Khufiya Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi

A real-life story of a RAW agent who fled to the USA after leaking national secrets to an American intelligence agency.

Actors like Ali Fazal, Tabu.

And yet, it’s Vishal Bhardwaj who falls short.

Based on the book Escape To Nowhere, which in turn was inspired by real-life events, Khufiya is an espionage story with a little bit of love, and some murders thrown in. Tabu is Krishna Mehra, also known as KM, a high-level R&AW operative. Along with Ashish Vidyarthi and other colleagues, she is investigating Ali Fazal’s Ravi, suspected of leaking secrets to the CIA. Wamiqa Gabi is Ravi’s wife Charu, unaware of his deshdrohi ways. Is he really the mole? Will he get away with it?

Sounds fun, because it is! Even more exciting, knowing it’s inspired by the real-life story of the ACTUAL joint-secretary of R&AW, more on that at the END of this video you watch aakhir tak.

I couldn’t have been more excited for this film. Actors I love, director cinephiles can’t get enough of, and yet, Khufiya mostly left me with a feeling of mild boredom.

Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi returns as cinematographer after Kuttey and the young artist creates stunning opening shots consistent with Bhardwaj’s style. A female silhouette in the rain, neon lights in the night, an unknown street, a mystery is afoot. In the voice-over, you hear KM start talking about a woman she seems to know too closely, pausing to talk about the mole between her collarbones, which leads to a cheeky segue into a conversation about a mole in the R&AW. I couldn’t quite figure out WHO KM was talking to in the voice-over, but the sequence is gripping enough to not allow my mind to wander further toward that question.

Also intriguing is the opening text that appears to talk about the aftermath of the 1999 war, jiske bad both India and Pakistan were seemingly interested in influencing the politics of Bangladesh. This gave me pause, NGL, if VB is choosing to mention India-Pakistan right upfront, things are either about to get too honest, or TOO dishonest and at worst nationalistic.

I held my breath for a long time to see either of these above two sub-plots unfold and give me release. Neither happens.

We do find out more about the woman KM was seemingly describing on that rainy night, but as soon as we come close to caring about her, her mission, and her cause our attention is yanked away in a different direction, haath ko aya mooh na lagaa.

Oh and the India-Pakistan info up front, never really referred to again?

My big complaint with Khufiya is the disbalance between its promise and the little things the film gets almost lazy on. With loving attention to detail, Vishal Bhardwaj slowly expands his universe. Two operatives don’t just set up a spy operation across the street from Ravi, it’s INSIDE a Mother Dairy booth, a uniquely Delhi offering. Azmeri Haque Badhon as Heena is not just a femme fatale eager to put herself in danger, she also is an only child taking care of an old and possibly disabled father when not actively seducing men AND women. Ravi’s mother isn’t just your bahu-hating mother-in-law, she is more aware of the things going on around her, than she lets on, a role a scene-stealing Navnindra Behl is simply fantastic in. I dare say it’s her and Tabu that kept Khufiya from becoming completely uninteresting to watch.

And yet when contrived dialogue like “aakhir hamara shak sahi nikla” appears, you can’t help but wonder where the QC is, and why is a moment like this allowed in this film. An even bigger offender is KM’s relationship with her teenage son being written with the nuance and elegance of a….well a teenager trying to sound cool to his friends. At a fancy Delhi restaurant, the kid, mad at his mother for missing his school play performance where he played Brutus, suddenly comments on how beautiful his mother is, asking his father “Dad how could you let go of such a beauty” is too painfully a deliberate attempt to underline how “cool” this modern family dynamic is. Not to mention KM OBVIOUSLY struggles with balancing work and a personal life, because even when we have the mighty Tabu ready to take on this weird, complex character, we can’t help but highlight how women must sacrifice one side of their lives to become awesome at the other. What does his father do and why he has all the time in the world to be with his son? We don’t find out. He must have it together.

With writer Rohan Narula, Vishal Bhardwaj tasks Wamiqa Gabi with even MORE of a male gaze-y manic pixie housewife character. What must women do when their husbands are away? Smoke hand-rolled joints and dance to old hindi songs in their underwear of course? Even when circumstances force a personality change in Charu, a scene with her father is inserted to explain how even an animal would lose their mind if they went through what Charu has. Her father has not been seen before this shot and is never heard from again, only existing in this brief moment in time to tell the viewer how we must feel about Charu. Wamiqa trying with all her might, unfortunately chooses to play every beat of Charu’s emotional arc as a derivative stereotype we’ve seen before. The silly unaware housewife, the grieving mother, even when she is a woman with a secret there is little freshness or newness on offer. One can predict her next move because they seem to be inspired by the Hindi movies she so likes to watch.

While Ali Fazal I am happy to watch them delivering a monologue to a wall if he chose to put that up as a performance piece, with Ravi Mohan, despite him being the focal point of this whole shebang, the actor doesn’t have a whole lot to work with, at least in the first half, which is where I would have like to have gotten to know him a bit. Very impassionate he yells at Charu that he is a patriot, not a deshdrohi which is well and good, but what leads him to this point, we only kinda sorta find out in the last 30–45 minutes, when the film started to tie is many loose ends together, offering up SOME closure as characters with all their secrets finally come face to face. What is making Ravi do the things he does? Is it that easy to leak national secrets? Pakistan ka kya hua?

Every time I drifted away, Tabu’s sardonic dialogue delivery kept pulling me back. This is a weird comparison to make here but like Owen Wilson in the recently released, hugely disappointing Loki Season 2, its almost calming to see an actor play a character AWARE of the absurdity of the situation they’re all in. She says “Julius ceaser padhaare nahi hain ab tak” with the derisiveness of a woman who doesn’t want to do the job this afternoon, but knows the whole establishment is riding on her being able to perform.

Now, I fully fail to understand why a Vishal Bhardwaj movie, in some of its MOST crucial scenes, has some of the WORST American actors casting I’ve seen in a minute. An OBVIOUSLY British actor doing a terrible fake American accent has an ACTUAL important role to play, unfortunately executed with zero finesse. Another terribly incapable junior artist is hired to play a singer, performing on stage right next to Rahul Ram who in turn is bringing his lifetime of stage performing experience to the part of a cult leader. Itna sunder sab kuch sajaaya, toh yeh chhoti chhoti, easily fixable cheezein overlook kyun?

Like I said abhi oopar, I found the movie gripping only in its final act. The action moves to a small American suburb and you find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes. I just wish the wait to get to that point wasn’t this long and unrewarding. Aap dekho Netflix par aur bataao.