Costao Cast/Actors: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Priya Bapat, Kishore G, Hussain Dalal, Mahika Sharma, Gagan Dev Riar & Others
Costao Movie Director: Sejal Shah
Costao Movie Production House: Bhanushali Studios, Bombay Fables Motion Pictures & Side Hero Entertainment
Costao Movie Release Date: 1st May, 2025
Costao Movie Available On: Zee5 OTT Platform
Costao Movie Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Costao Movie Runtime: 2h 4m
Costao Movie Critic Review:
What a wonderful story to document on celluloid. Costao Fernandes, the upright customs officer out to clean the coastal waters of Goa by going after gold smugglers with missionary zeal, has a heroism to his story that is rare. It’s a 90s’ tale unknown to most Indians and needed to be told with impactful storytelling.
However, neither director Sejal Shah not writers Bhavesh Mandalia and Meghna Srivastava manage to give heft to his fight against gold smuggling and against the system that impedes his mission.
There are flashes that are promising. In what’s supposed to be Costao’s young daughter’s voiceover, you’re told that 24-carat gold is priceless but useless, it can’t even shape into jewellery without milavat. “Mummy says the same about Costao.”
Costao Fernandes (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is sterling gold as a human. Can outrun any other as an athlete, his networking efficient, his reputation unassailable, his colleagues, senior and junior, always in his corner, his patriotism unquestionable. In fact, in one of the better moments between Costao and wife Marie (Priya Bapat), when the wife makes the usual noises over his miserliness with ‘I love you’ romance, he tells her that twice a year (Republic Day, Independence Day), he wears his love for his country on his sleeve. He says ‘I love you’ to his wife in the same measure – twice a year. “I’ve put you right up there. With my love for my country.”
Trust Nawazuddin to give that little garnish of humour to everyday asides.
But it is a neat sum-up of how Costao puts work before family, although he loves both.
And so, when a reliable informer tips him off about a huge 1500 kg haul of gold that’s going to land in Goa, Costao goes after it. Only for the operation to go south as Goa’s leading politician and gold smuggler Alfonso D’mello (Kishore G) puts his brother Peter (Hussain Dalal) in the driver’s seat. In a scuffle with the zealous Costao, Peter with a dickey-full of gold bars in his car, ends up in a coffin.
On paper, the script has it all. Wedding festivities going on in D’mello’s family alongside Peter’s unplanned end. Costao’s tale of valour taking an unexpected turn as corrupt CBI officer Sameer Narang (Gagan Dev Riar) arrives from Delhi to turn the smuggling operation into a murder by the customs officer. Costao’s domestic squabbles rising in tandem with his professional tensions. It’s not just about integrity and standing up to the combined bullying of the powerful and the corrupt but also protecting your informer at whatever the cost. That was the cost of being Costao which he willingly paid.
However, none of the tracks are told with any kind of creative grip, sliding into a dull biopic (like Phule last week) despite the sizzling content the makers could have played with. A customs officer’s outburst that instead of a case that read Customs Department vs Smuggler, the case has curiously turned into D’mello vs an individual named Costao, was poignant. But neither the telling of the legal case against Costao and the heartening support he gets from colleagues in the Customs department nor the slide in his relations with his family, make any impact as Sejal and writers pack it with cliched caricatures and situations. Like the CBI officer whose corruption and one-sidedness are as obvious as kaju feni in Goa.
There are a few scenes that are good on paper but should have been executed with such efficiency that they stayed with you forever. Like the sea of black veiled women who surround, gherao and assault Costao outside the court. Like Costao’s scenes at his children’s school which should’ve had menace in the air instead of just a background score dictating the mood. Incidentally, Hindi cinema’s overused tool of BG songs for a montage of scenes continues with no respite, the songs themselves leaving you unsatiated and exhausted.
All those smuggling operations on the seas and coast of Goa, the turns in the court case against Costao, all of this required to be told with nail-biting thrill.
With Kishore G’s ineffective voice and dialogue delivery making a weak D’mello, it’s left to Nawazuddin Siddique to shoulder the show as Costao, the Goan who drinks only nariyal-pani (which itself makes him unique), and drops telling lines like, “Everybody wants an honest officer but not at home, baaju ke ghar mein.” Priya Bapat stands up to him fairly well even if she tends to ham just one sur extra in a dramatic showdown.
Costao Watch Or Not?: A brief look is recommended only to get an introduction to a rare man. But Costao deserved better. If only his story had been told with greater proficiency, it would have been a worthy watch.
Costao Review Score Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (i.e. 2.5/5)
Costao Official Trailer:
Credits: Zee5
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