Special OPS


Special Ops is an Indian espionage thriller series created by Neeraj Pandey for Disney+ Hotstar's label Hotstar Specials with Kay Kay Menon leading the cast. Neeraj Pandey along with Shivam Nair directed the series along with Pandey's Friday Storytellers attached as a production house. The series premiered on 17 March 2020.

Premise

The series follows Himmat Singh of Research and Analysis Wing who draws similar patterns in terrorist attacks and is convinced a single person is behind all the attacks. His task force team of five agents living in various parts of the world aim to catch the mastermind. Overall the story is based on the inspiration taken from Nineteen Years of national significant events. The story is inspired by several espionage missions undertaken by India in the last two decades.

Cast

Production

Development

in January 2019 announced its aspirations to enter into original content production exclusively for the service. STAR India, the parent company of Hotstar tapped many Indian filmmakers including Neeraj Pandey for creating these shows called Hotstar Specials. Pandey had started a new division Friday Storytellers as a digital arm of his production company through which he had produced the series. The series is developed as an eight hour story which is inspired by nineteen years worth events of national significance by Pandey along with Deepak Kingrani and Benazir Ali Fida.

Casting

The casting on the project started with Kay Kay Menon. In August 2019. By mid-August, they finished casting the major roles with prominent actors such as Kali Prasad Mukherjee, and Pawan Chopra.

Filming

The principal photography started in August 2019. Shivam Nair attached to direct the portions of the show taking place in India and Pandey directing the rest. The show has recreated Parliament of India for filming 2001 Indian Parliament attack portions which was dealt for the first time in film history. Apart from India the show is filmed in Turkey, Jordan and Azerbaijan.

Release

The series was premiered on Hotstar on March 17, 2020 in seven Indian languages.

Promotion

A promotional video featuring between the scenes footage of filming was released on 23 February 2020. The teaser poster was released on 25 February 2020. The trailer was dropped on the same day at a press conference held, which was attended by cast and crew.

'''Public Review'''

Director Neeraj Pandey created every scene perfectly with his powerful direction. Director is the most significant part of every film and web series as he is involved in every part of the film from pre-production to post-production. And if the film flopped then everybody blames the director. But Neeraj Pandey did his job incredibly well that it is hard to find any mistake.
Every actor did good but Kay Kay Menon and Karan Tacker wins the game of acting and swag.

Critical Reception

The Times of India gave the series 3/5 stars, while Indian Express and Cinestaan gave the series 2/5 stars, Archika Khurana, in her Times of India review, writes that the plot has been scripted well and that the action sequences are effective and engaging. Akhil Arora writes in his NDTV review that the show could have been tightened up, instead it drags on unnecessarily. Scroll.in's review says the same thing about the length of the series. Asif Khan and Arbeena write in Kashmir Observer that 'the spy thriller lacks thrill'. Rohan Naahar writes in Hindustan Times that "Special OPS, despite being very uneven, actually respects spycraft" and is a "minor win for Hotstar".