Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Khufiya’ seesaws between a deeply personal drama and a spy thriller, and neither aspect comes across satisfactorily

The film stars Tabu, Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabbi. There are some typically poetic touches that you expect from this director, but this film needed more. 

Vishal Bhardwaj’s new film is set amidst covert operations in India, the US, and Bangladesh, and its title is just one adjective: . But there’s two levels of secrecy implied in that title: one professional, one personal. Let’s look at the former, first. Vishal and his co-writer Rohan Narula seem to want to dismantle the expectations we have of the spy thriller; they want to make things as as possible. So instead of building the story around a series of nail-biting set pieces, they say: “Look, a lot of spy work is just sitting and staring at live CCTV footage on a small TV set.” Point taken. The first stretch of intrigue in may deal with a (professional) killing, but the (personal) shadow of the dead person is what haunts the rest of the narrative.

You can read the rest of the review here:

https://www.galatta.com/hindi/movie/review/khufiya/

And you can watch the trailer / video review here:

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