There are risks involved when adapting a renowned series for a different environment. Another illustration of that is the screenplay for The Night Manager, co-written by director and author Sandeep Modi and Shridhar Raghavan. The original program’s high standards are difficult for the Disney+Hotstar show to live up to. The end result is a passable thriller that isn’t completely pointless.
Comparisons are unsavoury, to be sure, but it’s difficult to help but reflect on what Tom Hiddleston got out of the title character when Aditya Roy Kapur fills his shoes. Kapur’s portrayal pales in comparison to Hiddleston’s in both scope and substance. However, the version lets him be who he is. That works in his favour.
The Night Manager as it is currently presented obviously appeals to a sensibility very dissimilar from that of the BBC One thriller. It can only be considered a passable translation. The polished directing flourishes that Susanne Bier, an Oscar winner, applied to her performance are absent.
An illegal weapons trader and his ruthless cronies set off disturbing events that force Shaan Sengupta, a former soldier turned hotelier, out of his comfortable sinecure. The bad guy poses as a philanthropist and supplier of agricultural tools. To blast the lid off, the hero sets out.
The main actor portrays an emotionally troubled and morally agitated man who does not precisely wear his heart on his sleeve by going with the flow. He is a skilled fighter who has experienced his fair share of failures while performing his duties, so he isn’t visibly alarmed by the schemes of his new adversary.
Shaan embarks on a mission to topple an evil corporate empire based on war, chaos, and death with the help of secret agent Lipika Saikia Rao (Tillotama Shome in the part that Olivia Colman made her own). Both of the two are vulnerable to the slimeballs they are dealing with because they are more influenced by emotion than by cold reasoning.
Anil Kapoor plays the stylish evil guy with panache, but despite being one of the worst, he rarely flashes his fangs. Similar to how Hugh Laurie dominated the BBC One series, the seasoned performer overshadows every other character in The Night Manager.
The pick of Laurie, one half of the well-known comedy duo Fry and Laurie (with Stephen Fry), as “the worst person in the world,” came as a surprise. Kapoor, whose on-screen character radiates warmth and chatty amiability, also forges new ground in this role and enjoys the challenge it presents.
Naturally, we’ll see a lot more of the two rivals as they clash in the upcoming episode of The Night Manager, which is scheduled to arrive in our lives in June. The 2016 six-hour series based on a John Le Carre book covered about half of the ground in the four episodes that are presently available for streaming. There are parts of this chapter that do give the idea that the action will pick up in the finale.
The Night Manager has a lavish and interesting visual style that was created specifically for the Indian market by Banijay Asia and The Ink Factory. The action takes place in several different cities throughout the Indian peninsula, including Dhaka, Delhi, Shimla, Sri Lanka, and other regions.
The action is filmed by director of photography Benjamin Jasper, who is well-known in India for his work on Bang Bang and War. This elevates the atmospherics, which serve to bolster the show when the plot tends to sag.
A public protest site, the lobbies and rooms of upscale hotels, a magnate’s expansive seaside house, crowded public spaces teeming with people, and the stuffy offices of intelligence agency agents working incongruously are just a few of the settings the camera captures.
The Night Manager shifts the opening scenes from 2011 Cairo—the year and setting of the Arab Spring—to 2017 Dhaka, where demonstrators take to the streets in response to Myanmar’s persecution of its Rohingya minority and the army is summoned to put an end to the growing unrest.
The first chapter of the first season of the original series stops where the first episode of this new season begins. A change to the storyline makes it possible for Shaan and Shelly to cross paths fairly early and sets the stage for their second meeting in a guesthouse in Shimla, India, rather than Zermatt, Switzerland, two years later.
Shelly Rungta is followed by an entourage that includes his life partner Kaveri and longtime friend and business partner Brij Pal (Saswata Chatterjee) as they have a second run-in with the night manager who knows too much (Sobhita Dhulipala).
Sparks start to fly between Shaan and Shelly’s right-hand man, who never misses an opportunity to caution the single-minded hero that the woman is off-limits as their mutual interest in the seductive Kaveri grows.
Much earlier, Shaan, the night manager at Dhaka’s Orient Pearl Hotel, is asked for assistance by a 14-year-old wife of a Bangladeshi tycoon. The young girl has come across evidence linking foreign businessman Shailendra “Shelly” Rungta to criminal activity. Her survival is at risk.
In order to help the girl flee, Shaan asks a friend who works for the Indian high commission in Bangladesh for aid. When Lipika comes up with her own covert scheme to assist the minor bride, the situation quickly escalates into a serious crisis. The scheme does not materialise.
From this point on, Shaan and Lipika’s quest to bring Shelly to justice takes on dimensions that go beyond the strictly professional. The former seeks retribution, the latter seeks forgiveness. While the other attempts to infiltrate the dangerous arms dealer’s inner group, the first goes undercover to keep her boss off her back. He focuses on the businessman’s kid.
The plot of The Night Manager revolves around intrigue, danger, and moral anxiety. It alternates between being gripping and predictable, as well as stolid and stylish, as the two opposing factions try to outrun and outgun one another.
This version of the series takes four episodes to depict what the 2016 British production crammed into three, so it ends at a place where a lot still needs to be unpacked. It appears that The Night Manager – The Conclusion will be much more action-packed as Shelly and Shaan’s conflict approaches a breaking point.
Anil Kapoor effortlessly takes the show when it comes to acting. Tillotama Shome and Saswata Chatterjee utilise all of the space available to them to communicate a variety of tones. Shobita Dhulipala transitions into the character of a slim seductress with ease.
Aditya Roy Kapur is a one-note performer. That does have a tendency to undermine the programme, but it doesn’t completely destroy it. The Night Manager does, on the whole, manage to be steady, but only in an unremarkable manner.
