The Night Manager
Cast: Aditya Roy Kapur, Anil Kapoor, Sobhita Dhulipala, Tillotama Shome, Saswata Chatterjee, and Ravi Behl
Creator: Sandeep Modi
Where to watch: Disney+ Hotstar
Rating: 2.5 stars
The Night Manager – the original British one – was hailed as Tom Hiddleston’s James Bond audition when it first released some seven years ago. A taut spy thriller with two heavyweight performers, it was a delightful watch. As far as potential remakes go, this one was ripe for the taking. There is thrill, glamorous locales, espionage, and a steamy love triangle. How can you go wrong? Well, in four episodes, the Hindi remake tells you exactly how one can go wrong despite all this, and some great actors along with it.
The Night Manager is the story of Shaan Sengupta (Aditya Roy Kapur), the night manager of a hotel in Dhaka, who tries to help a hotel guest in trouble. He contacts an Indian intelligence operative (Tillotama Shome) to help but the attempt ends up in a tragedy. Years later, he crosses path with the man responsible, dangerous arms dealer Shelly Rungta (Anil Kapoor in a menacing avatar) and is convinced to infiltrate his operations to try and bring him down from the inside. But he must navigate Shelly’s doubts and the fact that he has fallen in love with his mistress (played by Sobhita Dhulipala).
The Night Manager stretches the British version’s six-episode content into eight episodes, releasing the first part of four episodes in February. The show starts off in a promising manner. It sets the opening in the middle of the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh as opposed to the original show’s Arab Spring. It’s a bold and interesting choice that pays off. Then, it changes one character from an adult to a 14-year-old, not only adding their vulnerability but bringing more layers to the hero’s character. He helps someone not just because he is attracted but because he wants to.
But where The Night Manager falters is in avoiding the political subtext of the original. The British series dealt with the reluctance of the authorities to act on the arms dealer as it served their interests. It showed a mirror to the West’s ventriloquist-like approach with the governments of the Third World. The Indian adaptation stays away from all that and instead chalks the reluctance to corruption. The show is not as well researched as one like this should be and it changes some elements that were actually the best aspects of the original.
All this means that a weaker plot needs its actors to shine. Anil Kapoor understands the assignment and does just that. The man needs to play negative characters more often because he towers above everyone else in the frame when he is being menacing. He makes the show watchable even in its most dull parts. Aditya Roy Kapur also brings his A-game but he isn’t quite all there. He lacks the charm and disarming smile that made Tom Hiddleston such a good protagonist. Jonathan Pine worked because people readily trusted and liked him. Shaan Sengupta seems shiftier and more brooding.
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Sobhita Dhulipala is a welcome sight in the show and manages to look both vulnerable and glamorous, doing her job well. Of the support cast, my favourites are Tillotama Shome and Saswata Chatterjee, who make sure that their author-backed roles get the performances they deserve. If it was not for the performances, The Night Manager wouldn’t be half the show it is.
But the show lags heavily in its emotional scenes. Shaan’s conviction and the reason why he decides to spy on Shelly are not brought out as clearly as they needed to be for the character to work. How Shaan is able to win a dangerous arms dealer over so smoothly needed more work, and the show also needed to make the context more Indian for it to be even slightly more relatable.
It’s also an inexplicable decision to split the show into two parts of four episodes each, with the second releasing four months from now. It may be a business call, an attempt to garner more views and eyeballs but as a narrative choice, it makes no sense. The second part returns in June and let’s hope, the conclusion is better than how The Night Manager has begun.
