A psychotic pilot, an unwitting co-pilot and cabin crew and an array of passengers with their respective personal conflicts, all on board a flight that is about to end up in a scenario of disastrous proportions (something which we have been accounted with, in the very first scene of the series).
The Final Call, starring a wide range of skillful actors, seems to make up for a good edge-of-a-seat hijack thriller, that’s based on the novel I Will Go With You.
We are shown pilot Karan Sachdeva (Arjun Rampal), immensely bugged down and even deranged, dealing with his past demons who once had to compromise on his conscience owing to his role as a navy officer and his condition gets compounded by an untimely disaster that had fallen upon his family. The series shows him flying the said airplane (several years later probably) on board with several civilians. What he does on board that flight and why is left to unfold in the successive episodes to come.
Releasing on ZEE5, the web series has been a considerably satisfying watch till now. It is dotted with numerous flashbacks and parallel plot lines of the passengers, which more often than not pops us to hinder the pace of the otherwise great going story line. They add and pile up like a deck of cards to eventually fall down. There’s no escaping. In the long run, they seem to have a good payoff awaiting.
Talking about the cast, Arjun Rampal with a poker face manages to personify a ticking bomb that might blow off at a drop of a hat; Anupriya is the only rational cabin crew member that senses danger seep in the flight, Neeraj Kabi is a source of premonition that paves a way for spirituality as another undermining theme; Finally, Javed Jaffrey, in his tuxedoes, is a corporate hotshot, with a broken marriage back at home and seems to be tired of the materialism around him.
The one actor that manages to take away the limelight from all is Sakshi Tanwar. One word: impeccable. With a composed gait of a scrupulous airline coordinator and a woman of sense, she oozes out charm asking us for our undivided attention while in the frame. I’ll leave you to peel out her unearthed genius in the series that makes it a point to provide for an equally significant part.
As for some scenes, they are stretched and annoyingly so. But it quickly retraces its path to continue with the original take, so it never goes over the top with its deflection.
The camera and lighting are dipped in an overwhelming cold, steely colours that do a great job foreshadowing the impending doom (we are never permitted to forget the climax, it creeps up from the back of each unsuspecting scene).
In the end, The Final Call seems like a promising watch by ZEE5 & if you haven’t watched it yet, click here, with even more promising actors and a premonitive plot, but never predictable. The execution is carried out without haste since it is a web series with multiple and enough episodes to be flesh out the dense themes and characters. The director skillfully manages to elevate the suspense but never at the cost of unnecessary elongation.