‘Bard of Blood’ review: This Netflix series plays too safe, sticks to familiar clichés

While 'Bard of Blood' has a talented team of actors, the weak writing and a director, who seems to be figuring out the show as it was filmed, are its undoing.
‘Bard of Blood’ review: This Netflix series plays too safe, sticks to familiar clichés
‘Bard of Blood’ review: This Netflix series plays too safe, sticks to familiar clichés
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Beleaguered men seeking redemption or respectability and getting an unexpected opportunity to do so seems to be a favourite theme for Netflix. After Sartaj Singh in Sacred Games, we now have Kabir Anand (Emraan Hashmi), who battles nightmares of the day he lost his best friend in Bard of Blood. One of Netflix India’s big tentpole offerings this year with a movie star headlining the cast, all seven episodes of this Netflix original are now streaming on the platform. Produced by Shah Rukh Khan’s company Red Chillies Entertainment, and directed by Ribhu Dasgupta, Bard of Blood is an adaptation of Bilal Siddiqi’s 2015 novel of the same name. Siddiqi serves as a co-creator and writer on the show.

Kabir Anand, code named Adonis, (Emraan Hashmi) is a disgraced former Indian agent who teaches Shakespeare to bored school students. A mission he was a part of five years ago went south, killing his best friend Vikramjeet (Sohum Shah), and since then he is plagued by guilt and remorse. He gets his chance for redemption when his former boss Sadiq Sheikh (Rajit Kapoor) calls him back to rescue four Indian agents kidnapped by the Taliban in Balochistan. Sheikh chooses Isha Khanna (Sobhita Dhulipala), an analyst vying for a field position, to be a part of his team. It’s a character that’s a little too similar to Radhika Apte’s from Sacred Games but unfortunately not half as effective. The two then rope in Veer Singh (Vineet Kumar) who has been forgotten for the past seven years by the Indian intelligence. Jaideep Ahlawat plays Tanveer Shehzad, a Pakistani spy, who finds himself entangled with Kabir again, after being a part of the incident that ruined him five years ago. The cast also includes Kirti Kulhari as Jannat, Hashmi’s former girlfriend, and Shishir Sharma as Arun Joshi, the head of the Indian Intelligence.

While Bard of Blood has a talented team of actors, the weak writing by Mayank Tewari, and a director who seems to be figuring out the show as it was filmed, are its undoing.

Hashmi, to his credit, moves completely outside his comfort zone of erotic thrillers and makes a sincere effort to play the part. But for a man who has spent many years as an international spy, his character spends too much floundering and running around in circles. His solution to any problem is to berate the other two or make himself a victim, who in his own words, needs to dig up old graves to bury his past. Now such lines may be great in a novel, but to hear a character actually speak them doesn’t sound right. While his emotional scenes feel weak, as does his romance with Jannat, he does well in the action sequences – whether it is gun battles or physical combat. As an aside (no Shakespearean allusions intended) why is that no Indian hero is truly avenged until he physically beats his nemesis to a pulp?

Sobhita’s character Isha is supposed to be a star analyst, but she has a permanently confused look on her face as if she is trying to decipher where a peculiar smell is coming from or wondering what she is doing in this show in the first place. Sadly, her role just requires her to give us character backgrounds, make a laptop work and generally hang around waiting for men to tell her what to do. She goes from trembling at holding a gun to becoming a ‘Revolver Rani’ in exactly two days. Even if it was the adrenaline, there is no pause to build character and understand how she managed to become such an ace shooter. Instead, Veer comments on how well she is shooting. Mansplaining takes on a very literal meaning here.

Kirti Kulhari fares much better as Jannat, who plays a crucial role in helping Hashmi with his unsanctioned mission that is in constant danger of going wrong. It’s a mystery how her diction in Hindi is so flawless though, especially since everyone else around her has a textbook Middle-Eastern accent.

Vineet Kumar as Veer has spent seven years in Balochistan and successfully infiltrated a Taliban group. If a man can survive seven years in hostile territory using his wits and courage, why does he start whining like a toddler about how he wants to go home the moment he joins Kabir and Isha on a mission? It’s annoying and totally out of character for a man who has just killed someone, set him on fire and done the whole ‘I am a cool beedi smoking killer’ walk with a swagger.

Director of Photography Chirantan Das captures both the beauty and barrenness of Leh, and the camera work and special effects in the action sequences are definitely praiseworthy. The same can’t be said about the graphics used in less dramatic situations which look hurriedly put together. We see a childish word art like text that says ‘Hard disk empty’ and a PPT to the Prime Minister that would make a school kid feel like Zuckerberg. 

I also found the dichotomy of how Muslims are presented quite cringeworthy. There is either the clean-shaven, English speaking, shirt pant wearing ‘liberal’ Muslim, or a bearded robe-wearing Taliban soldier who is rabid in his views and bloodthirsty for Jihad. There is also the token noble Muslim who does the terrorism is anti-Islam dialogue before being bumped off. There is no fresh insight, interpretation or nuance into depicting a long-standing global issue, or a deeply misunderstood religion.  

That is Bard of Blood’s biggest flaw. It plays too safe and sticks to familiar tropes and clichés. There is too much exposition, too much talking and explaining instead of letting the visuals drawing us in. For example, in what seems definitely inspired by Kite Runner, a Taliban chieftain is shown to be a paedophile. We get it as soon as we see a man escorting two young boys into his room. But literally two minutes later, another character accuses him of being a paedophile and kills the effect of the previous scene.

Most importantly, I have no idea why the show or the book is called Bard of Blood as a reference to Shakespeare. Apart from Hashmi quoting from the play Henry VI in the first episode, and the episode titles being inspired from Shakespearean quotes, the writer and director do little to channel the bard’s skill at building internal conflict or creating iconic yet relatable characters. It’s quite an inadvertent tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Watch it if you are a Hashmi fan, but if not, just binge on Family Man instead.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film's producers or any other members of its cast and crew.

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