Review: The Slick & Engaging ‘Citadel: Honey Bunny’ Is What the Franchise Needed

What do you call a franchise that might start on a low note but then seems to get better with subsequent installments? Perhaps Citadel. The franchise, backed by Joe and Anthony Russo started with Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden’s Citadel named after a spy agency that was established for ‘world peace’ with the best-of-the-best agents working in tandem. However, a threat looms over the agency – someone is taking the agents out one by one. 

The six-episode Indian chapter, directed by the impressive duo Raj & DK, is a prequel to the first installment – Chopra’s character Nadia (an impressive Kashvi Majmundar) is a spunky young girl here, learning the tips and tricks of the trade under the tutelage of her fiercely protective mother Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu). The show jumps in time – the story playing out primarily in 1992 and 2000 – and both timelines work because the writers manage to leave enough engaging bits in both. Most shows would make the 1992 sequences setups for the 2000 ones and while that happens here as well, the former also gets enough weight and, in some cases, is more engaging than the latter. 

In 1992, Honey is a struggling actor who befriends a stuntman Bunny aka Rahi (Varun Dhawan) who leads her into the world of spies and secret agents and devices that can ‘save or destroy the world’. What starts as an one-shot mission to make some money ends up eclipsing her entire life. Predictably, the show enters the training montage sequence – Bunny will make an agent out of Honey but the latter has a few surprises up her sleeve. 

Samantha Ruth Prabhu opens the show and, like her showing in The Family Man, establishes herself as a force to reckon with. It’s fitting that the show features the Indian stunt person Fearless Nadia because Prabhu is a bona fide action star – she and her character both act like they have something to prove, always ready to jump into the fire and risk it all. Prabhu’s action sequences are some of the show’s most impressive and she might easily be one of the most promising action stars of our time.

So what does that mean for Varun Dhawan, in perhaps his first out-and-about guns blazing action role?

Dhawan’s boyish charm is the perfect fit for Bunny, a ruthless agent with a soft spot for his allies and one who finds himself thrust into the role of a ‘family man’ (wink, wink). However, the parts of his act that need to convey the ‘ruthlessness’ of his character need a little more sharpening (more from the script than the actor himself). And it’s not something the actor is incapable of – think of his brutal, unflinching portrayal of Raghu in Sriram Raghavan’s Badlapur – it’s just a matter of writing in more nuanced layers for the character. 

Citadel: Honey Bunny isn’t Raj & DK’s best work by a long shot – the charm and sharp editing of The Family Man and the over-the-top and nostalgic calls to Indian cinema don’t translate as well here as they did in Guns & Gulaabs. That is, barring a few sequences including one where Bunny teaches Honey how to ‘die’ convincingly. But this is a show of ‘action’ and the action set pieces are all well set up. The makers do not overpopulate the show with them which helps the viewer tune into all the bits and bobs of the show separately.

The Raj & DK touch isn’t entirely absent though, especially when it comes to the visual storytelling – there’s a hit and there’s a miss.

The win is in the visual language – for instance, the directors opt for a silent film treatment to Honey and Bunny’s flashbacks. I couldn’t help but smile at the Raj & DK touch finally making its presence known so unabashedly. And then, of course, there’s the perfect mix of songs, old and new, for the musical score. It’s difficult to miss the effect Aman Pant’s background music has on the show – sequences come alive. The ‘loss’ or the miss is in the way the settings are portrayed. The show takes us to Nainital, Mumbai, Belgrade, and even Honey’s ancestral home in South India but they aren’t utilised well enough.

Think of the way the filmmakers picturised the cities in The Family Man – that transportive quality is missing here; the settings just all look like each other. 

Then there are parts where the show seems to become dull – a parallel arc featuring a team led by an agent Zooni (Simran) and her right-hand man played by Sikander Kher isn’t interesting enough to justify the segue (and that is, in no part, because of the actors). 

But the show keeps kicking back into full steam to offset that dullness and you find yourself drawn into the story again. The makers of Citadel: Honey Bunny had the responsibility of transporting the ‘Citadel’ to India and they do it well, primarily by reminding us of the old Bollywood adage ‘it’s all about loving your family’. Though it’s not as simple as that. Both protagonists’ behaviour and actions are rooted in the way they were brought up.

Honey was always kept away from the things she most desired to do – her identity as a young girl and later a woman in a world of men playing a major role. Bunny, separated from his family in a tragic accident, does practically everything to find and keep his idea of a ‘family’ intact – from his efforts to track down Honey to his relationship with his mentor ‘Baba’ (Kay Kay Menon). 

Bunny aka Rahi doesn’t act alone – always flanked by the tech geek Ludo (Sohum Majumdar) and his trusty lieutenant Chako (Shivakit Parihar). Both actors bring able performances to the show. The biggest issue is that both characters aren’t anything new to the genre – in fact, they could be replaced by any other character from a spy movie and it wouldn’t affect the show much. Once again, the need for more layered characterisation rears its head. 

Citadel: Honey Bunny, while it might not seem so, uses very simple storytelling and while it becomes predictable in places, its simplistic nature also becomes the show’s strength. Raj & DK, with writer Sita Menon, manage to imbibe the show with a tinge of ‘romance’ – only adding to the Indian cinema-ness of it all. The otherwise fearless agents vying for Baba’s approval, a man’s mission to find his ‘family’, and a woman’s fight to protect her daughter from a multi-prong attack – everything lends itself to this. 

As the action sequences become more frequent and the show threatens to rattle off the rails, Citadel: Honey Bunny culminates in a fantastic ending action sequence. The slick action choreography, especially when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, builds scenes you can’t look away from. 

Citadel: Honey Bunny isn’t the best show out there but it’s a show that is interesting and engaging enough to make the ‘Citadel’ universe feel more durable. And that, considering the reception the 2023 show got, is quite the win. 

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