Raj and D.K. are back with another reaction-filled thriller series after The Family Man. Starring Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Varun Dhawan, “Citadel: Honey Bunny” is part of the spyware universe of Citadel. Directed by Raj Nidimoru, Krishna D.K and Sita Menon and produced by Russo Bros, the series was released on Amazon Prime Video on 7 November 2024. The series includes six episodes titled Dancing and Fighting, Talwar, Spy Game, Home, Traitor and Play. The runtime of each episode is 45-55 minutes. Casting Kay Kay Menon, Saqib Saleem, Sikandar Kher, and Soham Majumdar the series is a dramatic entrance into a universe of action, treacheries and espionage.
The series serves as a prequel to the American Television series “Citadel” (also on Amazon Prime Video). Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) and Bunny (Varun Dhawan) are the spy parents of Nadia Sinh (played by Priyanka Chopra in Citadel). The series is packed with every trope of the spyware universe-edgy and skilled spies, a tech that can destroy the world, the loved ones of the species are at stake and it is a world of mayhem.
Honey Bunny plot
Honey Bunny includes two parallel plots of the past and the present across the years 1992 and 2002. The narrative unravels itself with the series opening in the Bombay of the 1990s. Rahi “Bunny” Gambhir (Varun Dhawan) is a stuntman in films who offers a ‘side gig‘ to Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) which jeopardises her life. Honey is a struggling actress and a junior dancer in the Hindi film industry fighting for side roles on the screen. Honey is a love child of a royal family of Andhra Pradesh and has a life full of hardships like Bunny. When she meets Rahi or Bunny she falls for his charismatic being even after having been mistreated by men throughout her life. Rahi deploys Honey as a lure in the operation.
However, she is supposed to escape when her identity is discovered. Parallel to the plot of the 1990s is the story of the reunion of Bunny and Honey. Bunny with his ally Chacko (Shivankit Singh Parihar) are looking out for Honey and their daughter Nadia (Kashvi Majmundar).
Character development in Citadel
The character development of Rahi depicts a typical protagonist struggling with a hard childhood and rescued by a father-like figure of a spy agency named The Foundation, called Guru (Kay Kay Menon) Rahi or Bunny has often faced the dilemmas of his gruesome job and in a classic trope, his meeting with Bunny brings out major reforms in his life. Honey brings about turbulence in the spy organisation, The Foundation while the agency is working against their enemy’s project Talwar.
The spy duo is on the agency’s most sought-after mission in Belgrade to track down Dr Raghu Rao when things go south. The centre of this mayhem is a surveillance and tech device called Armada. It is a gadget which can track people and is highly demanded in the world of spyware, arms dealing and surveillance.
Honey’s character is shown in an interpersonal conflict between her professional role as a spy and her feelings for Rahi. As the action reaches its peak a drastic betrayal is revealed at the end of the spy foundation and the Guru (Kay Kay Menon). The hidden motives of the agency make the question of who was a traitor open-ended. The series ends with the duo of Honey and Bunny fighting for the cliches of love, family and their daughter’s future. The ending of the series leaves the audience on a cliffhanger.
Existential angst of Honey-Bunny
Unlike the American Citadel universe (starring Priyanka Chopra and Richard Madden), Raj and DK have created a spy duo which enraptured the audience. The most remarkable trope is the element of the Honey- Nadia relationship which becomes more pivotal as the narrative progresses even than the Honey-Bunny relationship. Honey comes out as a protective mother who chooses the good of the larger society over her mission. The portrayal of her character is reflective of the change in the stereotypical representation of women in OTT spaces. The setting of the Bombay of 90s reflects a nostalgia of films based in gangland Bombay. However, a rupture is evident in the series where the tech device being used along with the arms are visibly modern unlike those of the 90s.
Samantha’s Honey is being praised for her enamouring action sequences which almost look like a continuum of her screen time in The Family Man: Season 2. The spy’s response-readiness to every danger that might attack her daughter depicts a strong blended character in the latest enterprise of Raj and DK. She sets the stage for the other characters including Rahi “Bunny” whether it be an action sequence or any other scene.
Anas Arif writes in The Indian Express that the duo is notable for its powerful “genre-blending approach.” As depicted in their early works like The Family Man-Season 1 and 2, Guns and Gulaabs their corpus includes a balance of the serious and the comic. Arif writes that “their approach is both a critique and a mockery of genre tropes, resulting in a rollicking rebellion that’s as self-aware as it is exhilarating.” A critical genre defiance is central to their corpus. This is also evident in the classic characterisation of Shrikant (played by Manoj Vajpayee) who is depicting both a RK Laxman like caricature of a middle class Indian and a spy for the Anti Terrorism Squad. Arif writes that such an approach of blending genre allows to depict the spy’s narrative with a political edge rather than through hyper-nationalism.
However, the series seems unimpressive when we analyse the buff humor aspect of the series which comes almost as if forced in the writing. The plot twists are often predictable and the humor element of Raj and DK fails to be as impressive as in their earlier works.
Packed with the dilemmas of the existential angst of Honey-Bunny and the choices between their training and their ethics the series does create an aura of excitement for the audience. The tropes of saving humanity from a dangerous tech, though cliche, might be worth a binge watch!
