Honey Bunny: Money lessons from the superb action thriller Citadel

‘You beat up a director?!’ an incredulous stuntman Bunny grins at small-time actress Honey as he hands her a cup of tea. Thankfully this is not going to be a khichdi of The Fall Guy and The Dirty Picture. Honey offers to be literally a honey trap and soon she’s involved with a fight for a device that will be able to track all people.

The story seamlessly moves from the past (1992) to the present (the year 2000) and you begin to enjoy the details like chatting on computers on a program that reminded you of Wordstar, pagers, old fashioned guns, exchanging technology in museums and yes, VHS tapes. The action sequences are so seamless, you’d think Varun Dhawan and Samantha have been born for it and you begin to ignore the annoyingly precocious daughter the two are trying to protect.

What are the money lessons we learn from this six part series brought to you by the Russo brothers and Sita Menon (a long time collaborator with Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK)?

High risk investments reap high rewards

Both Honey and Boney lead a very high risk life. They are agents, working for an organisation run by Vishwa aka Baba (played nicely by KK Menon). Their mission has been to intercept technology that a Bengaluru scientist has developed in collaboration with a Russian scientist. The device would help track threats and connect all people associated with that threat. The fact that Honey and Bunny have a child together, seems to be a glitch in the Matrix, a result of passion rather than planning. The series is about protecting the child from the people who want the technology.

If the child stands for your hard earned money and you are like the agent who deals with only high risk investments, where would you be investing?

If any financial scheme promises you to ‘double your money’ be careful. Apply the rule of 72. It’s not a short term strategy, but it works. Given a fixed annual interest rate, investors can determine how long it would take to double their money. Divide 72 by the fixed rate of return will help you determine how long it will take to double your money. Investing in options, initial public offerings (IPOs), venture capital, foreign emerging markets, REITs, high-yield bonds, and currencies, are all manageable investment risks. Each comes with its own risk type.

For example, when venture capitalists invest in great ideas, they take a huge risk because most idea shops have very low transparency when it comes to the management ability to run the business once the idea takes off. As always, do your due diligence when you are putting your hard earned money in a venture capital fund.

How difficult is ethical investing?

Honey realises that Vishwa pushes all his agents to simply do his bidding, no questions asked. Unlike Honey, the agents have been groomed and trained from a very young age. Bunny’s loyalty is without doubt, and he does what he has been asked to do. Honey finds that unethical and questions Bunny’s decision.

You too can invest ethically according to your moral principles and values. There are sin stocks which bring in money – companies who have questionable labour practices, companies that deal with arms, gambling, alcohol and tobacco – and you can make a decision to not invest in these, no matter how much money you have to lose. Socially conscious investing is a tough stance to take when your goal is to make your money work hard, but those who opt for investing according to their values perhaps sleep better.

Today more and more people are analysing index and mutual funds and investing only in those that align with their core principles and beliefs that align with their environmental, religious and political percepts.

This six part series on Amazon Prime Video is so good, I forgot that a couple of days ago I was hating the fact that Jeff Bezos had made a political decision to push The Washington Post into not endorsing any political candidate for fears of a backlash against his companies. Last week we watched Bollywood bow down to powers that be when they released a politically correct film, this week it’s the Americans. Ethical investing or no, at least we get a super Varun Dhawan – Samantha offering from the director duo Raj & DK!

Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.