Citadel Honey Bunny is a tedious watch with occasional sparks, though Varun and Samatha seem like good casting choices.
Citadel: Honey Bunny
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kay Kay Menon, Saqib Saleem, Kashvi Majumdar
Showrunners: Raj and DK
Rating: 2/5
The Indian spin-off of Prime Video’s US show Citadel, titled Honey Bunny, follows the making of super agent Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra). Although Priyanka does not appear in the series, it is about her parents Honey (Samantha) and Bunny (Varun Dhawan) and they become Citadel agents. Little Nadia (Kashvi) has a strong presence throughout the series and shows an early tendency to be a tough girl.
While Honey is a struggling actor, Bunny is a stuntman living a double life as an agent under Baba (Kay Kay Menon). The period is somewhere around 1992 and the locations are Mumbai, Belgrade, Nainital and Bucharest. As expected, Baba and his top assassin KD (Saqib Saleem) are after Honey’s life even after eight years in 2000, but as sentiments would go, Bunny returns as the wall between death and life.
For starters, it’s a template show: fast, punchy music, handheld camera, Hinglish dialogue and quirky character traits. Something Raj and DK have done in The Family Man, Farzi, Guns & Gulaabs and A Gentleman. Just as these projects can be arranged in descending order, Honey Bunny is the newest addition to the trail. Varun Dhawan and Samantha’s star power makes it bearable for six long episodes, otherwise it’s a boring, mindless parallel universe story that is in dire need of tight editing, better scripting and more character depth.
The action scenes, especially the gunfight scenes on the roads of Belgrade, are worth watching, but it’s no Heat (1995). Fortunately, the main characters speak less and look at the role, which adds some authenticity, but that’s about it. No major work has been done to create the intensity necessary for such storylines. The Russo Brothers also failed miserably in the original Citadel, but it was much sharper than the Indian version.
There are no serious attempts to explore the identity and space that form the main characters, and the creators basically stick to delivering an adrenaline rush every 15 minutes. Sloppy writing doesn’t let that happen either.
What Raj and DK created with The Family Man forms the solid foundation for spy thrillers set in India. They understood the quirks and wishes. Honey Bunny feels very westernized, as if the American faces have been replaced by Indian actors following the same methods and practices.
Kay Kay and Saqib add some value but fail to create some excitement for the audience. With such basic writing, the actors must have felt limited.
Citadel Honey Bunny is a tedious watch with occasional sparks, though Varun and Samatha seem like good casting choices. If they had acted like stars on the show, it could have been more bearable.
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