Figuring out how Neeraj Pandey’s thriller about smugglers feels like such an airport bestseller, and yet so brilliantly researched

Emraan Hashmi (right) in a still from the crime thriller series ‘Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web’. PIC/Netflix

Recall that scene in Neeraj Pandey’s series, Taskaree (Netflix), where the customs superintendent, Arjun Meena (Emraan Hashmi), tells his female asset, Priya (Zoya Afroz), that if they execute the espionage plan he has in mind, she’ll have to move out of her current location, Al Dera (that’s meant to be Dubai).

“Where will I live then,” she asks. “That’s what I’m thinking,” he says. She’s hot. He’s Hashmi. Both look over Mumbai’s skyline. 

At this point, I thought, if this was a 2005 Bollywood film — that scene would break into ‘serial-kisser’ Hashmi, striding down UAE desert, along with his heroine, lip-syncing to a melodiously Sufi song! 

The sorts that make one go: “Saara Bollywood ek taraf. Aur Emraan Hashmi ek taraf!” 

Taskaree’s set within Mumbai’s relatively bland international airport, where Hashmi marks his entry, with back towards the camera, dressed in customs uniform. It’s still zanier, more entertaining than most Hindi movies. 

Chiefly, for how well-researched it simultaneously feels — making me wonder, instead, if this is how it really works along the conveyor-belt, baggage-scan, and green channel, between the “popat” (courier), with “punters” (who finance them), and officers, at the other end, who use KK (“Kya........

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