Summary
Citadel: Honey Bunny is decent, functional espionage fare that works on its own terms without the franchise associations.
Look, Prime Video wants an international espionage franchise to call its own, and it’s going to get one even if it kills us. Thus, Citadel, which you may recall as the run-of-the-mill 2023 thriller that starred Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Nobody cared when it was released or heard anything about it afterward until two international spin-offs were released within a month of each other – first the Italian Citadel: Diana and now the Indian Citadel: Honey Bunny.
No, I don’t like the title either, but what can you do? If it makes you feel better it refers to two characters literally named Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) and Bunny (Varun Dhawan), but one suspects that might make it worse. Either way, all you really need to know franchise-wise is that these two happen to be the parents of Nadia from the flagship show – a grade-school version features here, played by Kashvi Majmundar – and that someone says “Citadel” out loud more than halfway through the six-episode season. So, don’t worry about it.
This, to be fair, is the smartest move that Honey Bunny makes, because it creates a relatively self-contained entry point for the franchise that can absolutely be enjoyed on its own terms but will offer a little bit more to existing fans if they’re looking for it. It also helps that what Sita R. Menon and Indian filmmaking duo Raj & DK have cooked up here is pretty good, with solid action and well-drawn characters, even if there isn’t as much depth, intrigue, and suspense as one may necessarily want.
The action here is split between two timelines, though crucially both are individually engaging. The first, in 1992, finds a young Honey as a struggling actress whose financial dire straits lead her to discover that her stuntman friend, Bunny, is really a secret agent for a clandestine organization. The second, in 2000, is where Nadia shows up, having been trained seemingly since birth in basic tradecraft to help her and Honey survive on the lam.
For plot reasons, it’s the earlier timeline that has Honey and Bunny together while they’re kept mostly separate in the later one, which is another smart choice since it allows Honey’s relationship with Nadia to really come to the forefront. It’s a good way of utilizing the played-out out-of-sequence plot structuring, which is all too common in spy stories and equally as commonly misused.
It’s properly paced, too. There’s action from the off, but only in spurts initially, and while it’s well-staged it feels supplementary to the interpersonal drama. But the escalation through the six episodes culminates in a few standout sequences – including one in particular in the finale – that feel like just reward for everything we’ve sat through until that point.
Not that any of that stuff is bad; on the contrary, actually. I was quietly impressed with Honey Bunny all throughout, from the characters’ chemistry to how determined it is not to play up the connection to Citadel (that stuff’s there, but not in a distracting way). If this is going to take off as a franchise – which I’m still skeptical about – then this is the way to do it, by making each component functional and enjoyable on its own as well as being part of the wider picture.
When the Citadel stuff does come up, you’re reminded how much less interesting it is than everything else that’s going on here. Part romance, part family drama, part espionage thriller, Citadel: Honey Bunny doesn’t do anything new or all that interesting, but it gets the familiar details right and delivers competent if unremarkable entertainment throughout. I’ll take that.
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