Poacher Review: Alia Bhatt Co-Produces a Potent Wildlife Crime Thriller

Poacher Review: A welcome diversion from the vacuous speech and bluster that the terrorists, cops, spies, gangsters, traitors, and patriots we see in Indian web series (and movies) typically engage in

Emmy-winning filmmaker Richie Mehta, who also serves as executive producer alongside Alia Bhatt, is the writer and director of the well-made eight-episode Amazon Prime Video series Poacher, which revolves around unsung government officials doing the arduous and laborious task of safeguarding Kerala’s wildlife.
The overworked (and occasionally conflicted) men and women responsible with holding the poachers accountable would rather keep quiet while the forest rangers fight a valiant battle against them. As the stakes mount progressively and the hazards of stirring up a hornet’s nest increase, they chip away with intent.

Aside from all the other reasons Poacher is a very engaging series, it provides a welcome diversion from the vacuous speech and bluster that the police, spies, criminals, terrorists, traitors, and patriots in Indian web series (and films) typically engage in.

Poacher is a disciplined and concentrated wildlife crime thriller that skillfully transitions into a pressing environmental warning story. It operates as both perfectly.

It exposes the cruelty of poachers, the susceptibility of the majestic tuskers they target, and the determination of the investigating forest officers who find it difficult to balance their personal and professional lives.

The show does not disprove the conventions of its genre. The main characters are out to destroy a network of illegal ivory suppliers, dealers, and end users as well as tusker hunters. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.

They have the makings of heroes. However, despite functioning inside a narrative framework of good guys versus bad guys, these individuals—who are genuine and approachable—avoid using hyperbole and ostentatious rhetoric.

Poacher is a gripping, immersive, and suspenseful story about a multi-location, multi-pronged manhunt that takes place across multiple towns, villages, and wildlife sanctuaries in Kerala, as well as an art gallery and hidden warehouse in Delhi.

Though the events of Poacher bear only passing resemblance to the plot dynamics of police dramas and espionage thrillers, the forest officers and their associates conduct surprise raids, set up stakeouts, gather intelligence, and analyze all available call records data pretty much like secret agents and crime investigators do.

To put it simply, Poacher (available in Malayalam, English, Hindi, and a little Bengali) is significantly more engaging than the majority of Indian crime dramas available on streaming services.

It is a flawlessly staged fictionalized story of actual events that happened in 2015 during the nation’s largest-ever elephant poaching case investigation. This procedural mount has a keen sense of location and intent.

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A confession by a remorseful gang member opens a can of worms for Mala Jogi (Nimisha Sajayan), a young Indian Forest Service officer, who is taken out of a bird sanctuary and reassigned to the elephant poaching case.

She is rushing into the mission for a very important personal purpose, but it has nothing to do with the relationship she recently terminated. Her anxious single mother worries about the privacy and well-being of her daughter.

After leading an anti-terror operation in Kashmir, Neel Banerjee (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), an Indian Intelligence cadre man, leads the anti-poaching drive. Neel must deal with serious health issues, a rocky marriage, intra-departmental lethargy, and the challenges of managing multiple agencies.

An organization in Delhi that protects wildlife employs Alan Joseph (Roshan Mathew), a computer programmer, to analyze call log data of suspected poachers and their collaborators. Like him, he works nonstop, frequently at the expense of his responsibilities as a husband and parent.

The show opens with Aruku (Sooraj Pops), a 30-year veteran forest watcher, arriving to a forest department outpost and admitting to the murder of eighteen elephants. The official to whom he complains is not sympathetic to Aruku, which is a faithful recreation of the events that transpired in real life.

Deep-seated issues within the forest department are revealed by a bungled raid on suspected poachers’ hideouts, which leaves forest range officer Vijay Babu (Ankith Madhav) in a mess. His employment is suspended. However, the ensuing procedure is so vast and intricate that the man keeps having intermittent involvement in it.

The difficulties that the forest cops’ careers present lead to issues at home, which complicates the character arcs of the main characters and adds layers to the story that revolves around them.

Although Mala, Neel, and Alan are, at their core, mere cogs in a vast narrative wheel full of people, locations, and information, they come off as well-rounded characters who struggle with feelings that the audience can identify with.

Poacher immerses us in the world of the forest officials and their operational regions with its steady script, strong execution, and excellent performances. Leading a superb ensemble cast, Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew, and Dibyendu Bhattacharya give exceptional performances.

Excellent performances are made by Kani Kusruti (in a shortened role as an official from Thiruvananthapuram who pays a price for her unwavering dedication) and Sooraj Pops, who plays a forest warden who exposes an illicit ivory trade.

A degree of reality that raises Poacher from a crime-and-punishment tale to the status of a crucial history of India’s largest-ever anti-poaching campaign is attributed to the characters and the actors who play them harmoniously.

Throughout the series, there is a constant presence of tuskers and their natural environment together with other amazing wild animals living in the jungle. At one poaching scene, an elephant that was shot in the head by the poachers’ leader slowly rots, and vultures, ants, and maggots feast on its remnants until the animal is completely decomposed and reduced to dust.

The camera hovers over and around the scene of the horrifying crime in almost all eight episodes, which serves as a powerful metaphor for the scope, character, and effects of the peril Kerala’s pachyderm population faces.

Along with cinematographer Johan Heurlin Aidt, editor Beverley Mills, and composer Andrew Lockington, Mehta’s Delhi Crime technical team masterfully demonstrates how to combine fact and fiction in the service of a drama intended to captivate, entertain, and provoke.


Poachers are full of life; they are not prone to excesses. It is incredibly powerful and has perfect timing, accuracy, and landing technique.

Cast:

Snoop Dinesh, Roshan Mathew, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Ankith Madhav, Suraj Pops, Kani Kusruti, Ranjita Menon, Vinod Sherawat, and Nimisha Sajayan

Director:

Mehta Richie