A statue of the Indian police. (Courtesy of itsrohitshetty)
Rohit Shetty's tireless cops land awkwardly, if not completely shaky, in the universe of web shows. They're targeting “India's Most Wanted Terrorist” – a young man who has sinister plans up his sleeve but looks like he would have a hard time swatting a fly. The resulting thriller is trite and devoid of any real heat and dust.
Indian Police Force, an Amazon original series, is basically a slightly altered and toned down version of Sooryavanshi (2021), Shetty's fourth Cop Universe film. If there's something different here, it's this: the sound of the seven-parter is not as shrill as the film. It pits a fearless Muslim police officer against a radicalized youth intent on wreaking havoc across India.
The series makes no apparent attempt to be a gritty, detailed portrayal of the men and women who make up the overworked security apparatus that struggles day after day to protect India's sprawling capital. It unfolds in such a stilted and unstimulating way that there is never a realistic chance of rising above the mundane.
Created and directed by Rohit Shetty, with a story and screenplay by Sandeep Saket and Anusha Nandkumar, Indian Police Force makes the cardinal mistake of aiming for surface polish and routine thrills rather than striving for immersive, hard-hitting realism.
The show is packed with action sequences, gunfights and car chases, but is unusually lacking in the thunder and high-pitched noise associated with the cop universe. However, this does not necessarily contribute to authenticity. The show's superficial style prevents it from being the compelling police drama it could have been.
The lead actors – Sidharth Malhotra, Shilpa Shetty and Vivek Oberoi – fail to generate any real spark of freshness given the stale material in which they are trapped. They radiate courage and invincibility. Their boasting is tiresome and their verbal volleys are meaningless. Tragedy strikes the team at a crucial point, but the team presses on, unaware of the dangers they face in the line of duty.
The main protagonist Kabir Malik (Malhotra) is the first Muslim police officer in a universe of Singham, Simmba and Sooryavanshi – a balancing act in a script that ultimately cannot see beyond comfortable and established binaries.
One of Kabir's key associates, Tara Shetty (Shilpa Shetty), head of the ATS in Gujarat, is called in to help the Delhi Police's special task force when a series of explosions rock the city. His superior in the force, Vikram Bakshi (Oberoi), Tara's academy colleague, has a calming effect when the pressure mounts. At her side is also the steadfast Rana Virk (Nikitin Dheer).
Kabir is implied to be hot-headed and prone to breaking protocol, although we never see him go off the rails in any significant way. However, at the start of the series he is stuck in the police housing department, a job he understandably has no enthusiasm for. He's itching to get back on the field.
When bombs explode in another city and intelligence suggests that Goa could be the next target, Kabir finds out that the man behind all the terrorist attacks is the same man – Zarar (Mayyank Taandon). He convinces his boss Jaideep Bansal (Mukesh Rishi) to entrust him with the case.
The main suspect has changed his name, married the young student Nafeesa (Vaidehi Parashurami) and retired to Darbhanga, Bihar. But once the manhunt begins, Zarar and his accomplices have few places to hide as the police, along with undercover secret agent Jagtap (Sharad Kelkar, who appears late), launch a covert cross-border operation to nab the terrorists.
Kabir Malik's name, unlike that of Mumbai Police Joint CP Kabir Shroff (Jaaved Jafferi) in Sooryavanshi, does not immediately reveal his religious identity. When the cowering terrorists he captures claim that their actions are a response to the injustice suffered against them and their families, the intrepid officer portrays himself as a true, courageous and just Muslim.
There are others. Two terrorist brothers are rejected by their parents. Don't spare her, her mother says to one of the police officers. The father of a boy lost in a sleeper cell refuses to go on the Hajj pilgrimage with the money provided by his lost son. And a young woman, at risk of turning her life upside down, takes a “patriotic” stance at the expense of her personal happiness.
Despite its desire for balance, the Indian police do little to expand (or improve) our understanding of how on-the-ground policing actually works in a busy Indian metropolis that requires round-the-clock surveillance in the face of many looming threats works about it.
The show is a patchwork of clichés, a sprawling cut-and-paste job at best, juggling components from the director's successful police procedurals on the big screen. He manages, in a pale and sterile way, to piece together a story of men (and a woman) in uniform who risk their lives in the service of the nation.
Neither rousing in style nor radical in approach, “Indian Police Force” is just another rather tame, entirely predictable cat-and-mouse affair that weaves through bomb defusals, police raids, shootouts, explosions and flying vehicles. It's like watching another Rohit Shetty film with a different aspect ratio.
From the beginning, the audience knows where the whole thing will end, with the statement “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” It was done to death. As a result, the show doesn't really offer value for money.
With a preponderance of drone/fly cam footage flying over the city skyline, often showing the tourist landmarks of Delhi and Goa, interspersed with street-level action that sees the police officers tackling serious personal and professional challenges the Indian Police has the look and feel of a big screen production that has incongruously landed on a digital platform.
Instead of offering the exhaustive look at a city on the edge that “Delhi Crime” offers, the Indian police are content to dish out conventional action blocks and car chases.
The biggest attribute that Indian police lack is violence. The Prime Video show runs as expected and is bone dry. It's only for die-hard fans of the cop universe. It urgently needs new inspiration.
Pour:
Sidharth Malhotra, Shilpa Shetty, Vivek Oberoi, Mukesh Rishi, Shweta Ashok Tiwari, Mrinal Ruchir Kulkarni, Nikitin Dheer, Mayyank Taandon, Vaidehi Parashurami, Sharad Kelkar, Ritu Raj Singh, Isha Talwar
Director:
Rohit Shetty