India’s Most Wanted movie review: This Arjun Kapoor film about intelligence isn’t particularly bright

India’s Most Wanted movie review: Arjun Kapoor plays it subtle in a well-meaning thriller too restrained to be memorable. The idea at its heart is good but there’s little that leaves an impact.

India’s Most Wanted
Director: Raj Kumar Gupta
Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Rajesh Sharma
Rating: 2 stars

India’s Most Wanted movie review: Arjun Kapoor is tasked with bringing a dangerous terrorist to justice.

Raj Kumar Gupta has style. I loved the cuts to music in Aamir, the slow-burn intensity of No One Killed Jessica, the convoluted whimsy of Ghanchakkar. I’m therefore disappointed by India’s Most Wanted, a well-meaning thriller too restrained to be memorable. While the basic idea is fine — a ragtag team of unimpressive men setting out to capture “India’s Osama” — there is little that leaves an impact.

Watch the trailer for India’s Most Wanted here:

The film subscribes to the problematic trend of underscoring scenes of terrorism with strains of Islamic music, as if qawwals build bombs. The idea is to generate a Pavlovian association, showing terrorists as Urdu-speaking, religiously motivated believers, while the good guys have an Om sticker on their Scorpio.

Arjun Kapoor and others in a still from India’s Most Wanted.

Nine Indian men drive two SUVs into Kathmandu. The lack of any women in this holidaying group makes the border control officer immediately suspicious, but cross-border opposition is deployed lazily. Pakistani forces take their time. Times have changed, and Indian policemen aren’t the ones who reach the scene after the climax these days.

A still from Raj Kumar Gupta’s India’s Most Wanted.

There are a few neat touches. The film uses Shah Rukh Khan’s immigration woes in America to kickstart its narrative. The terrorists are shown as big money players, leaving 200% tips when out bombing — in contrast to the Indian desperadoes who have to share a beer at a bar. There’s a delightful visual of a Pakistani intelligence officer hurrying through an office, adaab-ing rapidly as he strides, and the filmmakers make Kathmandu look great.

All this film needed to be was smart. It is thorough — there is much waiting around and scrutiny of agents and potential double-agents — but for a film about intelligence, this isn’t particularly bright.

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