Citadel: Honey Bunny, & A Run For Their  Money

Citadel: Honey Bunny, & A  Run For Their  Money

Rating: ****

 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.