Khufiya Review: After Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley, Vishal Bhardwaj has no plans of slowing down with his gritty book adaptations and for the latest Hindi spy thriller film, starring Tabu as Krishna Mehra, Ali Fazal as Ravi Mohan, Wamiqa Gabbi and Chaaru in lead roles, he’s taken inspiration from Amar Bhushan’s espionage novel Escape to Nowhere (based on true events). Releasing on the streamer on October 5, 2023, the film also stars Ashish Vidyarthi, Atul Kulkarni, Navnindra Behl, Lalit Parimoo, Shataf Figar, Azmeri Haque Badhon and others in supporting roles.

With a runtime around 2 hours and 35 minutes, the movie is available to stream with English subtitles as well for international audiences. It has been produced by Vishal Bhardwaj and Rekha Bhardwaj under the banner of VB Films Production, with cinematography by Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi, and music by Vishal Bhardwaj himself.

Khufiya Movie Review Contains No Spoilers

Khufiya Review: Discussion

With an intriguing background of the 1999 Kargil war, the film establishes its dark, murky and deceptive context. Therein, at the centre of the political mess, Krishna Mehra (KM) is an operative at the Research and Analysis Wing. Despite everything seeming to go according to plan, the disruptive and unprecedented murder of an undercover spy pushes KM to lead a secret operation against the suspicious presence of a mole in the intelligence unit.

This plot is not unheard of, plus, when you first watch the movie’s trailer, you again come across a familiar storyline that has been overused in the category of historically driven espionage stories. So what does Vishal Bhardwaj bring to this overly familiar and seen-before style of movies? He brings in his starry squad of an ensemble cast, led by one of the most acclaimed and respected actresses in Hindi cinema – Tabu. Is that enough to carry the film to new and greater heights? We find out soon enough.

Using a non-linear approach, the film starts off with the tone of a love letter, which goes in sync with the message left behind by the trailer as well, claiming Khufiya to be “a story of love”, before teasing it as “a story of revenge”. However, the unfortunate translation of the same on the small screen doesn’t fare as well as one would have anticipated. The film is severely deprived of the former “love” part, in turn, turning that supposed inspiration to act forward ineffectively.

Abrupt time jumps occupy the runtime of the movie, and the same takes you a good minute to get used to. Moreover, because of this traffic of time jumps, even less time is spent in spelling out the characters’ inspirations and motivations. These ineffective and unclear Character sketches deal out a failed attempt to introduce us to characters that are worth sticking by and getting curious about.

While having star-studded cast panels works well in terms of the visual output and stature of this kind of films, it has again led to compromising on the characterisation of fictional people making the story work. The espionage genre naturally digs further into exposing the ambiguous human nature, but this film rarely tries hard to quantify its characters’ actions. The lack of weighty backstories or contexts fuelling their lives ends up turning into an ineffectual and incomplete translation on the screen.

Minimal physical action heightens the intrigue factor by channelling a broodier tone of dialogue, but the composure doesn’t interest us much in the end because we’re never quite able to understand who we’re dealing with. Despite its messy non-linearity, the movie merely seems to be pacing towards a means to an end, and in that process, certain characters make short appearances that fail to make a mark on the viewer. Azmeri Haque Badhon’s character is one such introduction that is left underused, and it’s a shame because her initial presence stands firmly tall in the midst of politically conspiratorial action.

Serious and dark allusions to Shakespeare’s works stay constant in the new Bhardwaj project as well, and Tabu shines bright in her tight-lipped portrayal of a hardened agent; but the limited scope of writing for her character again deals with an incomplete characterisation. On the other hand, Wamiqa Gabbi, too, rises to the occasion with barely much room to move. She was also the highlight of Vishal Bhardwaj’s other recent OTT project Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley, and so she’s the one name we all need to watch out for. If only, we were let in on more scenes with her and Tabu in the film, maybe things could’ve been different.

On the contrary, Ali Fazal’s character is perhaps the biggest downer because we’re not able to place him as one thing or another, but even then, the greyness of his character isn’t spelt out well for us either. Even with all the broody colours of the movie, the same visual tone isn’t able to translate well into shaping up equally broody characters with strongly held motivations.

Khufiya Netflix Movie: Final Thoughts

Watching this film has left me with these questions – Are we in an era of VB films that merely make us gasp at every positively surprising revelation of an ensemble cast leading supporting roles? Or should we focus on being more enamoured by how these said actors’ roles play into a powerfully emotional cinematic storyline? Unfortunately, the latter is barely happening now. Even with the overt welcoming switch in Vishal Bhardwaj’s stories taking a women-led narrative tone that should’ve otherwise been worth watching, but somehow, even these dark-tone gritty stories are not as profound as Bhardwaj once made them out to be.

You can still tune in for the mesmerising balance between a relatively younger cast and its union with the veteran lot, but other than the cast itself, the movie misses the target in terms of consolidating its foundation with grave characters worth looking out for.

Khufiya is now streaming on Netflix.

Also read: Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley Review: Vishal Bhardwaj’s Light and Fun Whodunit is Sometimes Cluttered by Its Star-Studded Ensemble