Khufiya Star Cast/ Actors: Ali Fazal as Ravi Mohan, Wamiqa Gabbi as Charu, Tabu as Krishna Mehra, Ashish Vidyarthi as Jeev, and Atul Kulkarni as Shashank.
Khufiya Director: Vishal Bhardwaj
Khufiya Release Date: 5 October, 2023
Khufiya Available On: Netflix
Khufiya Released/ Available In Languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu
Khufiya Runtime: 2 Hours 37 Minutes
Khufiya Critic Review:
You already know the mole in RAW, Ravi Mohan (Ali Fazal). The intelligence agency has been keeping tabs on his sneaky ways, his office and his house have been bugged.
Writer-director Vishal Bhardwaj’s fondness for Shakespeare continues. It’s Operation Brutus when the surveillance team has “Portia”, Ravi’s wife Charu (Wamiqa Gabbi), in their view. On the surface, an everyday housewife who takes her son to the club for swimming and takes cares of her mother-in-law. Is Portia her husband’s accomplice?
Krishna Mehra alias KM (Tabu), the impulsively fiery RAW officer has already beaten up a colleague who’s sold out. Jeev (Ashish Vidyarthi), her boss, knows just to handle her.
With the mole exposed right away, the game is not about who but about how, why and who’s the puppeteer.
Basing his spy thriller on Amar Bhushan’s Escape To Nowhere, Vishal Bhardwaj makes a polished beginning. A fancy party is going on in a huge mansion with security and liveried staff. Brigadier Mirza (Shataf Figar) is celebrating his birthday in Dhaka. Dressed to impress, special friend Heena Rehman (Azmeri Haque), sways seductively up to him. She apologises that her present for him has a mauled giftwrap – his security wouldn’t allow it in until they’d looked at what she was bringing in. Brigadier gallantly says he’ll get rid of all of them. There’s chemistry. There’s a phone call. And there’s a calm killing in front of everybody.
“Let the music play on, the party is on,” says Mirza, like nothing has happened.
The ruthlessness of the spy game is spelt out with that sequence.
KM grieves, can’t help feeling she killed Heena, her recruit for Operation Ghalib that went so wrong. Or perhaps more than a recruit as at one point estranged husband Shashank (Atul Kulkarni) casually jokes with KM, “You’re into older women now?”
For KM, getting Mirza has become personal. Finding him through sold out puppet Ravi Mohan means putting all else on hold. Including her son who’s disappointed every time she misses his school function or leaves a family dinner midway.
With Vishal’s eye for beautiful sets and locations, his longtime association with Tabu that draws a flawless performance from her each time and with his passion for music, the route to get Brigadier Mirza is strewn with characters like a Rajneesh-like guru called Yaaraji whose satsangs draw devotees like Ravi Mohan’s mother. His music, his meditation and his don’t-forget-anulom-vilom-pranayam, work wonders for all ailments.
Surveillance throws up Ravi’s surprise accomplice. But he’s one step ahead of his RAW colleagues.
Tailing Ravi, the action shifts to South Dakota in the US. Passing references are made to India’s nuclear deal with the US, the US’ fight with the Taliban and America’s famous interference in Indian affairs.
After lingering on personal relationships for short spells, we do ultimately get the Brigadier. But after a rather obviously uncomfortable dinner that’s too sloppily executed for a professional spy outfit.
Vishal’s direction is sophisticated even if that dinner was disappointing and there are boringly prolonged asides, Charu and her son being one of them. Like Vidya Balan did with Neeyat, Tabu can tick off ‘lesbian’ as ‘done’ on her list of roles. Actors Ashish Vidyarthi, Atul Kulkarni and Ali Fazal provide able support. After toplining Charlie Chopra, Wamiqa who is always a delight to watch, has a rather insipid role as Charu with Vishal trying to spice it up by having her smoke furtively and dance to ‘Yeh jawani hai deewani’ in her lingerie.
Khufiya – Watch Or Not?: Although it’s not a cult spy thriller, it works as a one-time watch.
Khufiya Review Score Rating: 3 out of 5 (i.e. 3/5)
Khufiya Official Trailer:
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