Anil Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur-starrer The Night Manager is a slow burn show based on the 1993 espionage novel by British author John le Carré. The Disney+ Hotstar series takes off in Dhaka, in the middle of the Rohingya crisis unfolding in neighbouring Myanmar, with the death of a girl.
Creator Sandeep Modi, of Aarya (2020) fame, utilises his strengths to the show’s advantage — its eclectic cast and the screenplay. The four-episode first part holds your attention throughout its three-hour runtime, made captivating by the menacing presence of Shelly Rungta (Anil Kapoor) who is as much a myth as a real danger.
Aditya Roy Kapoor plays Shaan Sengupta, an Indian night manager in The Orient Pearl and reprises the role played by Tom Hiddleston in the 2016 BBC adaptation of the novel by David Farr.
A solid Indian adaptation
What starts off as Shaan trying to help the 14-year-old Indian wife Safina of business mogul Freddie Rohman fleeing the country and escaping her marriage soon becomes a deadly game. Safina secretly records a video of her husband negotiating an arms deal with influential India businessman Shelly, who is known to the world as a philanthropist. In reality, he is fuelling the quickly escalating Rohingya crisis.
Shaan is unable to save Safina, and the guilt weighs him down. R&AW agent Lipika Saikia Rao (Tillotama Shome) gets demoted for trying to pursue a case against Rungta. But when Rungta lands up in the hotel Shaan works in, the cat and mouse game to bring him to justice begins, at the behest of Rao.
While comparisons with the original are unavoidable, the adaptation to suit an Indian viewership does not dilute the experience. The themes of alienation of each character, and of dealing with the ghosts of the past emerge every few minutes, especially for Shaan.
An intriguing cast
What holds the show together is the cast. Anil Kapoor brings his A-game as the ruthless, two-faced Shelly. He aces the constantly shifting poles of narcissism and desperation with elan.
Aditya Roy Kapur is no Tom Hiddleston, but he delivers a solid performance. His transition from being a yes man of sorts as a night manager to a spy on the clock is convincing. He falters in the shared moments of innocence with Taha, the son of Shelly he saves from miscreants to enter the latter’s household.
Sobhita Dhulipala plays Kaveri, wife of Shelly, who is navigating her own loneliness as the wife of a man who can be charming and ruthless at the drop of a hat. The sexual tension between Shaan and Kaveri is palpable, and the season rushes towards hinting at its culmination, and complications in the covert operation. Though she does not have a major role to play in the first installment, the next could well be her zone.
The handpicked ensemble cast has Tilottama Shome as RA&W agent, who again delivers an impeccable performance, after her stellar performance in Delhi Crime (2022).
Saswata Chatterjee, well-known for playing the contract killer Bob Biswas in Kahaani (2012), plays Shelly’s right-hand man Brij Pal. Chatterjee plays Brij, who loves a selection of attractive young men around him, but who also keeps a hawk-eye over Shaan.
The first installment has set the tone for the show, and it remains to be seen if the pace and action picks up in the next and drives it out of the park.