The Family Man Is Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video in India

Cast - Manoj Bajpayee, Priyamani, Sharib Hashmi, Gul Panag, Shreya Dhanwanthary

Without ever parodying the genre, The Family Man succeeds at being a surprisingly funny spy series; equally capable of snappy one-liners as it is of slick thrills. Like its street-smart protagonist, the new Amazon show is wily, adaptable, and intelligent; but most noticeably, it is a necessary foil to the painfully drab Bard of Blood, which will arrive, with all its similarities, on Netflix in seven days.

The resemblance is so uncanny, that I couldn’t help but imagine notes being exchanged between the two productions, via secret tunnels and across secure phone lines. Both shows feature a protagonist who is plucked from a life of domesticity, a rookie female tag-along, and a curious obsession with Balochistani politics. But beyond that, in tone, texture and taste, they’re thankfully quite different.

While the disappointingly deluded Bard of Blood believes it has the gravity of a Jason Bourne story, The Family Man walks a delicate tonal tightrope, successfully shrouding its lofty ideas under the middle class sensibilities of its hero, Srikant, played by an in-on-the-joke Manoj Bajpayee.