India has its fair share of patriotic series and movies. In recent years, there has been a reasonable spike in such themed shows. From Special Ops to Uri: The Surgical Strike, there are all kinds of projects made keeping soldiers from different defense forces in mind. Shoorveer is yet another addition to the list but it offers a different concept that works in its favour.
Shoorveer is Disney+ Hotstar’s latest presentation. The series stars an array of stars, including Makarand Deshpande, Manish Chaudhari, Regina Cassandra, Armaan Ralhan, Aadil Khan, Anjali Barot, and Kuldeep Sareen. High on patriotism, Shoorveer is a fictional show that brings together some of the best candidates from all three forces — Airforce, Army, and Navy — under one umbrella to force a group of Elite Task Force called the Hawks.
The first respondent team is trained in areas outside their expertise to make them all-round candidates, preparing them for the worse of scenarios. In what appears to be the first season of the show, the task force is being trained to combat a threat from the neighbouring country that has managed to compromise one of their air plans.
Through the season, viewers get to witness the transformation of the soldier, growing closer to each other while preparing to fight an unknown battle. With this as the base of the show, Shoorveer branches out to include a love angle between an Airforce pilot and an owner of a cafe situated outside their training base camp, a backstory about a pilot who lost his life due to faulty flights, a soldier with daddy issues and other quintessential elements that form the subplots in such shows. To top it off, Shoorveer sprinkles the ‘Made in India’ concept and a Prime Minister who looks eerily similar to our current PM.
With all these ingredients boiling in a pot, Shoorveer serves up a decent serving of a meal. The series starts off on a good note, keeping viewers hooked from the word go. Instead of muddling too many things on the way, the series tackles the base story while dealing with one to two subplots at a time parallelly in the first half of the series. This approach works for series, instantly drawing you into the world of Shoorveer. The show’s biggest advantage is the short duration of each episode. Every episode lasts not more than 35 to 40 minutes, giving viewers enough to chew on.
However, the series starts to lose control when it starts to merge both parallels. Director Kanishk Varma and creator Samar Khan, who has been associated with similarly themed series such as The Test Case and Code M, appear to find prioritizing the subplots difficult, making the episodes just before the finale a little hotchpotch. By the time the series reaches its finale, the otherwise nicely edited and packed series starts falling apart. The air fight between the two countries, which is supposed to be the highlight of the finale, fails to hit the mark due to this writing issue.
On the other hand, Kanish and Samar do a fairly good job with the visual effects of the show. Khan had previously revealed that the scenes involving the aerial combat sequences were shot using a technology called Unreal Engine. The technology was previously used in several video games and Hollywood movies. The decision to not hold back on the visuals helps enhance the viewing experience. The scenes featuring the fighter planes have come out fairly well, making me want to watch the scenes on a bigger screen.
On the acting front, Makarand Deshpande holds every scene that he is in. Playing the National Security Advisor (NSA) Milind Phanse, Deshpande shines. Manish Chaudhari as Ranjan Malik, an IAF officer forms The Hawks, also delivers a memorable performance.
Among the stars who played the officers, Regina presents a refreshing performance. She makes the character of Flight Lieutenant Avantika Rao her own and doesn’t miss a chance to make the moment her own. Armaan complements her in most scenes but in his solo scenes, the lack of depth in writing seemed to hold him back.
Another character that I felt needed more writing was Faisal Rashid’s baddie. His motive to be the villain wasn’t convincing enough. However, on the other hand, I felt Kashmira Irani should have been given more screen space. She overshadows Faisal in a couple of places.
Bottom line: Shoorveer offers experiments with a different subject but chooses to play it safe. With limited high moments, the series serves as a decent one-time watch.
Shoorveer is now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
