'The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination' Series Review: Welcome Back, Nagesh Kukunoor

Given the censorship wrangles and politicisation of ideas these days, there’s a sense of nostalgia and wonder about watching a seven-episode investigative drama based on the murder of an ex-Prime Minister: no surrogate identities, no fake names, no “inspired by real events” disclaimers. Some of the suspense is self-inflicted; you keep looking for a hint, an agenda, a sign of loose fiction with(in) the facts. There is, after all, always a threat of offending someone, regardless of whose history is portrayed. On that count alone, it’s no small deal that The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case exists. The license to tell this particular story is no surprise in 2025, but what matters is the makers’ use of this license.

Adapted from former India Today reporter Anirudhya Mitra’s first-person book, Ninety Days, Nagesh Kukunoor’s series sticks to the basics. It explores the SIT’s (Special Investigation Team) nationwide manhunt for the conspirators following the infamous suicide-attack at a Congress rally in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur in 1991. Headed by CBI officer Kaarthikeyan (the reliable Amit Sial) and operating from Malligai, the team features SP Amit Varma (Sahil Vaid), DSP Ragothaman (Bagavathi ‘Bucks’ Perumal), DIG Amod Kanth (Danish Iqbal), DIG Radhavinod Raju (Girish Sharma) and eventually, NSG Commando Ravindran (Vidyut Garg). Running parallel to their investigation is the widely-known story of the conspirators — the LTTE gang of operatives and sympathisers led by one-eyed mastermind Sivarasan (a locked-in Shafeeq Mustafa) — and their attempts to evade capture. From Madras and Madurai to Delhi and Bangalore, the chase spans safe-houses and tanker escapes, bus-station arrests and stalled raids.

It’s never easy to tell a story that doesn’t have the luxury of twists and revelations. Most of us know how it ended, but The Hunt does a solid job of jogging through the timeline with the rigour of a seasoned journalist. The film-making replicates the no-nonsense spirit of its source material: more a true-crime procedural than a fiery op-ed. To understand what the show does right, it’s important to recognise the pitfalls it avoids. For starters, it depicts the bereaved Gandhi family with archival footage and empathy, as humans rather than statespeople; Rajiv Gandhi is played by an actor in the actual incident, that’s about it. A few popular INC figures from the time appear on a need-to-know basis, without any petty implications — a change from how they’re usually portrayed to reflect the mood of new-age politics. Current followers might find it funny, though, that a photographer hired for propaganda coverage undoes the perfect crime.

This lack of judgment, a forensic gaze almost, extends to characters across borders and loyalties. The flashbacks of radicalisation in Jaffna with LTTE chief Prabhakaran have The Family Man Season 2 vibes, in that they are staged more as soldiers in an organisation than kitschy villains. Sivarasan himself thinks he’s that stylish larger-than-life personality — often smoking and brooding like he’s imitating the Tamil superstar(s) whose movies he likes watching. But the show grounds him in the kind of gritty pursuit and on-the-run frustration that belies his imagined charisma. His aides are all ‘brainwashed’ in the conventional sense of the term, but there’s never a doubt about their faith in a cause. Similarly, the cultural and social gaps in the SIT are not mined for simple entertainment. After a brisk recruitment montage, Kaarthi mentions that there should be no hierarchy in the team despite the difference in ranks and experience. Yet there’s an almost instinctive return to tradition: some are addressed as “Sir” and others by first names. But there’s never a sense that any of them are good or bad characters; they’re just people trying to do a job. The flaring of tempers is never personal.

Not even a difference in ideologies invites tropes. For instance, the bond between Tamil-speaking North Indian Amit Verma and local cop Ragothaman isn’t overplayed. The higher-ranked Amit uses his outgoing nature to bridge the chasm between them. He talks about his love for Southern cuisine while waiting for a tip-off, and some days later, Ragothaman wryly watches as Amit expresses his craving for Delhi snacks to a fellow Hindi speaker. When the two seniors indulge in mildly sexist banter about leaving their wives back at home (“no distractions”), Ragothaman’s sincere reaction — that family is not a distraction during stressful missions — is scoffed at. Most shows would have antagonised the bosses and established internal tensions, but The Hunt ceases and resists. When Amit shares a drink with him later, he finally asks Ragothaman what his stance is on the LTTE and their motives; the man’s answer surprises Amit, but again, this never becomes a narrative-shifting disagreement. There’s no time to dwell on the contrasts.

These interactions happen in pockets of pre-technology stillness: during cigarette breaks, waiting for faxes and landline calls, in empty meeting rooms, or swatting away mosquitoes in a stakeout. To the credit of the cast, they all look and move like they’ve never used gizmos, unlike many modern performers who can’t undo their default mode. Every actor is efficient — restrained when needed, opaque when not — but I particularly liked Sahil Vaid’s rendition of Amit as the ‘emotional’ one. It’s a testament to his skillset that he remains the most human of the lot: biased, political, expressive but unmistakably professional. He’s the kind of character who speaks his mind, even if the mind is all over the place.

The acting conveys things that the script cannot. There’s an undercurrent of mutual respect among the officers that, regardless of status, puts them in a strangely democratic arrangement. Their blind spots are implied, but the series stops short of moralising and romanticising their struggle. Amit and Amod are patriotic without being jingoistic; they can’t believe that “foreigners came to kill our future PM on our land,” and their discrimination refuses to grasp the nuances between Indian Tamils and Sri Lankan Tamils. Captain Ravindran indulges in psychological warfare, ‘pretending’ to rape a female operative to force her lover into a confession. Needless to say, there are no slow-mo, walking-talking shots that one might see in a Neeraj Pandey or Akshay Kumar film. Even when they conduct successful arrests, it feels very inevitable and matter-of-factly. The dryness works at times, but the early exposition dumps — where SIT members speak to each other like talking heads providing context to the audience; where ministers converse at each other like mediums — take the tonal diplomacy too far. Having a voice can be tricky, but having no voice can be trickier.

The final episode, however, solves that problem. There are allusions to a broader conspiracy and coverup, like rumours puncturing the reportage. The specifics are avoided so that the focus remains on how complicated it is to solve a high-profile case in a system that thrives on power and complicity. The details are ambivalent; one can tell that these are personal observations and passing references in the book. It’s anticlimactic and frustrating to watch, because the show internalises the vagueness of bureaucracy: no names, no aliases. SIT officers are confused; timings go awry; attitudes change; formalities sabotage the mission.

This effect is also deliberate, revealing how “orders from above” is the ultimate villain of due process. It’s a phrase that demands obedience to morph into duty. It’s also a phrase that unites both sides of the law. The irony is telling. Sivarasan defies high commands from Jaffna, opting to further the mission on his own terms. But Kaarthi and team are unable to resist directives, stewing in uncertainty and telling themselves stories to cushion the remorse. Only one side compromises their work; the series allows us to detect this. Our reading is determined by whether we, today, consider survival to be the most natural order — from above. After all, “the hunt” refers to the search for identity, not a quest for justice.