Bard of Blood Review: Emraan Hashmi's Fast-Paced Spy Show Is Worth Your Weekend

Netflix has been making steady progress in creating an original content library with Indian filmmakers. Sacred Games has become a marquee show for the streaming giant with the second season winning the nomination at the International Emmy Awards 2019. Netflix's collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan and his production company Red Chillies Entertainment, Bard of Blood, is ready to roll out this Friday and it could very well become your favourite binge-watch for the weekend.

Emran Hashmi is the protagonist Kabir Anand. An exonerated member of RAW who now teaches Shakespeare in a high school. Viineet Kumar Singh, Kirti Kulhari, Jaideep Ahlawat, Rajit Kapur, Sohum Shah, and Sobhita Dhulipala play other important characters in the series. The show opens in Quetta, Balochistan where Taliban leaders, seeking refuge in Pakistan, are handed over four Indian spies by the local Pakistani police. Taliban, under the pressure from ISI, instead of killing these spies gets into negotiation with Indian Intelligence Service and gives them a week's time to save their men.

At first, RAW decides to not play into the Taliban's hands and stall until the Chinese State Visit to New Delhi is taken care of. But soon Lieutenant General Sadiq Sheikh realises that there is more to these kidnappings that meets the eye. So he orders an off-the-books rescue mission. He forces Kabir to come out of retirement. Kabir refuses to acknowledge the request from the agency that was responsible for the death of his partner Vikramjit ten years ago during a dangerous mission in Balochistan. RAW also paid no heed to his warnings about a mole that has been leaking information to Pakistan. But the wheels start to churn when Sadiq Sheikh is murdered after finding out the information about the killers of Vikramjit. Of course, Kabir gets onboard because the loss of the second most important person in his life, a mentor, father figure is motivation enough to race against time and save his country.

This barebones rescue mission runs with the support of forgotten RAW agent in Afghanistan Veer Singh as their stringer. Isha Khanna, one of the best analysts of RAW who has been itching to go on a mission (a slight deviation from the source material), and Nihar Shah, a cyber specialist sitting in New Delhi. His opponent in this game if Tanveer Shehzad who is a brigadier in Pakistan army and an ISI operative responsible for handling Taliban leaders. Tanveer is ruthless and the poster child of Pakistan deep state. He has been hatching a bigger plan that goes beyond negotiations over four Indian spies and the subsequent rescue mission. He is also connected with Kabir's botched up mission that gives Kabir's efforts a personal touch of revenge.

Bard of Blood of deals with the socio-political tension between arch-enemies India and Pakistan. The Taliban angle seems crucial to a casual onlooker, but the story builds in to show that in grand political schemes they nothing more than weaponised puppets. Bard of Blood is fast-paced. It is a simpler version of the spy movies like Bourne series or Mission Impossible. It depends on the experiences and human connections of the spies than relying on what people like James Bond's Quater Master or in this case Nihar Shah can provide the spies in terms of technological support. There are a lot of hand-to-hand combat scenes involved, a fair amount of gun-fighting and realistic car chases.

The book by Bilal Siddiqui shows that Kabir prefers quoting Shakespeare hence the name -- Bard of Blood. But the current version of Kabir quotes the Bard only when reminiscing about his romantic past. Since when Shakespeare is limited to love quotes? What happened to the royal courts and the sabotages in Hamlet? The episode titles are named after Shakespeare quotes and the themes carried in the respective installments do justice to those quotes. But there is still room to wish for more Bard.

Bard of Blood runs like an elongated movie. The pace slows down when we dive into the flashback scenes that show the bond between Kabir and Vikramjit, their previous mission in Balochistan. But because director Ribhu Dasgupta bookends these scenes with the present-day scenes in which Kabir & Co are racing against the one-week deadline, the slow pace doesn't hurt the narration. It is rare to use Balochistan's struggle for freedom as a plot point in the story. Bilal Siddiqui and Mayank Tewari weave a good thread around it. Pakistan's tricky situation with Balochistan, hypocrisy towards Kashmir, China and India's problems over Arunachal Pradesh etc., make part of the conversations and the chess moves made by all the parties involved. Keeping the story grounded in real-life events has been working well for Netflix in the context of Indian original content. Be it Selection Day or Sacred Games. Bard of Blood follows the same tone. Therefore becomes more interesting than it would be for an alright spy story.

There are a few things that will bother those who have been hardcore fans of BBC Sherlock. First, Emraan Hashmi's introduction scene is freakishly similar to Martin Freeman's introduction as Dr John Watson. Second, the music for the opening credits has lingering notes that are similar to those of the opening credits of Sherlock. David Arnold's music is hard to miss.

Emraan Hashmi makes a good Kabir Anand. The physique of a spy is there. He blends in. The transition between scenes that show PTSD ridden Kabir of now and daring Kabir of past feels seamless because of Hashmi's acting skills. Viineet Kumar Singh is another brilliant actor on board. His Punjabi accent carries traces of Pashto and Afghani way of speaking after having spent over a year in the region. Dialogues do not force Talibanis to speak in Hindi if they don't need. A good blend of Pashto, Urdu, Hindi, and a bit of Punjabi gives a realistic touch to the fictional story. Rajit Kapur and Kirti Kulhari tick the boxes they are supposed to but Kulhari's character demands more than what she has offered in terms of passion and pressure of her character's personal and professional life. Sobhita Dhulipala's lips do all the acting. There is nothing else you can focus on when she is in the frame. Her Isha Khanna, despite being the best analyst in the agency, is reduced to taking orders from Kabir. It is good that Hashmi and Singh carry her in their scenes together. The stoic act might have worked in Zoya Akhtar's Made In Heaven, it doesn't take a flight here.

Bard of Blood is worth a weekend if you are looking for a good spy show. The cliffhanger will definitely make you seek a second season for the show. The series can be a worthy replacement to John Krasinki's Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime Video for the Indian audience.