Neeraj Pandey’s latest show Taskaree is about yet another government department fighting the good fight. The Netflix series follows a group of Customs officers posted at the Mumbai International Airport. These “honest, motivated and hungry” men and women keep their eyes peeled for taskars, or smugglers.
The couriers bring in anything between undeclared luxury goods and forbidden pygmy marmosets but, mostly, gold. Corruption ensures a free run until Prakash (Anurag Sinha) takes over. Prakash orders the triumvirate of Arjun (Emraan Hashmi), Mitali (Amruta Khanvilkar) and Ravinder (Nandish Sandhu) to take down the kingpin of the gold smuggling racket.
Chaudhary (Sharad Kelkar) is ruthless and resourceful, forcing Arjun and his colleagues to be agile too. Prakash stands by his staffers, piling the pressure on Chaudhary and his posse, which includes Suresh (Jameel Khan), Sayyed (Ekavali Khanna) and Priya (Zoya Afroz).
Neeraj Pandey and Raghav M Jairath have directed the seven-episode Hindi series. The screenplay is by Pandey and Vipul K Rawal.
Taskaree follows from Pandey’s previous films and shows that have different themes and a single intent: to get the job done, whatever the goal or circumstances. Whether hero, villain or compromised government official, everyone in Taskaree is chasing tasks that are duly met or thwarted.
Sub-plots about lovers and family members are cursorily rolled out. The staging is business-like to the point of being workmanlike. The visual drabness is widespread. Even deaths barely register.
There isn’t a trace of guilty pleasure over the 1970s movie-like scenes of smugglers operating somewhere in the foreign to push gold bars, drugs and expensive watches into India. Yet, the most thrilling moments, if they can be described as such, revolve around the seemingly endless forms of smuggling. There is no dearth of ideas in Taskaree for how to bring contraband into the country.
The fourth episode, revolving around a Customs officer played by Hemant Kher, is the most suspenseful. The question of whether honesty pays enlivens some of the other episodes too.
Recurring shots of Arjun and his co-workers striding through corridors are meant to signal their purpose. This lot is certainly virtuous, described as a “rare species” for their commitment and integrity. But they are also deadly dull, far too steeped in dutiful blandness to be approximations of real people tackling actual challenges.
Very few performances stand out, with some of the acting actively ordinary. Virendra Saxena, Jameel Khan and Hemant Kher are among the liveliest performers. Sharad Kelkar benefits from Chaudhary’s characterisation as a cautious, cool-headed adversary.
Chaudhary, like Neeraj Pandey, simply wants to get the job done. Taskaree is free of frills and so flinty about its purpose that even the twists are predictable, Taskaree aims for nothing that is above efficient and therefore gets by.
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