The Freelancer review: This series is definitely worth watching

This series comes as a blessing for the struggling OTT platform Hotstar. To the uninitiated, the 4-episode Season 1 is loosely based on Shirish Thorat's 'A Ticket to Syria'

Hyderabad: Neeraj Pandey has become a synonym for espionage movies related to RAW. Be it in Baby or Aiyyari, Pandey has ensured that the audience are glued to the screen. So is the case with The Freelancer.

This series comes as a blessing for the struggling OTT platform Hotstar. To the uninitiated, the 4-episode Season 1 is loosely based on Shirish Thorat’s ‘A Ticket to Syria’.

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It is the story of a former Indian cop mercenary, nicknamed the Freelancer, trying to get his close friend’s daughter out of Syria.

The story starts off with a chase. Aliya Khan (Kashmira Pardesi) is chased in the streets of a border town in Turkey. It is revealed that she is married to her lover Mohsin Fazal (Navneet Malik) and is tricked into travelling to Syria to join a wing of the ISIS for ‘the cause’.

Her father, Inayat Khan (Sushant Singh) is worried from lack of communication with Aliya and is left helpless when even the police refuse to step in and investigate. In desperation, he stages a terrorist attack on the US Consulate. The news reaches his friend Avinash Kamath (Mohit Raina) who is none other than the Freelancer.

Season 1 basically deals with establishing the plot for Season 2. The episodes give you a glimpse into Avinash’s life and his relationships, including his troubled relationship with his wife Mrunal (Manjari Fadnis).

Neeraj’s research on the operation of ISIS is clearly visible. Tragically director Bhav Dhulia relies a tad too much on it and at times, it looks more like a documentary on the functioning of the terrorist organisation than a series on espionage. The operational aspects of the terrorist organisation is too detailed. The general ‘watch your back’ scenes in most espionage outings is missing.

The script revolves around Mohit Raina, and he delivers. It is almost a walk in the park for Mohit after playing the role of Mahadev in Devon Ke Dev Mahadev.

Anupam Kher is passionate as Dr Khan who helps Avinash. He does what is expected of him in the limited screen time he has. Kashmira Pardeshi gives a spirited performance as a young lady trying to grasp the severity of the situation and desperately looking for a way out.

The Freelancer makes an interesting outing. All actors contribute irrespective of their screen time. This is no Baby or Special Ops. But it is definitely worth a dekho.