Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web Review | Deception, Greed And Power In An Elite Shadow Economy

Created by Neeraj Pandey, known for A Wednesday (2008), Special 26 (2013), and Special Ops (2020), the recent seven-episode series Taskaree: A Smuggler’s Web charts the workings of an unexplored unit of government in cinema—the Customs and Excise Department. Three suspended customs officers, Arjun Meena (Emraan Hashmi), Mitali Kamath (Amruta Khanvilkar) and Ravinder Gujjar (Nandish Sandhu), are reinstated by a newly appointed Assistant Commissioner, Prakash Kumar (Anurag Sinha), to undertake an operation targeting the smuggling of goods, gold and narcotics into India via Mumbai Airport. 

Their task is simple: to secure the country’s economic frontier from the Choudhary Syndicate, run by Bada Choudhary (Sharad Kelkar), which profits from keeping trade illicit and economic borders fragile. In unravelling the play of deception, greed and power, Taskaree maps the cosmopolitan geography of an elite shadow economy, with the airport becoming the nucleus not only of international mobility but also of bureaucratic bribery and corruption. Powered by strong performances from the cast, Pandey paces the series well, with characters grounded in their workplace and navigating the nitty-gritty of concealing illegal goods. However, he struggles to provide a clear picture of their personal lives. While this problem might not have been bothersome, the screen time spent on it makes the gaps more noticeable.

The series is most compelling when it explores the dynamics of power and its allocation. It reveals how often those in the upper echelons of bureaucracy conspire with smugglers. In its effort to expose the opacity of power, Taskaree goes on to challenge the false narrative that casts lower-level officers as extendable stand-ins for covetousness, crookedness and control, focusing instead on revealing similar forms of corruption among the ranks of commissioners and assistant commissioners. When Mitali remarks offhandedly, “Koi bhi sarkaari officer utna hi imaandar ya ghuskhor hota hai jitna ki uska boss” (Any government officer is as honest or corrupt as his boss), her statement draws attention to both the hierarchical distribution of black money and the direction from which it flows.

In an intriguing sequence, a small temple within Ramesh Patel's house (Shailesh Datar)—a key figure managing domestic infiltration for Bada Choudhary in India—leads the viewer into a hidden chamber, where Patel conceals himself from law enforcement. When customs officials arrive to arrest him, he retreats into this basement room. While Arjun dissipates any suspicion surrounding the temple premises, which in fact unsettles the viewer, another associate, Kulvir Dhuria (Akash Ayyar), discovers a trapdoor that guides us to Patel’s hiding place. This pairing of the sacred with the profane is particularly striking in contemporary times.

As Dhuria transgresses the sanctity of a Hindu place of worship, contaminating it with doubt, he breaks the prohibition that safeguards such spaces from scrutiny, whether direct or indirect. In marking the blind spot of even sensible and intelligent officers like Arjun, this sequence reflects a popular sentiment of our time in which reason is easily overwhelmed by the presence of a religious edifice. The parallel is subtle—like the illegal import of gold involves concealment, offenders hide behind religious structures to evade the ramifications of criminality. The cynical humour here is tailor-made for inducing pleasure.

Finally, Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web holds attention and stitches its elements together without demanding a suspension of disbelief. It unfolds to reveal the everyday complicity of power, set against those who remain honest, resolute in their ethics and bound by duty.