firmly on the ground. It amplifies multiple conflicts and flashpoints. Ranging from the interpersonal to the geopolitical, from the immediate to the historical, these are inherent in the faceoff in the air and in the negotiations between Indian officials and the ISI-backed hijackers in the lead-up to the climax.
The series presents events as they unfold without gratuitous adornments. A voiceover occasionally provides context while sporadic snatches of news footage emphasize the gravity - and the 'reality' - of the situation.
The broad details of the events that unfolded aboard the imperiled aircraft 25 years ago are public knowledge especially if one has read the pilot's published real-life account.
Sinha (in his streaming debut) leads a writing team that includes co-creator Trishant Srivastava (Netflix's Jamtara: Sabka Number Ayega) and British journalist Adrian Levy (who shares the story credit with Srivastava). They deliver a show that is never hamstrung by a big Hindi movie formula.
The series has an inevitable preponderance of visual effects. The camerawork by Ewan Mulligan and Ravi Kiran Ayyagari is strikingly effective, and the sudden and alarming bursts of edge-of-the-seat action and anticipation liven up the show. Yet the series has a controlled near-documentary quality.
IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, filmed in Jordan, Nepal and Mumbai, is based primarily on Captain Devi Sharan's book Flight to Fear. The script uses additional inputs from another book, Anil Sharma's IA's Terror Trail, which recounts 16 cases of hijacking of Indian aircraft from the early 1970s to the late 1990s.
Besides what the solid research and script bring to bear upon the series, a wonderful ensemble cast elevates IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack above the ordinary. Including those playing the passengers in the aircraft, the show has well over 100 actors, many of whom are little-known. However, each one of them contributes to heightening the impact of the drama.
Vijay Varma 'pilots' the show as a man whose planned yearend vacation with his wife and daughter is scuttled by the hijacking. The actor's subdued intensity conveys tenacity rather than showy bravado, a characterization strategy ingrained in the writing itself.
Patralekhaa is splendid as flight attendant Indrani whose inner turmoil is accentuated by the fact that she has had to leave her ailing father at home. She isn't the only woman in the series but she is nearly as much in the thick of the action as most of the show's other key characters.
The series generates considerable purchase from the emotionally draining personal facets that it adds to the professional calamity that the pilot and the airhostess face in the line of duty.
Dia Mirza plays a newspaper editor who believes in the virtues of caution. Amrita Puri is cast as an irrepressible newshound. Working in tandem, the two have frequent run-ins with each other on professional matters. The collision of their differing approaches lends the show an extra dimension.
IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack would not be half the series it is without its formidable slew of veteran actors - notably Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Arvind Swamy, Kumud Mishra and Manoj Pahwa. They immeasurably enhance the show's depth and weight.
The camera swirls around them. They hover over each other. They go head-to-head with contrarian points of view that underscore inter-departmental divergences. Individually and together, these past masters of their craft are a treat to watch.
Kanwaljit Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Sushant Singh and Dibyendu Bhattacharya are somewhat underutilised, which is perhaps unavoidable in a miniseries with a wide array of characters vying for attention. But there is little else in IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack that one can find fault with.
Authentic and to the point, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is as good a web series as any we have seen this year.
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Vijay Varma, Patralekhaa, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Dia Mirza