Citadel: Honey Bunny review: A rollicking and swaggering spy action-thriller

Citadel: Honey Bunny review

 " Varun Dhawan’s struggling stuntman Bunny and Samantha’s broke junior actress add purpose and meaning to their lives by engaging as lethal agents in high stakes mission riddled with mole, mystery and morality "

“Direction is a powerful thing”, says Bunny (Varun Dhawan) while training Honey (Samantha) with hand combat after inducting her into his secret syndicate headed by an elusive father figure, Vishwa (Kay Kay Menon). I completely agree to his statement when it comes to Raj and DK – the combustible director duo who gave us slick and quirky thrillers in web series formats that revolutionized the OTT – from The Family Man to Farzi to Guns and Gulaabs last year. Fashioned as a six-episode spy thriller and a spin off to the Priyanka Chopra starrer 2023 web series with the same title, Citadel Hunny Bunny chronicles the eponymous protagonists’ journey spanning eight years with guns, grenades and grudges and unfolding as a rollicking and swaggering family adventure.

2000 Nainital. It’s the pre-smartphone era where communication was through Pagers. Honey’s seemingly peaceful life with her incredibly sharp seven-year-old daughter, Nadia (Kasvi Majmundar) is wildly disrupted by a hideous organization which wants to settle an unfinished business score with her. She is chased for life and lands at her native in the South. Her estranged Beau, Bunny who has left the syndicate, comes back in action re-assembling the dismantled team of his old buddies – Ludo (Soham Majumdar) and Chacko (Shivankit Parihar), to hunt the enemies down and save the endangered lives. Cut to 1992 Mumbai, we see a struggling Bunny sipping Gold Spot and performing stunts in films and Honey losing out a leading actress role much to her dismay. The broke girl, who had run away from her royal mansion for the ‘Bombay’ dreams, is tempted to Bunny’s secret assignment for quick bucks soon realizes that she is made for much bigger things in life. Bunny inducts her to Vishwa’s agency despite the latter’s scathing scepticism only to be beaten and betrayed by her pangs of morality and conscientious awakening.

Interspersed with two shifting timelines, Raj and DK’s foray into the world of guns and gadgetry is audacious where their storytelling effortlessly reaches its crescendo over deadly stunts, hand-combats and mind-boggling action that sumptuously spills on to the roads of Mumbai and Belgrade where the flashback and conspiracies unravel. They don’t mind employing flashbacks within flashbacks to respect the ‘potboiler’ sentiments- that hastily covers little Honey’s Daddy-issues and little Bunny’s descent to orphanage. With pop-culture references to Terminator and Predator, vintage rifles and Cassata,  and an ode to Bollywood’s nostalgia driven films like Shaan and Gair Kanooni(only film that starred Govinda and Sridevi), the duo flesh out an engrossing narrative to co-writer Sita R Menon’s flimsy, template-stricken plot that revolves around a tech material called ‘Armada’ created by a good-natured scientist, Dr Raghu Rao(Thalaivaasal Vijay) who entitles himself as gate-keeper of peace and humanity who has partnered with the front-ending agents of Citadel , Zooni(an unconvincing Simran) and Shaan(a haggard Sikander Kher) to counter the threats from Vishwa.

There are no compromises where the technical departments are concerned – Raj and DK’s work boast of supreme production values that dismisses the technologically-bereft 90s setting, a racy screenplay that never loses sight of its unrelenting momentum and pressure-cooker urgency, a scintillating techno-soundtrack by Aman Pant and an impeccable camera wizardry with single-take action shots in a Bhool-Bhulaiyya mansion that gloss over Samantha’s diction, the heavy accent and her emotionally-malnourished dynamics with Varun. As far as their physiques go, they look lethal and in-form during the ‘PLAY-Mode’, validating her USP, “She works twice as hard as men”. But the written material doesn’t give them much scope beyond the routine and ruthless action scenes. Same for Saqib Salim’s KD who emerges as a creepy villain without a reason. In one scene, Honey laments at KD, saying that they are two sides of the same coin – both being picked from orphanage and raised by the same godfather for ulterior motives.

The signature quirkiness of Raj and DK is in shortage compared to their last outing, but I quite enjoyed Kay Kay Menon’s character and his antics. Albeit less wacky than Farzi, his Viswa is snappy and arrogant whose culinary prowess extends to dishing out burnt chicken lollypops to his mentees and deriving sadistic pleasure out of it. I was underwhelmed at the trajectory of his character in the climactic portions and also the chief reveal but restoring my hopes for the sequel which looks promising at the juncture the web series finishes (not ‘completes’).

Citadel: Honey Bunny web series final words

I am going with 4 stars out of 5 for Citadel Honey Bunny. It is a perfect binge-material for your weekend with the pleasure of popcorn. 

Citadel Honey Bunny, which marks Raj and DK’s collaboration with Hollywood’s Russo Brothers, is streaming on Amazon Prime Video from 7th November 2024.

Citadel : Honey Bunny review video Hindi

Citadel : Honey Bunny review video Hindi 

pls watch our video review of Citadel : Honey Bunny in Hindi