news
Review of Citadel: Honey Bunny: The show does not exactly end in flames, but it also does not leave us gasping as its action sequences blow up on screen.
It gets off to a good start, but the attempt to maintain the momentum is a complete failure. Much of what Citadel: Honey Bunny tries to accomplish is simply too much for a script that, even at its best, can only plod forward and backwards with great effort. Developed last year as an espionage thriller series starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden and executive produced by the Russo brothers, Citadel: Honey Bunny is an Indian spinoff of Amazon Prime Video’s Citadel Spyverse. It lacks suspense and intrigue, despite having plenty of action.
The show does not exactly end in flames, but it also does not leave us gasping as its action sequences blow up on screen. It makes an effort. The effort ruins the experience.
The Russo brothers are back, this time with executive producers and directors Raj & DK, another successful filmmaking duo. However, the film they produce, which stars Varun Dhawan and Samantha as the titular agents, abuses the genre.
1992 and 2000 are the two time periods in which the series is set. There is a scene in the first part where Bollywood stuntman Bunny claims that the way actors die in Hindi movies is not real. He then shows Honey how a man is shot to death in real life.
The different ways that Bunny drops dead are dispersed throughout Citadel as the action alternates between Belgrade and India (Bombay/Mumbai and Nainital). None of them appear shocking or real.
When the main characters shoot in action films and online series, they hit the target. When their enemies shoot back, that is rarely the case. The latter are always able to miss the mark. The situation in Citadel: Honey Bunny is the same.
Regardless of the frequency of her injuries, Honey—who appears to be more susceptible than Bunny to being in the line of fire—recovers swiftly and with newfound energy. Samantha gives the character life, but this energy does not fully translate into the series as a whole.
Varun Dhawan’s boyish demeanour frequently undermines the armour of invincibility that Bunny is supposed to wear in the most trying situations. The actor is obviously not to blame for the character’s lack of nuance.
Along with frequent collaborators Sumit Arora (The Family Man, Guns & Gulaabs) and Sita Menon (Shor in the City, Go Goa Gone, Farzi), Raj & DK aim to establish a global backdrop for this Indian foray into the spy world, which has been having trouble finding a stable place in the genre constellation that also includes an Italian attempt, Citadel: Diana.
The directors’ action sequences in Belgrade, which include a thrilling chase scene through the city’s streets, have their moments. But there are not nearly enough of them.
There is a lot of discussion about improving the world and gaining control over the levers of global power as the plot develops and shifts from the early 1990s to the year 2000. With the main conflict centred on preventing the key to global dominance from ending up in the wrong hands, that is as corny as they get.
The conflicts occur between the agents of Citadel, headed by a stoic, well-dressed Zooni (Simran), and an underground organisation that Bunny works for when he is not doing stunts for movie stars.
The six-episode series uses its more subdued moments to examine family and friendship, love and loyalty, betrayal, and moral quandaries in an attempt to find an emotional core. The noise created by Honey and Bunny’s struggle for survival in a treacherous world where one mistake could be the last drowns out those parts of the series.
“I always make it through. Honey pretends to be an exclusive piece when Bunny shows doubts about her capacity to succeed as a spy. In addition to needing a purpose in life, her cockiness stems from the fact that she, an aspiring movie actress limited to bit roles, is devoted to protecting her precociously tough school-going daughter, Nadia (Kashvi Majmundar).
Not that the little girl needs any hand-holding. After all, Nadia is meant for greater things, which Priyanka Chopra gave us a preview of in 2023’s Citadel. The pre-origin story of agent Nadia Sinh, who at one point disclosed that Rahi Gambhir was her father, is told in this series. Bunny’s name is that.
After years of living in an orphanage, Bunny, who has recovered from a tragedy and found a “Baba” figure in seasoned secret agent Guru (Kay Kay Menon), offers the struggling Honey a one-time job in 1992. The girl, fleeing an unhappy life in a South Indian royal palace, has no choice but to jump right in, despite the danger.
There is only one way to make that leap. Following that route, she finds herself in Belgrade, where she is pursuing a scientist named Raghu Rao (Thalaivasal Vijay), who is thought to be the main figure in Project Talwar, a global surveillance program. During the encounter, secrets are revealed, but the outcome is not entirely what was planned.
The paths of Honey and Bunny recross eight years later. This time around, the war they wage becomes primarily personal. Before Guru’s loose cannon Kedar (Salim Saqeeb) and Zooni’s hitman Shaan (Sikandar Kher) can corner Nadia and her mother, Bunny needs to track them down.
As they search for hiding spots, the pair is never far from the woods. The mother tells Nadia that it is time to switch to “play” mode by saying that she and Nadia are on the radar of “bad men.” The only way to avoid danger is to do that. In the end, the action revolves around Honey and Bunny working together once more to protect Nadia from the threat.
Ludo (Soham Majumdar), a tech geek, and Chako (Shivankit Parihar), an adventurous hottie who has since become a family man, work alongside Bunny in both timelines. With all guns blazing, the three of them enter the battle.
There is more to Honey and Bunny’s past than 1992, and the show would have benefitted from revealing to viewers what the two main characters went through as kids. Both of them want to forget the difficulties they faced as lonely and unhappy children.
While the series primarily focuses on the feisty young girl they must keep safe from rival agents at all costs, their backstories are filled with short flashbacks that only partially explain the mindsets they have carried into adulthood.
Citadel: The Honey Bunny has two sides. One focusses on the spy thriller conventions, which Raj and DK so deftly subverted in The Family Man.
The other has the same kind of vintage Bollywood potboiler vibe that the two simultaneously praised and mocked in Guns & Gulaabs. They do not take any chances on the former count. They also hold back on the latter.
It is never a good idea to aim at a moving target. The fact that Citadel: Honey Bunny is a failure is hardly shocking. It is miles away from the target.
- Cast:
- Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kay Kay Menon, Kashvi Majmundar
- Director:
- Krishna D.K., Raj Nidimoru