‘Special Ops 2.0' review: Kay Kay Menon-led suspense thriller often resists momentum

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18-07-2025

The second season of Special Ops returns to JioHotstar five years after creator Neeraj Pandey first introduced Research and Analysis Wing agent Himmat Singh (Kay Kay Menon). In 2021, Pandey presented Himmat's origin story in Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story.
Special Ops 2.0 – a true sequel – picks up the story of the senior operative and his hand-picked team of spies as they find themselves caught up in a complex issue that threatens national security.
Directed by Pandey and Shivam Nair, Special Ops 2.0 moves away from traditional field operations towards the unseen battleground of cyberwarfare. The new season turns its focus to digital threats, artificial intelligence conspiracies, financial fraud and the murky web of political-corporate collusion.
Episode one is a sprawling one-hour introduction that sets up the kidnapping of Bhargava (Arif Zakaria), a tech entrepreneur tied to a classified government project. At the same time, a RAW officer (Tota Roy Chowdhury) who was monitoring Bhargava's movements at a summit in Budapest is attacked in Delhi. While this premise has potential, Bhargava never leverages his supposed genius to contribute meaningfully to the narrative, remaining strangely passive for someone with the nation's future in his hands.
Himmat and his team are tasked with tracking down Bhargava and ensuring his safe return. But the enemy is always one step ahead of Himmat's field agents.
The narrative unfolds over seven days (and seven episodes), a structural choice that promises urgency but doesn't always deliver. There are also echoes of Pandey's film A Wednesday! (2008), with a common man, traumatically affected by institutional corruption, threatening the system.
The show's attempt to offer a cautionary take on the implications of AI and next-generation technologies is both timely and effective. A subplot involving a banking scam and fraudulent loans occupies a large part of Himmat's bandwidth. There's commentary on the uneasy nexus between politics, big business and tech – where personal and corporate interests distort national priorities.
However, the screenplay by Pandey, Deepak Kingrani and Benazir Ali Fida lacks tautness. Entire sequences are bogged down by unnecessary visual fillers – cars making full U-turns after being instructed to, endless walking shots, numerous drone views that serve little narrative purpose. It's a suspense thriller that often resists momentum.
Kay Kay Menon remains the show's anchor. His portrayal of Himmat Singh exudes intelligence, resolve and quick thinking in a time of crisis. Menon rarely misses a beat as he portrays a professional nearing retirement while dealing with emotional upheaval in his personal life.
The show also features returning characters such as Farooq (Karan Tacker), Avinash (Muzzamil Ibrahim), Juhi (Saiyami Kher), Ruhani (Shikha Talsania), Abbas (Vinay Pathak), Chadha (Parmeet Sethi) and Banerjee (Kali Prasad Mukherjee). Gautami Kapoor plays Himmat's wife Saroj, while Revathi Pillai plays their daughter Pari.
Among the new cast, Tahir Raj Bhasin is a mixed bag. As the sinister Sudheer Awasthi, his backstory lacks narrative punch, and Bhasin underplays the menace and unpredictability the role requires. Prakash Raj, however, delivers one of the stronger performances as a bureaucrat grappling with his wife's illness and a broken system.
Some supporting performances fall short, particularly the foreign actresses, including an Austrian girlfriend and a Russian honey trap.
The fight scenes are long and often excessive. At times, Special Ops 2.0 seems more invested in presenting itself as an international espionage epic than in telling a focused, compelling story. Still, Himmat's emotional vulnerability this season adds depth to a character who has otherwise been defined by duty and stoicism.
Special Ops 2.0 is an ambitious follow-up that leans more on visual style and fight choreography than on pace and spycraft. Kay Kay Menon's steady presence, along with strong support from the senior cast, give 2.0 a solid foundation, but the new season stumbles under the weight of padding.
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