IC 814 premiered globally on Netflix on 29 August 2024. After initial rave reviews and the buzz it created, it quickly found itself caught up in the crossfires of politics, religion, and biases. It is a series trying too hard to stay true to its time, both in 1999 and 2024.
The Kandahar Hijack begins with the people’s story. The narrator directs us to the happenings and informs us that the story is about what happened in the seven days of the hijack. The first episode looks promising and ends sooner than we realise, but the following episodes are just a drag.
The first episode looks promising and ends sooner than we realise, but the following episodes are just a drag.
The suspense is real and so is the failure of the intelligence agencies. The warning of the hijack is ignored and emails are buried under piles of bureaucratic folders. Even when the agencies realise their collective failure, it is all hush-hush.
IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is adapted from the book Flight into Fear: A Captain’s Story written by Captain Devi Sharan and Srinjoy Chowdhury. It reminisces the 1999 hijack, the longest in the aviation history of India. The series feels like an adaptation in many parts. In a few instances, interactions are shown but the human worth is not negotiated.
The plot of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack
The plot is based on the 1999 hijack of IC 814. The historical moments stand true, while most conversations have been recorded through the reminisces of the passengers and the crew itself.
The plot is a chronological development of the events, it is not challenging to weave the story together as an audience, but the storyline falls flat in a few places. The first episode introduces the grandeur of the series pretty well, but the following episodes fail to maintain the momentum.
The recent controversies have challenged a few depictions from the series but the plot of IC 814 remains uncontestably true to its tune.
The characters of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack
IC 814 as a stand-alone series is an ensemble of brilliant actors. Critically acclaimed actors have done a fantastic job at recreating the time of 1999 and have done justice to their roles. Almost all acts are seamless and emotions are portrayed beautifully. While individually all acting sequences are brilliant, the actors fail to create an impact as a whole.
The characters of the series have been inspired by the real-life passengers and crew members of IC 814. Their memoirs are treated as a yardstick for developing conversations. At a particular moment in the 4th episode, the hijacker is shown playing “Antakshari” and singing songs with the passengers. While this scene has been crudely and widely criticised, it has been picked from actual memoirs of the passengers and the pilot. They recall one hijacker, in particular, being more kind and singing with the passengers.
The characters of the series have been inspired by the real-life passengers and crew members of IC 814.
There must be empathy and scrutiny when recreating historical criminal acts. Psychology has recorded how the relationship between a kidnapper or a hijacker and the victim becomes more than just violence. It becomes one of sharing and caring for each other.
While the series shows the songs being sung, it conveniently glances over the human cost of indulging in a pleasurable activity with a criminal. Similarly, the connection between flight attendant Chhaya and a kidnapper is shown but not developed enough.
The nicknames and the controversy that followed
In the series, we get introduced to the real names of the terrorists much later. In the initial episodes, we know them as ‘Doctor‘, ‘Bhola‘, ‘Shankar‘, and ‘Burger.’ After the series received an initial response of appreciation, it soon turned into a bitter set of events. Hashtags like #BoycottBollywood #BoycottNetflix and #IC814 started trending. Many news channels also covered the audacity of Anubhav Sinha to have given “not-so-Muslim names” to Muslim characters.
The Business Standard reported on September 3 that a Union Ministry document released shortly after the 1999 hijacking clarified that the hijackers – Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Shakir (also known as Rajesh Gopal Verma), Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, and Ibrahim Athar – did use such nicknames indeed. In the Hindu fanatic milieu, how balanced of a series is IC 814?
A hijacking tale
The story of IC 814 is one of the longest hijacks in the history of India. The trailer shows it, the title reveals it, and the book bestows it, but the series in its entirety lacks a sense of direction. What is the aim of the series? The opening remarks by an omnipresent narrator seem to set the tone for a revolutionary tale that will provide the context for the hijack. It aims to convey all that happened in the seven days that led to a failed negotiation.
The factual representation of the failing system of bureaucracy, intelligence, and hierarchy is transparently naked in all its vulnerability but the gaze shifts as soon as the audience tries to figure out the culprit. Were only the hijackers responsible for the hijack of IC 814?
The tale is hurried through half a dozen episodes and almost misses the mark every time.
The tale is hurried through half a dozen episodes and almost misses the mark every time.
The production glitches
The trauma of spending 8 days in a closed aeroplane with no ventilation, minimal food, and unclean toilets is represented through the plight of passengers and over-eager crew members. In a particular scene, a flight attendant goes to clean the clogged toilets after getting rebuked by a business-class passenger. The scene evokes disgust, sympathy, and anger but moments later the camera chases a heroic flight captain with a clean-shaven face unclogging the drains from the system beneath. He does it so heroically that the hijackers can’t help but compliment him.
8 days of a brutal hijack and the captain wears a pristine white shirt with a perfectly combed moustache and a clean-shaven face. The distraught of passengers also seems too obvious, like the makers were afraid to go inside the plane and recreate the actual scenes.
The female journalists in IC 814
The news that must have captured the eyes of the nation and abroad, was limited to the pen play of two journalists oscillating between print media and the TV. The journalists played by Dia Mirza and Amrita Puri are two journalists painted through the brush of the male gaze.
Wrapped in handloom and adorned with abuses, the two women go casually calling each other b*****s. A patriarchal colouring to how the news was managed by the side closer to the government and how the other side tried to balance it is boring and repetitive. There is no honest journalism that is hard-hitting, it is just a gamble of source-driven insider news to which we never go very close.
IC 814 is an ambitious project but is still in its first draft. It is an incomplete fancy of an over-hyped creator. The series has its moments when it shines and promises to surpass the audience’s expectations but at other junctures, it is just not honest enough.
It must be watched, despite its failures. It is not what it shows that has hollowed the series but what it decides to gloss over like those pictures of the release of the terrorists that have been so famous or behind the scene conversations. It is all too careful as if someone is always listening. IC 814 is a decent attempt at making an adaptation based on hijack, but it fails to wow the audience.
