There are beautiful shots of mist-enshrouded forests and roaming wild animals – snakes, bison, tigers, baboons, and of course, elephants – in Richie Mehta’s new show, Poacher, starring Roshan Mathew, Nimisha Sajayan and Dibyendu Bhattacharya, among others. But the brilliant cinematography is only a cog in the wheel that makes the show work. The forest is not just to be admired for its natural beauty, it is something to be cherished, protected and taken care of. For most city-dwellers, the forests and the wild animals that inhabit them, exist only in the periphery of our consciousness. That’s why a show like Poacher – about the forest officials fighting a trans-national ivory trading racket, based on the Malayattoor poaching case of 2015 – could be a rude awakening.
But Mehta is primarily here to tell a story, not deliver a sermon. He does it well, and the plot hardly ever falters. There is no artificial tang to the dialogues, and it is admirable that he has stayed true to the spirit of the story, without caving in to the urge to make it more sensational. This is not to say there is no sermonising, but it is skilfully hidden in the personas of his main characters – forest range officer Mala (Sajayan), tech-savvy snake expert Alan (Mathew) and the senior officer they report to, Neel Banerjee (Bhattacharya). All three deliver solid performances.
Their love for the forest and the elephants, and their desire to protect them, are Mehta’s main vehicle for saying what he wants to say. Once in a while, we get glimpses into their emotional landscape – like when Mala breaks down in a washroom and calls her mother, and her tough-cop exterior slips for a moment. But such glimpses are few, and mostly used to establish how much these forest officials have sacrificed for the sake of the work they do. Fortunately, at no point are they portrayed as some sort of samaritans; Mehta is all too keen to show their human frailties. For the most part, however, he keeps the focus on the poachers and the illicit ivory trade. This is, after all, a true crime drama, and some element of drama is essential to its success.
Yes, the show does have it in parts – when Mala almost lets an ivory seller slip through her fingers at an airport, when the crime fighters are nearly mobbed at a gully in Delhi when a gripping chase culminates in a dead-end. But, ultimately, the problem with Poacher is that, it is so committed to staying true to the story that it becomes predictable. Without the element of suspense, the pace slackens. It might leave you shaken, stirred or disturbed, but it might not leave you as engrossed.
Cast: Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew
Director: Richie Mehta
Rating: 3/5
