Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Middle Class Guy. World Class Spy.” That’s the promise splashed across the poster for Family Man Season 1, and it entertainingly captures the show’s central tension. Created by Krishna D.K. and Raj Nidimoru, the series stars Manoj Bajpayee as Srikant Tiwari, an undercover operative for a covert wing of India’s National Investigation Agency. He spends his days defusing terror threats and must keep his dangerous job hidden from his family, all while earning too little to justify his constant absence at home.
Family Man Season 1 opens with a classic cold open, terrorist operatives are intercepted on a small boat at sea, suspected to be from Pakistan and plotting a major attack on India. Then the tone flips. After the title sequence, we meet Srikant Tiwari calmly doing yoga outside his Mumbai apartment, unfazed by the surrounding chaos.
Priyamani plays his wife, Suchitra (Suchi), a college professor, and the morning quickly devolves into a familiar domestic squabble over who will drop their kids Dhriti (Ashlesha Thakur) and Atharv (Vedant Sinha) to school. Srikant eventually takes on the duty, earning little respect from his children, who see him as a dull government employee, the kind who won’t even protest when yelled at in traffic. At work, however, Srikant is an entirely different man, a decisive operative who calls the shots, negotiates with terrorists, and pulls the trigger when necessary.
And this is the clash Family Man Season 1 thrives on, showing the contrasting world of Srikant, who when not interrogating or chasing terrorists, is battling domestic problems. The core conflict in the show revolves around his team trying to find out details of ‘Operation Zulfiqar’, plotted by Pakistan’s ISI. Neeraj Madhav plays Moosa, one of the key operatives nabbed by NIA, but proves to be a challenge when it comes to getting any important details.
If Srikant Tiwari’s family really knew what he was doing to try and keep up with his dad duties, he might win ‘Father of the Year’ award. Because what kind of an officer rushes away from the airport to skip receiving terrorists for custodial interrogation, to go to school and listen to the principal complain about his daughter’s behavior?
The show does not stylishly glamourize the life of an agent, showing how an average day sometimes is just sitting in a small van and looking at CCTV footage all day, while their bosses expect immediate results. Srikant and team slog through the day, and sometimes encounter more losses than wins.
“The difference between them (terrorists) and us is that they need to win only once, but we need to win each time, through the right means,” – this is one of the most memorable lines in the show. It’s uttered by Srikant’s boss Kulkarni, head of the NIA, which strikes a real chord when he is extremely demotivated after failing in a mission.
Family Man Season 1 keeps flitting between Srikant’s efforts to stop ‘Operation Zulfiqar’, while his relationship with Suchitra keeps getting worse. So, sometimes, the change of a scene from a key anti-terror Operation scene to Suchitra chatting with her colleague can be frustrating. Just when you get completely immersed in the terror side of the tale, the family drama comes in. But well, that’s the whole point of the show!
Except for a few implausible twists, like how a terrorist conveniently manages to slip through right under the nose of several authorities, Family Man Season 1 is a gritty show with international appeal, which will win over viewers looking for some desi spy adventures.
Rating: 8 on 10. Watch Family Man Season 1 on Prime Video.
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