Bandar Cast/Actors: Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad, Jitendra Joshi & others
Bandar Director: Anurag Kashyap
Bandar Production House: Nikhil Dwivedi, Saffron Magicworks & Zee Studios
Bandar Release Date: 5th June, 2026
Bandar Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Bandar Available On: Theatrical Release (likely to be released on Zee5 OTT Platform)
Bandar Runtime: 2h 16m
Bandar Movie Review:
Right up, the first person to compliment would be Bobby Deol for playing a washed-up entertainer. It’s not every day that a mainstream actor would play Samar Mehra, a 50+ loser with a somewhat loose abs to match and outstanding EMIs. Man Friday too hasn’t been paid for months. No wife, no marriage, girlfriend Khushi (Saba Azad) was found on a dating app. But hopes of the big break as hero linger, as it does in most actors.
And then he’s hit with a rape charge by Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), a stalker from his recent past.
The rawness and the indifference of cops inside a police station may have been seen several times before but Kashyap directs a sequence that’s part humour, part horror especially as a senior in charge (brilliantly played by Jitendra Joshi) takes off on Samar’s WhatsApp chats. His ‘Benjo…’, his way-out explanations, his Trimurti reference to Subhash Ghai, are so well-written and well-enacted that there’s laughter even as the noose tightens around Samar.
Maybe writers Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee have handed Anurag the perfect script.
But, similar to the suddenness of Samar’s predicament, the viewer is thrown without warning into a murky mess.
At some point it stops being about a false charge of rape.
Anurag’s fascination for filth takes over and dominates – cops with gutters in their mouths, undertrials whose introduction to the grime behind bars is punishment even before a judge has pronounced a sentence, faeces, lizards, cockroaches, men heaving inside toilets to excrete hidden narcotics.
Brief glimpses of Gayatri the stalker. Sapna Pabbi, gorgeous.
It descends into a stalker and life in prison story, more sick than stark.
Also, does Kashyap say anything we haven’t seen before?
We were introduced to disturbed stalkers in the last millennium. Clint Eastwood’s classic neo noir psychological thriller Play Misty For Me (1971), Demi Moore’s Disclosure (1994) and our very own Priyanka Chopra’s version of it in Aitraaz (2004) have all been predecessors of Gayatri.
The rot in the system and the dirty life of men in jail was also filmed with starkness by Madhur Bhandarkar in Jail (2009) and again, for a short while, in Raju Hirani’s Sanju (2018).
Therefore, except that it makes a very grotty watch, Kashyap has nothing new to show. Worse, none of it is linear in its telling. Swift flashbacks have to be stitched together for coherence.
There is also a glaring absence of logic. Samar Mehra has a loyal Man Friday, security guards and WhatsApp chats to back his defence that Gayatri is a stalker he had blocked. But none of it is even referred to as he’s thrown in jail without bail until he succumbs to the system.
With the legalities dealt with indifferently and the focus on filth, Bandar is once again Anurag Kashyap monkeying around with actors and a budget.
The good? Bobby Deol, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad (the girlfriend who walks away), Sanya Malhotra (Samar’s sister who gives up on him), Jitendra Joshi and the rest of the supporting cast.
But do you have to endure gangs inside jails, men dancing merrily (a la Satya without the same impact) and unwashed toilets for over 140 minutes just for some brilliant performances?
Bandar – Watch Or Not?: Only diehard Kashyap fans who look for social statements in his cinema will applaud this dark and meandering film.
Bandar Review Score Rating: 2 out of 5 (i.e. 2/5)
Bandar Official Trailer:
Credits: Zee Studios
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