Hostages, which premièred on Hotstar last week, doesn’t get anything right. A tale of an accomplished surgeon, whose family is held hostage a night before she operates on the Chief Minister doesn’t go anywhere. The hostage takers go about their business lackadaisically as if they are just putting in the requisite hours before clocking out and going home for a cup of tea and samosas.
Created by Rotem Shamir and Omri Givon the Israeli show was originally aired in 2013. Ayelet Zurer (who we remember running around with Tom Hanks looking for anti-matter in the Vatican in Angels and Demons) plays Yael, the surgeon who is asked to kill the Israeli Prime Minister during a routine surgery.
Despite a preposterous plot, the show was gripping thanks to the beautiful and talented Zurer. Multiple plot lines follow the stories of the Yael, her husband, Eyal, who might be hiding secrets of his own, her son Assaf, who is a rebellious 15-year-old hacking computers to impress a girl, her 17-year-old daughter, Noa and the intruders who come with baggage. Even though I watched the Israeli show after watching the Indian adaptation, it was engaging.
The same can definitely not be said of Sudhir Mishra’s adaptation. Though the show is a scene-for-scene remake (even the dog’s name is the same!), Mishra, who started his career as scriptwriter for Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and made the brilliant Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi could have grounded it in a specific space and time. Setting the show in a swanky gated community in Gurgaon offered a chance to look at what happens when the outside collides with that privileged world. It would have been interesting to see the cabin fever setting among the hostages and the intruders. Also since the household help is not there, how does the family manage? Who cooks? Who cleans? It is annoying to see the family looking fresh as flowers after being incarated forever. A couple of self-conscious swear words do not translate to gritty realism.
Tisca Chopra plays the surgeon Mira Anand, Parvin Dabas plays her husband, Sanjay, while Ronit Roy plays the antagonist and Dalip Tahil is the Chief Minister Mira has to kill on the operating table.
Instead of a gripping show with fascinating insights into millennial India, we are stuck with a messy muddle. More is the pity.