Hostages 2 – A Thriller minus Thrill

Hostages 2, streaming on Disney Hotstar is the sequel to Hostages released last year. Even with Ronit Roy in lead, quite a number of known actors casted and Sudhir Mishra as director this thriller is anything but a thriller.

Plot – 

Hostages 2 picks up from where Hostages 1 ended. For those who have not watched Hostages, Season 1 had Dr Meera (Tisca Chopra) whose family was taken hostage by a retired police officer Prithvi (Ronit Roy), to force her to help him kidnap Chief Minister Handa (Dilip Tahil), whom she was supposed to operate on.

Prithvi’s wife, who is Handa’s biological daughter (Handa raped her mother), and now Prithvi wants to kidnap and get Handa’s bone marrow transplanted to save his wife Saba.

Hostages 2 starts from where Hostages ended, Prithvi successfully kidnaps Handa from hospital with help of morgue attendant Peter (Amit Sial) and Aman (Ashim Gulati). Saba’s condition worsens as they are on the way as per their plan to move to Nepal and they take shelter in an old abandoned building.

CM’s ex security Subramanium (Mohan Kapoor), who actually wants to kill Handa for someone else, tracks them and gets into the building. Couple of on duty policemen also reach there and call for backup as firing starts. Before any of them can understand what’s going on, the building gets surrounded by the police force.

On one hand, the police team, led by Karnail Singh (Kanwaljeet), Ayesha (Divya Dutta) and Dutt (Sachin Khurana) keep on negotiating with Prithvi, on the other hand there are other characters, a hitman Ranvir (Dino Morea), Isha Andrews (Shibani Dandekar) or  Shikha (Shweta Basu Prasad) which are not that relevant to the core plot but try to broaden the plot.

Will Prithvi be able to safely get out of that building, will he be able to save Saba and is there some bigger conspiracy is what gets covered in this 12 episode long season.

The Performances

Hostages 2, just like hostages, relies a lot on Ronit Roy and he delivers as expected. His raw intensity and body language adds to his personality and he delivers a very fine and restrained performance. Divya Dutta as Ayesha, officer who negotiates Roy was endearing to say the least. She acts well and has matched Roy step by step. 

Veteran Dilip Tahil is too good as CM Handa, he plays a shrewd, manipulating character with expertise. On the other hand Kanwaljeet as head of police force Karnail Singh plays a one dimensional character and is very average.

Shriswara as Saba and Faezah Jalali as Sarah George get decent screen time and are good in the limited opportunities. Ashim Gulati as Aman is ok.

Amit Sial as Peter is not utilised properly (specially given his performances in Inside Edge or Jamtara). Mohan Kapoor as Subramaniam is decent. Hostages 2 marks the return of Dino Morea after long and he doesn’t get much to do, is ok as a straight faced hitman. Shibani Dandekar gets to look hot but not much to perform.

The Hits

The scenes of Ronit Roy and Divya Dutta are the highlight of the series. Hostages 2 though starts a bit slowly but builds up and promises a lot till the midway. 

Show also has some sequences which have close resemblance to recent very famous Money Heist, and are good. It also throws up a random character, a terrorist named “Professor” to make references to Money Heist obvious.

The action sequences are well shot and look realistic. Show is shot very well with very good production values. 

The Misses

The plot of Hostages 2, which starts to engage after the first episode blows out of steam soon. With 12 episodes with a runtime of approx 40 mins each, the show starts throwing up random characters and subplots to fill in the time.

The parallel track involving Shweta Basu Prasad as a journalist and a random theory of Bangladeshi PMs assasination just seems irrelevant. Also, the bone marrow transplant in a deserted, dirty building was just too much of creative liberty.

The show whenever starts on building up the thrill and tension, loses the plot as it oscillates between too many subplots. Makers have not been able to justify and conclude the subplots and it dilutes the impact of the core storyline.

Direction by Sudhir Mishra is good in parts but weak when it comes to holding up the drama and tension. He has though explored the links for the next season but they surely diluted the impact of this one.

FFC Take – 

All in all, Hostages 2 is a show that promises a lot till the first few episodes but delivers a little. The show can be watched if you are a fan of Ronit Roy or Divya Dutta. 

It is not a bad show, but it is a show that could have been a lot better if it was 4-5 episodes shorter with tighter screenplay and editing. 

Hostages 2 can be a one time watch, but it never holds you a hostage by its thrill.