'The Night Manager' review: All swag, no John le Carré

A still from the just-released web-series adaptation 'The Night Manager'.

Sandeep Modi’s The Night Manager, which dropped on Disney+ Hotstar this weekend has a visual and atmospheric overdose of a corrupt, “world-weary”, even at times delectable melancholy, with Anil Kapoor as Shailendra Rungta, grimacing nihilistically as the most dangerous man in the world. Modi’s series is an adaptation of the British series directed by Oscar-winning director Susanne Bier for BBC.

The Night Manager unfolds languorously and luxuriously. Shaan Sengupta (Aditya Roy Kapur) is a brooding, hunky night manager at a five-star in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He is a former Naval officer who gets traumatic nightmares of combat violence — the first cliché of characterisation. He attempts to help an Indian adolescent girl, a guest at the hotel and who is the third wife of a monstrous, sadistic man, escape to India. He discovers that this man is controlled by a secret arms dealer in the disguise of an “industrialist” to the world — Rungta, the character that Anil Kapoor plays with serviceable relish. The actor’s otherwise obsessive need to trot out panache seems a bit of an effort in this show. The makers go for mood, rather than performance or story. Rungta’s wife is a glamorous former Miss Universe contestant and model Kaveri (Shobhita Dhulipala) and they have a son. In Delhi, a RAW officer Gitika Saikia Rao (Tilottama Shome) is after Rungta and she soon is a secret team with Shaan to get to Rungta and expose him. Shaan wins the trust of Rungta after his right hand man BJ (Saswata Chatterjee) is sidelined and infiltrates Rungta’s camp. Four episodes of Part 1 now streams on Disney+ Hotstar.

Dhulipala is is excellent as Rungta’s self-aware arm candy, combining diva-vibes with a vulnerability. Kapur, also lending vulnerability and a certain amount of mystery to the hero character, somehow carries off the role although much of his character’s actions and impulses are hard to believe in the scheme of the story and plot. Shome, a gifted actress, is wasted as the representative of the intelligence establishment. As with the series, the gender switch from the original book material is a progressive gesture — in this adaptation with an Assamese surname, too — without much weight. Even so, Shome brings out the best performance in the series.

The Night Manager has nothing original to say about evil. The book, published in 1993, is by possibly the greatest interpreter of British spycraft, John le Carré. The story of a soldier turned hotel employee who’s swept into the orbit of a rogue arms dealer was le Carré’s first novel not set during the Cold War. In many ways, it seemed inspired by Ian Fleming’s Bond. The visual sophistication, which is quite impressive in Modi’s version, is not accompanied by zaniness or wit in storytelling. The spell fades fast, even four episodes are hard to get by. setting up little expectation from Part 2.