Hostages (episodes 1-5)- Doesn't hold well!

Hostages is the new show on Hotstar that is being promoted highly by Star Network during the World Cup season. Ronit Bose Roy, Tisca Chopra kind of actors with Sudhir Mishra as director excited me to look at the series.

The trailers were intriguing and the first episode builds the characters well. But then it keeps getting too diluted with some scenes dragging on and some repeating themselves in the first 5 episodes itself.

It seems like it is trying to push a good character to its ultimate limit but at the same time, it tries to showcase the politicians as the worst possible people with secrets. It tries to build a web around a politician's surgery but the problem is that the hostage family doesn't really seem to be the kind of characters you see everyday.

Even if we exempt that believability and give the creators creative advantage to tell their story, the performances doesn't really back the writers too. They tried to create a storyline that is predictable once you know the main twist. After a point, it feels like it is trying to bring in many elements to a simple plot.

The subplots could have worked as the ultimate end result of the series is some how tying them all together. But the first five episodes doesn't really give us such a feeling. Ronit Roy is good but he is limited to just look masculine and suave with a gun while Tisca Chopra is too mechanical.