Maalik Cast/Actors: Rajkummar Rao, Manushi Chhillar & Prosenjit Chatterjee.
Maalik Movie Director: Pulkit
Maalik Movie Production House: Tips Industries & Northern Lights Films
Maalik Movie Release Date: 11 July 2025
Maalik Movie Available On: In Cinemas
Maalik Movie Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Maalik Movie Runtime: 2h 32m
Maalik Movie Critic Review:
Underworld dons have weepy back stories of injustice that turned them into gangster-killers.
Political patronage (Saurav Shukla as big daddy Santosh Singh) must figure in the making of a ruthless new Maalik (Rajkummar Rao).
The heartlessness has to show up in a couple of scenes like humiliating a cop by making him lick his own spit on the ground before he’s shot dead. Or gunning down a rival gangster before his young son.
Maalik will even swagger and confront boastful, offensive encounter specialist SP Prabhu Das (Prosenjit) to warn him to never step into his house again and threaten his parents.
Gangster heroes are also family men, don’t mess with their parents or talk to a wife they adore. Recall gangster Vinod Khanna as the soft-as-pulp husband in Haath Ki Safaai (1974).
Writer-director Pulkit and co-writer Jyotsana Nath tick off all the mandatory items on their laundry list of cliches.
Flashback to Deepak, a footballer who purposely loses a match to please wife Shalini (Manushi Chillar) and who wrests the title Maalik after watching his poor farmer father (Rajendra Gupta) plead with servility before his landowner alias his Maalik.
Dad and Shalini want Maalik to surrender. Maalik would rather fight elections and travel in a lal batti car. But the family man in the gangster prevails.
Moments before surrender, a heartbreaking loss brings him right back into the game. Revenge. More killings. More bloodshed. A traitor within.
There are a few well-written lines. Like Maalik looking at the magistrate quaking before him and remarking, “I’ve heard that kanoon ke haath lambe hote hain but I didn’t know they also tremble.”
But it’s routine gangster fare, prolonged beyond need and Huma Qureshi’s item number doesn’t make an impact.
Most people would wonder why Rajkummar Rao was cast in a ruthless gangster’s role. But he pulls it off and does become the fearsome Maalik for over two hours. He carries the show on his shoulders like he does in the scene where he hangs several goons, the rope tugged and resting on his shoulders alone.
Prosenjit has substantial screen presence but Pulkit gives him an effete, blustering officer’s role, dancing to the whims of his political patron.
Watch it or not?: Only if mindless gangster and political godfather stories are your diet, is this for you.
Maalik Review Score Rating: 2.5 out of 5 (i.e. 2.5/5)
Maalik Official Trailer:
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