Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Review

It is difficult to make conveyor belt and baggage-scanning scenes thrilling — which is how most people trying to sneak out through the Green Channel are caught — but Neeraj Pandey and co-director Raghav M Jairath and co-writer Vipul K Rawal make sure there is enough going on to make Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web watchable, raves Deepa Gahlot.

Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Review: Before the era of globalisation, neighbourhood aunties would go to visa-free countries abroad with empty suitcases and return with cheap watches, perfume, chocolates, cheese, make-up, branded jeans because they were not as freely available as they are today. They didn’t think of themselves as smugglers, they were just businesswomen meeting a demand. In these times, when you think of smuggling, it’s weapons, hard drugs, and even humans.

If the Netflix show, Taskaree did not have the tagline The Smuggler’s Web, most viewers would have to look up the word.

Anyway, Neeraj Pandey has set most of the action of his seven-part series at Mumbai International Airport (with detours to Italy and the Middle East), where a bunch of honest customs officers are assigned to crack down on the smuggling of gold, designer bags, microchips and luxury watches. A voiceover informs viewers of how much revenue the government loses because of the non-payment of duty on these expensive goods.What Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web is all about

The narrator is maverick customs man Arjun Meena (Emraan Hashmi), whose elastic morals allow him to accept money from smugglers when he is suspended. But as soon as he is reinstated, he deposits the bag of cash in the department. The new Superintendent of Mumbai airport, Prakash Kumar (Anurag Sinha) is sent by the finance ministry to stop rampant smuggling via Mumbai Airport. He gets back Arjun and two other suspended officers, Mitali (Amruta Khanvilkar) and Ravindra (Nandish Sandhu), and gives them the freedom to choose their own team and clean up the rot in the department.

The head of the smuggling ring is Bada Chaudhary (Sharad Kelkar), who is given a 1970s’-style spoofy back story. He lives in a Lake Como palace in Italy with his white wife and child. The gold suppliers are in Al Dera in the Gulf: Anna (Sumit Nijhawan), Rahul (Freddy Daruwala) and Suresh Kaka (Jameel Khan). A lot of time is devoted to show just how large quantities of gold are concealed to allow for passing through customs undetected — one would think the labour cost and payment to the couriers would shrink the profit margins.

Then, there is the comic scene of overweight couriers (called Popat in the show) swallowing pellets of heroin, which are then ejected after some banana-eating on passing customs. As a character also comments in the show, if these people used all that ingenuity for legitimate businesses, they would probably profit more.

Meet Zoya Afroze from Taskaree web series

Anyway, Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web is a thriller in the style of Neeraj Pandey, and ultimately, a who-will-win-contest between Chaudhary and Arjun. So plans are hatched and spies installed, as planes take off and land, people furtively slip out with contraband and officers dressed in crisp white uniforms stride purposefully down long corridors with tinny sounding background music. If the striding was edited, the episodes would probably have been shorter and crisper.Arjun gets an air hostess, Priya (Zoya Afroze) to infiltrate the gang by honey-trapping Rahul. Her intel starts making a dent in the Chaudhary syndicate’s business, and that’s when he unleashes terror tactics to make the customs officers back down. Once the information about how the department functions, in India and abroad is conveyed, the series drops the procedural dullness and introduces some emotional elements.

Emraan Hashmi adds mystery to Taskaree

It is difficult to make conveyor belt and baggage-scanning scenes thrilling — which is how most people trying to sneak out through the Green Channel are caught — but Pandey and his co-director Raghav M Jairath, and co-writer Vipul K Rawal make sure there is enough going on to make the series watchable. It is always rewarding to see the good guys win, as Ravindra, who comes from a family of corrupt people, says, what kind of society do we live in, where honest people are called ‘bewakoof’.

Emraan Hashmi, with nerdy glasses on his face, is the only one who has no back story, and a grim air of mystery that suits the urban cowboy kind of character he now excels in playing, dropping the ‘serial kisser’ tag on the way. The supporting cast is efficient too, with scene-stealing turns by Hemant Kher, as a corrupt officer who is forced to reform, Virendra Saxena in a too-brief role as an old customs man, and Jameel Khan as a reluctant gangster.

If at all Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web makes the viewer think, it is that the custom duties may be ridiculously high. But why do people — like the cricketer in the show, who spend crores on luxury goods — skip on paying a small percentage to get in their purchases legitimately? And what induces ordinary people to become couriers, despite the risk?

Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web streams on Netflix.