Poacher Review: Powerful Wildlife Crime Thriller Co-Produced By Alia Bhatt

Poacher Review: A refreshing respite from the hollow bluster and empty rhetoric that the cops and spies, gangsters and terrorists and traitors and patriots that we see in Indian web shows (and movies) usually indulge in.
Unsung government officials going about the onerous and painstaking job of protecting Kerala's wildlife are at the centre of Poacher, a solidly crafted eight-episode Amazon Prime Video series written and directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Richie Mehta and executive produced, among others, by Alia Bhatt.
As the forest rangers wage an arduous war against elephant poachers, the overstretched (and sometimes conflicted) men and women tasked with bringing the criminals to book prefer not to blow their own trumpets. They chip away with intent as the stakes rise steadily, as do the risks involved in stirring a hornet's nest.

In addition to everything else that makes Poacher a highly watchable show, the series offers a refreshing respite from the hollow bluster and empty rhetoric that the cops and spies, gangsters and terrorists and traitors and patriots that we see in Indian web shows (and movies) usually indulge in.

Poacher, restrained and focussed, is a powerful, precisely delineated wildlife crime thriller that segues seamlessly into an urgent ecological cautionary tale. It works flawlessly as both.

It lays bare the brutality of poachers, the vulnerability of the magnificent tuskers that they hunt, and the tenacity of the investigating forest officers who struggle to juggle work and family.

The series does not negate its genre trappings. The protagonists are on a mission to bust a network of tusker hunters and illegal ivory suppliers, traders and end buyers. They will do anything it takes to achieve their end.

They are heroes in the making. But even as they operate within a good-guys-versus-bad-guys narrative construct, these people, real and relatable, do not resort to bombast and pulpy grandstanding.

The multi-location, multi-pronged manhunt that Poacher revolves around - it spans from the cities, villages and wildlife sanctuaries of Kerala to an art gallery and secret storehouse in Delhi - is tense, immersive and suspense-filled.