The Freelancer Review: Staple Neeraj Pandey Mill Content That Seems More Like Cashing In On The Momentum

Cast: Mohit Raina, Sushant Singh, Anupam Kher, Kashmira Pardeshi, Ayesha Raza Mishra, Navneet Malik, and ensemble.

Creator: Neeraj Pandey

Director: Bhav Dhulia

Streaming On: Disney+ Hotstar

Language: Hindi (with subtitles).

Runtime: 4 Episodes, Around 60 Minutes Each.

The Freelancer Review: What’s It About:

A cop turned mercenary comes back to India after 13 years because his best friend commits suicide in the most suspicious manner. When he digs deep, he realises that the dead friend’s daughter has been duped into a marriage and is now taken to Syria to forcefully join ISIS. He takes on the job to extract her.

The Freelancer Review: Script Analysis:

Neeraj Pandey is busy creating his own universe. Away from the films he made about some nail-biting concepts, the OTT version of him is more interested in secret agents, men in uniform, mercenaries, and a whole lot of travelling. He is probably making Global visas a normalcy; not even kidding. Adding The Freelancer to his list of digital shows, the filmmaker this time backs an idea that has reached its saturation in Hollywood, but probably is new to the Indian diaspora. But, doesn’t the timing feel like a very opportunist move? Let’s dissect.

Based on Shirish Thorat’s book Ticket To Syria: A Story About ISIS In Maldives, adapted by Neeraj Pandey and Ritesh Shah, known for writing screenplay for Sardar Udham and dialogues for Love Sonia, it is about a mercenary who works for anyone who is ready to pay him, but on a fine day he takes up a job that is personal to him, and that requires him to fight the ISIS. The show has released with just four episodes and a preview that there is more to it. One can sense the urgency with which the first four episodes were rolled out to grab the momentum created by The Kerala Story (a pointless addition to manipulative movies) because, as standalone, they make no point other than just setting a base.

What you observe in the very first scene of The Freelancer is how Neeraj Pandey is convinced that people know what he is making. There are two sides to this. First, that you know your audience too well and they know what to expect, and second, that you are getting too repetitive. You can see it in how abruptly he introduces his characters like we already know them. But he is also smart so with Ritesh, he walks past the controversial bits by avoiding them. He generalizes things and dilutes them so no fingers are pointed.

So now this story is more about a man with a very dark past turned mercenary who is avenging his friend’s death and fighting to bring back his daughter. The earnest part of the story is the flashback that manages to build these two men who were together in thick and thin. The fictional side helps in establishing a connection with this otherwise stereotypical world. The makers also make sure they go a bit more into detail with the mannerisms of ISIS-controlled countries. It adds to the complete viewing experience, but then the family’s radicalization is so half-baked that you aren’t really with them at any point. It’s borderline abrupt. You understand they are brainwashed, but when did they get this evil?

Add to this that, for someone who has seen a whole lot of Hollywood extraction content, this only gets added on to the list. A character even says at one point, “Are there even any mercenaries ever from India?”. Neeraj, we need a break before the next espionage, please.

The Freelancer Review: Star Performance:

Mohit Raina takes efforts in shaping Avinash. The discipline needed for this part comes very organically to him. He seems like a man with mystery, and that serves well to the part he plays. But the flashbacks is where he seems not entirely in sync. It will be interesting to see where the script takes him. However, the art team, why is Avinash physically not aging at all?

It seems like Neeraj Pandey writes Anupam Kher as himself in every script. He is kind of God of the story who manages everything sitting in his secured tower. The actor aces the part quite easily. So does Ayesha Raza Mishra and Sushant Singh, who have a very effortless screen presence.

Kashmira Pardeshi as Aaliya gives an earnest performance, and the future has much more for her as an actor on the show. Navneet Malik is impressive, too.

The Freelancer Review: Direction & Music:

Director Bhav Dhulia (Khakee and Rangbaaz) trusts more in the dramatics than the nuances, and one can see that in The Freelancer. It is Neeraj Pandey’s aesthetics that meet Dhulia’s dramatic vision. This works at most places but not at all. We are shown the dramatic journey of the family from Istanbul to Syria and what follows, but who is narrating this story? Who is our perspective? The grip is loose, and that does make many sequences look much less impactful than they are planned to.

The music is a staple and not much of a player in the first episodes. Let’s see if there is some magic in the remaining episodes.

The Freelancer Review: Last Words:

The Freelancer is yet another Neeraj Pandey show about espionage, and he needs to take a break.

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