Name: Bandar
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Released: 2026-06-05
Rating: 6.7
Cast: Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Sapna Pabbi, Indrajith Sukumaran, Saba Azad

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Inspired by true events, the film uncovers hidden human stories, ones often left untold. It dives into uncomfortable truths and moments that challenge silence, asking what happens when a story that should’ve stayed buried is finally brought to light.

Bandar

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Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee's story is inspired by true events and is quite shocking. Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee's screenplay has its share of gripping and heart-wrenching scenes. But the writing also suffers in some scenes. Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee's dialogues are straight out of life. A few one-liners will raise a lot of laughs.

Anurag Kashyap's direction is gritty. He tells a story that dominates social media discourse at regular intervals but has barely found adequate representation on celluloid. BANDAR fills that void. Anurag doesn’t shy away from depicting police interrogation, loopholes in the legal system and jail life in all their disturbing realism. Samar is not just battling the humiliation of being branded a rapist and the unsanitary conditions in prison, but is also forced to navigate the various gangs inside. In the midst of this grim narrative, Anurag also infuses humour. The police interrogation scene is lengthy but raises laughs. It gives a déjà vu of a similar scene in Anurag’s earlier film, UGLY [2014], but here, he takes it a few notches higher.
On the flipside, the film is not for the faint-hearted and is, therefore, meant for a niche audience. Also, the makers don’t tie up all the loose ends satisfactorily. At the very beginning, we are informed that Samar is struggling to pay his servant’s salary and has received bank notices for defaulting on his flat dues. However, this crucial aspect is completely forgotten later. Viewers will be curious to know what happens to his flat while Samar is away in prison – whether it gets confiscated or whether his family takes care of the issue. The entire angle of Samar’s association with Gayatri and his lawyer is also a bit bewildering. Lastly, the manner in which the film culminates may leave audiences divided.

Bandar Movie Review Performances:
Bobby Deol gets completely into the skin of his character. One can’t help but root for him and be moved by his plight. The scenes where he breaks down in front of his sister tugs at the heartstrings of the viewers. This is yet another bravura performance from the actor in his 2.0 avatar. Sapna Pabbi has limited screen time but rocks the show and is aptly cast. Sanya Malhotra (Suhani Mehra) is dependable. Saba Azad (Khushi) lends able support. Jitendra Joshi (Inspector Deore) is the scene-stealer. Sukant Goel (Aatish) leaves a tremendous mark. Indrajit Sukumaran (Lijo), Ankush Gedam (Bilaal) and Raj B Shetty (Lizard Man) are memorable. Nagesh Bhonsle (Papa Jacob), Jaimini Pathak (Cop) and Vaishnavi Ratna Prashant (Hemangi; lady cop) are fair. Others who do well are Riddhi Sen (Advocate Mukherjee), Ghanshyam Garg (Shiva; servant), Aurobindo Bhatacharjee (Gayatri's lawyer), Uday Tikekar (Judge), Vijay Gupta (Senile old man) and Nikhat Khan (Samar's mother).

Bandar movie music and other technical aspects:
The music is alright. 'Come On Baby' is the best of the lot. 'Pinjara' is well picturized with Raj B Shetty’s energetic dance being a highlight. Shivahari Varma's background score is well-woven into the narrative. The theme played in Sapna Pabbi’s entry is chilling.

Shaaz Rizvi's cinematography adds significantly to the realism. Prashant Bidkar's production design is too realistic and it gives a feeling that the film is actually shot in a real prison. Subodh Srivastava's costumes and Paramjit Singh Pamma and Amrit Singh's action are also authentic. Aarti Bajaj's editing is fine but the transition is a bit random in some scenes.

Bandar Movie Review Conclusion:
On the whole, BANDAR tells a shocking and disturbing story and is powered by a marvellous, heart-wrenching performance by Bobby Deol. However, given its niche appeal and grim subject, the film will need strong word of mouth to leave a mark at the box office.

Samar insists he is the real victim, claiming Gayatri is a psychotic stalker seeking revenge after he ghosted and blocked her. The police counter his version by reading out their explicit text exchanges and inform him that he is accused not only of rape, but also extortion and blackmail.
Soon, Samar finds himself trapped in judicial custody, with his bail hearing repeatedly delayed and eventually denied owing to the gravity of the allegations. The prison is overcrowded, filthy and hostile, with sexually frustrated rival camps eyeing the "hero" as easy prey. It takes Samar time to realise that this is not a temporary nightmare, he is in for a long and brutal ordeal.
Co-directed by Anurag Kashyap, Sakshi Mehta and co-written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, the story appears loosely inspired by the much-publicised case of a television actor-singer accused of rape in 2019.
Despite its premise, the film avoids the conventional route. It is neither a whodunit nor a thriller obsessed with uncovering the truth. Instead, it examines a flawed system that often forgets the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," especially when a celebrity is involved. More importantly, it scrutinises how society, the media, the judiciary and even ordinary people transform an ongoing investigation into a public spectacle. It is striking that even people accused of murder can be deeply judgmental of those accused of rape within the prison system. Nobody seeks the truth; we seek entertainment. What happens to the accused while the process unfolds? This story chooses to explore that question through Samar's eyes.
Casting Bobby Deol is the film's masterstroke. He looks and feels broken in what is arguably his finest and most demanding performance in years. The narrative pushes him to the edge, stripping away every shred of dignity, respect and self-worth. Rarely has Deol appeared this vulnerable and helpless on screen. Kashyap relentlessly unsettles his protagonist and, in doing so, leaves the audience equally shaken.
The film also highlights how prolonged undertrial detention violates a person's right to a fair trial. Beyond exposing the appalling conditions inside overcrowded prisons and the routine denial of basic constitutional rights, the drama observes how the endless pursuit of justice can become more punishing than the punishment itself.
Credit to the writers for resisting the temptation to whitewash Samar or others who claim innocence while in custody. The film acknowledges that allegations against men are often viewed through a particular lens, but it never reduces its argument to a simplistic gender debate.
Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad and Sapna Pabbi are excellent in their respective roles, while the ensemble of actors playing police officers, including Jitendra Joshi and Nagesh Bhosle, deliver uniformly strong performances. This is not an easy film to watch. It is disturbing, repulsive and occasionally repetitive. Think of horror sensation ‘obsession’ in an Anurag Kashyap universe. But that discomfort is precisely the point. The film succeeds because it refuses to offer easy answers or emotional relief. It is not meant to make you feel better, it is meant to leave you unsettled.

In Anurag Kashyap's previous film Nishaanchi, Monika Panwar's feisty mother warns her cocky son before he is sent to jail: 'Chidiyaghar mein sher aur bandar ki ek hi aukaat hoti hain.'

Jail becomes a pivotal setting in Kashyap's latest Bandar, where the above line serves as a reminder: No matter what you are, everyone is reduced to the same helplessness inside a cage.

Now, making audiences uncomfortable without softening reality has long been Kashyap's filmmaking strength. His stories often paint raw, uncompromising worlds that mainstream actors would usually shy away from. The last time Ranbir Kapoor took that leap with Bombay Velvet, Kashyap, instead, pivoted towards a far jazzier filmmaking style. The result was a crushing disappointment.

Bandar has a star figure in Bobby Deol who plays the film's protagonist, and frankly, it feels like an unexpected collaboration. One of the film's greatest pleasures is watching Deol let go of his vanity and submit himself to Kashyap's unflinching filmmaking.

Even after his renewed popularity following Aashram and Animal, Bandar feels like the true reinvention of Bobby Deol. Not as a star, but as an actor.
He is that good here.

What's Bandar About?
The first time we see Deol, he is walking in slow motion through a passageway. A guitar is handed to him. The clothes are flashy. It is the kind of heroic entry usually reserved for a rockstar in a musical.

Before you can make any assumptions about who this man might be, the film flips that image, and quite brutally so.

We quickly realise he is in a performing gig at a private function, where nobody is remotely interested or curious about who he is.

He plays Samar Mehra, a faded TV star in his 50s, who has clearly seen better days. He drifts through a vacuous everyday life, endlessly doomscrolling dating apps in search of a companion.

He finds a match in Khushi (a spirited Saba Azad), and the two begin dating. Things soon take a vicious turn when Samar's last casual date Gayatri (an eerily captivating Sapna Pabbi) resurfaces and accuses him of sexual assault.

Before he can even make sense of what is happening, Samar is charged under Section 376 and thrown into an undertrial prison for a crime he may or may not have committed.

How Bandar Looks At Systemic Injustice
class="rbig"Kashyap, co-directing with Sakshi Mehta Lau, does a fine job of establishing the central character and his situation. Samar's arc is set up clearly, and we get hooked to his plight early on.

The film doesn't dwell on his backstory, but it is subtly conveyed through the photographs hanging on his walls, like remnants from his heyday.

As the story kicks into the legal procedure, it doesn't linger much on the 'he said, she said' part, as there is no big courtroom drama playing out here. Even the answer to who is guilty and who is innocent is laid out fairly easily.

At its core, Bandar is less a #MeToo film and more an examination of how the murky system would respond once an accusation is made. And there begins the monkey business of media trails, social media scrutiny, character assassination. Innocent until proven guilty? Nah, guilty until proven innocent it is.

It is more like how Akshaye Khanna's astute lawyer in Section 375 puts it, 'Justice is abstract, law is a fact.' The justice is sought by Samar's hapless sister Suhani (played by the ever-dependable Sanya Malhotra), who makes desperate efforts to save him with the help of her lawyer friend (Riddhi Sen).

Inside the prison, Samar interacts with different inmates with their own roles and motivations.

Lijo (a suitably stoic Indrajith Sukumaran) is a Malayalam-speaking commanding figure who offers help, but not without conditions. Aslam (Jhund's Ankush Gedam) is more volatile and unpredictable. And then a man of doubtful intent (Sukant Goel), whose presence alone keeps things uneasy. Each of them turns into a different kind of test for Samar.

With his perennially dozy eyes set against dingy walls, the ugliness of prison consumes and begins to disintegrate Samar's mental state captured ably by Shaaz Rizvi's claustrophobic images.

You see Deol unabashedly (and quite daringly) going all out and delivering the most hyper-realistic performance we never expected from him.

In one striking sequence, Deol, in a complete vulnerable state, collapses emotionally in front of his sister as he begs to be set free.

In another, he arrives at a bleak realisation of his situation, almost in a delusional state, as he utters, 'We are the monkeys of our own circus'.

The writing team of Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Sharma, whose commentary on systems has earlier come through their work in Paatal Lok and Kohrra, gives us a well-realised, three-dimensional picture of a man who becomes a victim of systemic injustice.

But you cannot help but also feel that, despite its formidable writing credits, the film squanders an opportunity to build something more meaningful around the #MeToo movement.

The three women characters represent three different moral compasses, but the film hardly reflects on important concepts, especially in times when the #MeToo movement is still finding its feet. Instead of delving deeper into a morally complex territory, the film paints sexual assault and the accusation with broad strokes.

Anurag Kashyap's Assured Direction
Bandar benefits greatly from Kashyap's assured direction where his style feels more grounded and less abstract. Despite the bleakness of material, the narrative is briefly lightened at times by his signature playful touches.

You see Samar keeps hanging on to his yesteryear track Come on Baby, Dil Kisko Degi that cheekily pokes fun at old-school lyrics.

There is also a sly take on the language divide, as Marathi-speaking officers hound Samar for not knowing the local language (Jitendra Joshi is a hoot in an Ugly-like police station sequence).

Kashyap even slips in a wink by casting his son-in-law (Shane Gregoire) as a firangi inmate, even having him casually drop a Hindi slur for effect.

If Lijo Jose Pellissery surprised us in the opening minutes of Nishaanchi, Kashyap's Kannada filmmaker friend Raj B Shetty gets a full song-n-dance sequence in this one.

Just like Kashyap's last Kennedy, Bandar, too, has a nihilistic view of the system. But this time, it is softened by a more hopeful ending. We see a few good men doing the right thing, and with that the film suggests that change is possible, if only we stopped the cycle of monkey see, monkey do.

Over the years, Anurag Kashyap has acquired the restless temperament of a filmmaker who refuses to let a genre remain in its original shape. He picks it up, abrades its surface, contorts its bones, stains it with unease and turns it into something that is, more often than not, rounded, provocative and occasionally path-breaking. Whether it was the sci-fi mystery architecture of Dobaaraa or the gritty, almost graphic-novel-like world of Kennedy, set amid the feverish dread of the pandemic, Kashyap has kept reinventing his cinematic idiom while making stories that do not merely entertain, but also prod the viewer in the ribs. His latest outing, Bandar, starring Bobby Deol, Sapna Pabbi, Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad and a wide ensemble of talented actors, is another intriguing accretion to that journey. The film refracts the MeToo movement through a more disquieting prism, examining the social, legal and psychological fallout of being accused of rape, irrespective of guilt or innocence. It is a mixed bag, coruscating at times with brilliance, and at other times, feeling slightly contrived around the peripheries.

The film opens with Samar Mehra, played by Bobby Deol, a television star who was once celebrated but has now been quietly jettisoned by the same industry that once fed on his aura. He is no longer the man whose name could make rooms turn. Now, he takes up random gigs while struggling to reclaim a glory that has slowly evaporated. He has pending EMIs, he is falling behind on paying his house help, and a thick film of despondence seems permanently lacquered on his face. But everything in Samar’s life is not dipped in grey. He is dating Khushi, played by Saba Azad, and although the age gap between them is evident, they appear to have been together for a while. In one scene, the two bicker when Samar gets jealous about Khushi meeting a male friend, revealing both intimacy and insecurity in the same breath.

But Samar’s life begins to splinter one evening when a couple of policemen arrive at his door and escort him to the police station. There, he is confronted with a precarious and damning situation. A woman named Gayatri, played by Sapna Pabbi, whom Samar had met through a dating app and slept with once, has accused him of rape and registered a case under Section 376.

Still unable to process the enormity of what has happened, Samar gets into a quarrel with one of the inspectors as the latter reads out his explicit chats with the accuser. This gives the film one of its funniest stretches, where the cop uses the word “banjo" as a substitute for a similar-sounding cuss word with a deadpan solemnity that makes the moment even more hilarious. During the interrogation, the same cop offers Samar the option of paying Rs 20 lakh to save himself, but Samar refuses outright, claiming that he is innocent, that he has done nothing wrong, and that he wants a lawyer. His request is not immediately addressed. The next day, Suhani, played by Sanya Malhotra, Samar’s sister, arrives at the jail with a lawyer. Samar pleads with her to get him out of this mess while trying to convince a worried and conflicted sister that he is innocent.

Samar remains hopeful until the judge rejects his bail and sends him to 15 days of judicial custody. That is where his nightmare truly begins, as he is booked into a shabby, suffocating and wildly overcrowded undertrial prison.

As Samar tries to steady himself in those horrible and despicable living conditions, his lawyer and sister continue to support him from outside, rummaging for any detail that might help his case and arranging monetary help wherever required. Inside, Samar is forced to navigate the choppy waters of the undertrial prison. He is advised not to reveal that he is in jail under Section 376, which concerns rape, blackmail and extortion, and instead say that he is in for Section 302, murder, so that he does not get sexually assaulted by other inmates who do not look kindly upon rapists.

The prison setup is one of the most fascinating and vital aspects of Bandar. It is overcrowded, its toilets are overflowing, cockroaches move around with the entitlement of permanent residents, the food is bug-infested, and the air itself seems to have gone stale. There are zany, over-the-top characters, and naturally, there are factions. One group consists of men accused of rape, while the larger and more dominant faction is led by Lijo, played by Indrajith Sukumaran. His group is a strange cocktail of inmates, ranging from drug mules to accused murderers. Samar drifts between these two worlds, silently negotiating with the absurdity of his condition, trying to remain hopeful even as his life begins to collapse brick by brick. As Lijo tells him in one scene, the undertrial prison is like a seven-star hotel. If one wants anything done, one must grease some palms. Nothing comes as charity.

At the centre of this storm is Gayatri Anand, played by Sapna Pabbi, the woman who met Samar on a dating app. While she falls intensely for him, Samar does not mirror those emotions. Gayatri comes across as anxiously attached, almost obsessively drawn to him, as she repeatedly visits his flat unannounced. Sometimes, she brings food cooked for him. At other times, she tries to fix the interiors of his house because she believes there is “negative" energy there. Samar initially indulges her after their one sexual encounter, but slowly begins to distance himself as he realises that her attachment is unhealthy. He does not directly ask her to stay away, but he starts seeing Khushi around the same time. One day, Gayatri spots Samar with Khushi while stalking him and confronts him face to face. Samar sternly asks her to stay away or he will call the police. That moment triggers her, and from there, the machinery of the film begins to grind forward. Whether Samar manages to extricate himself from this mess or not is something one must sit through the film to discover.

Like most Anurag Kashyap films, Bandar begins with a rather exemplary tonal grip. There is unease from the very first stretch, a kind of raw grittiness that seeps in through Samar’s ordinary flat, his conversations with the house help, and the quiet sadness that seems to have petrified on his face after years of fading stardom and lack of worthwhile opportunities. The stress on his visage is unmistakable. The noir-like treatment makes it clear that this film is not walking toward a bright, comforting destination. The blue-tinted colour grading and the stylistic choices become part of its very bloodstream.

The comedic moments also emerge naturally and do not feel forcibly grafted into the narrative. The interrogation sequence, in particular, is a riot. The exchange around dating apps, the inspector trying to understand swiping left and right, the way he reads the explicit chat between Samar and Gayatri, and the way he talks about the picture of his penis that Samar had sent her, all of it is timed well enough to genuinely draw laughter.

There are also moments that feel too lived-in to be dismissed as mere writing. For instance, when Samar is being taken to the police station, sandwiched between two cops, one of them suddenly pulls out his phone and video calls his wife to show her who he is sitting with. He pushes the phone repeatedly towards Samar’s face so his wife can see him clearly, and what makes the moment funnier is that she does not even recognise him. It is the kind of absurdity that feels culled from real life, where humiliation and comedy often sit on the same broken chair.

What works most in favour of Bandar is the grittiness and realism with which the undertrial prison has been portrayed. The film captures the plight of people trapped in limbo, sometimes for years and sometimes for what feels like eternity. One might expect the film to transform into a courtroom drama, but Kashyap is more interested in the cost and consequences of being falsely implicated, and in the aftermath that unfolds once a man’s life begins spiralling in just a handful of days. Samar is gradually reduced to a helpless, insignificant inmate number. He tries to salvage his relationship with Khushi, pleads with his sister to get him out, and slowly sinks into despair and reluctant acceptance. That descent is portrayed with a bruising sense of inevitability.

Technically too, Bandar performs exceptionally well in creating an almost claustrophobic prison complex, packed with all kinds of people, leaving the viewer to decipher the morality of every character Samar meets. There is Lijo, whose every favour comes with a price tag, and then there is a former security guard who claims he was falsely accused of rape, only to casually say in the next breath that women are bound to get raped if they wear short clothes. Even Samar himself is not scrubbed clean of moral ambiguity. While the film makes it clear that he did not rape Gayatri, it does not absolve him of his own blemishes. His gaze towards a young female neighbour, particularly the way he zooms into her photograph while browsing her social media profile, quietly reveals that he is not entirely free of fallibility. He may not be guilty of the crime he is accused of, but he is not presented as a spotless man either. Kashyap does not underline these contradictions. He lets them fester in the open. The crash zooms in certain sequences and the background score elevate the mood further. Amit Trivedi’s music is decent and satisfactory. A song like “Pinjara" works because it weaves itself into the narrative quite naturally, while “Ram Siya Ram" by Shivahari Varma plays inconspicuously on the jail speaker every morning. Against the bleakness of the prison, the song carries a strange, almost cruel hope. The dichotomy is beautiful.

On the acting front, Bobby Deol does a good job, especially in scenes that require intensity on his face. However, he is inconsistent in the scenes where he has to cry. Sapna Pabbi as Gayatri does an

Known for his chaotic energy, Anurag Kashyap takes a remarkably mature and controlled approach here. He avoids sensationalizing a highly sensitive topic, choosing instead to focus on the psychological claustrophobia of the protagonist. The prison sequences are exceptionally well-shot. They create a suffocating, raw atmosphere that makes you feel the weight of the character's confinement. The script successfully avoids preachy, black-and-white monologues. It bravely forces the audience to confront their own biases regarding modern-day public trials and the digital judge-and-jury culture.
Performances:

Bobby Deol is the beating heart of this film. Stripping away the massive macho swagger and menacing villainy of his recent hits, he delivers a deeply vulnerable, understated performance. He plays Samar with a mix of arrogance, confusion, and raw helplessness, proving his immense range.
 
Sanya Malhotra anchors her screen time with her trademark reliability, turning in a grounded and impactful performance.
Saba Azad and Sapna Pabbi excel in their respective roles, bringing genuine nuance to characters that could have easily been sidelined.
 
Jitendra Joshi is an absolute scene-stealer, commanding your attention every single time he steps into the frame.
 
Indrajith Sukumaran and Raj B Shetty are absolute show stealers with their raw acting.
Final Verdict:
Bandar is an unsettling, morally complex thriller that refuses to spoon-feed its audience. It isn't a comfortable watch, nor does it try to be. While the sluggish pacing in the second half prevents it from being an absolute masterpiece, it is worth a watch for Bobby Deol’s spectacular acting reinvention and Anurag Kashyap’s gritty, thought-provoking storytelling.

Anurag Kashyap’s new film is titled Bandar. It’s co-written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee. The necessary disclaimer says no animals were harmed during the making of the film. Bobby Deol plays a fading star called Samar. This is one animal who has definitely been harmed since he’s accused of sexual assault and harassment. This is in the wake of the MeToo movement that shook but not necessarily surprised Bollywood. The film begins with a restless and breathless chase that’s now a staple in Kashyap’s cinema. He has been fascinated by frenzy since Black Friday. Darkness is to the erudite filmmaker what lost and found was to the marveling Manmohan Desai. When we meet Sameer for the first time, his entry shot takes us back to the flashy wardrobe and extravagant outfit of Amitabh Bachchan from Yaraana. It’s not just the clothes that are shimmery but also his life which is now going to be all still and sullen soon.

You know your boots are in danger when the flashlights begin to flicker. And the spotlights that now elude Samar draw parallels to Deol’s own tumultuous time between 2013 and 2017. The applause suddenly went silent. The brutality of social media trolls took over. The dizzying heights were gone and the fortunes were at their absolute ebb, bringing depleted coffers along. More than Samar, this character feels like an extended version of Deol himself. It’s always tricky to essay someone that’s similar but also far away from your persona. Shah Rukh Khan too walked a tightrope in Fan. Samar’s stubbornness irks his girlfriend played by Saba Azad. He doesn’t want to do television since he thinks it’s stupid. He thinks she’s cheating on him. Jail and false accusations are not new for Bobby Deol. He has tried and tested those deep waters in Ajnabee, Gupt and Jurm before.
And just like _Ugly_, Kashyap stages another taut police station scene and sprinkles it with dark humor. A reference to Subhash Ghai stands out as the conversation between the actor and the commissioner gets intense and uncomfortable. The filmmaker films Deol mostly in close-ups that establish his inner turmoil. And he barely uses background music to drive the message home. He lets the restlessness of the moment to take center stage. Bandar is a film that makes you curious to know how Bollywood may have reacted to the allegations that surfaced all over the internet. And how the family of the accused would have responded to the horrific stories. Many refused to speak. Mum was the word for the bigwigs.
Director Ajay Bahl told a similar story in Section 375, but where that drama unfolded mostly in court, Anurag Kashyap chooses to film his central character behind bars, and how the experience shakes and suffocates him. But Bandar, which is also called Monkey In A Cage, is not perfect. A haunting Sapna Pabbi, who plays Gayatri, the victim in the high-profile case, doesn’t get enough screen time in the first half. We are mostly told (in hushed whispers) what all transpired between Samar and her, and not shown. But when she does get her scenery to chew, she brings back memories of the psychotic Malini Sharma from Raaz. And Deol gives this role his all. It’s difficult to deconstruct Samar as he’s a man of a few words. He stutters and shakes when he hears that number 376. He feels like a misfit both in the world of glamour and even with the jail inmates. That perennial frown which we have seen in many films before, finally gets its judicious use.Another star of Bandar is cinematographer Saiyed Shaaz Rizvi. We have come a long way in terms of portraying jail on celluloid. The sprawling havelis masquerading as central jail are days of the yore. Things began to change for good when Ram Gopal Varma and Sriram Raghavan began making movies. The nauseating intimate shots inside the jail, which include the sweaty prisoners, the filthy commode, are both jolting and revolting. It’s understandable how Kashyap wanted to give Deol a new dimension as an actor, especially post his 2.0 and Lord Bobby Deol phase, but the film needed to show more of the people close to Samar. Saba Azad and Sanya Malhotra needed more time to be with the audience. We needed to know how they are coping up with his absence at home. And how Pabbi is taking on his imprisonment. What exactly is her side of the story?

But once Bandar ends, one gets a sense this is a film that refuses to give easy answers. If we don’t get to see the victim as much as the accused, it has less to do with the fact that the story is being told from the accused’s lens and more to do with how Kashyap revels in the ambiguity of his narratives. It somehow oscillates between Ugly and Kennedy. Something in the central characters change. After a point, they are used to inhaling the sinister energy in the air. They make peace with the unfairness of law, lawlessness and life. They become exactly like the name of this movie.

BANDAR | Official Teaser | Bobby D, Sanya M, Sapna P, Saba A | Nikhil D, Anurag K | In Cinemas June5

BANDAR |Official Trailer | Bobby D, Sanya M, Sapna P, Saba A | Nikhil D, Anurag K | In Cinemas June5

The son of Bollywood superstar Dharmendra, Bobby Deol is a Hindi film actor. He made his acting debut as a child artist in Dharam Veer (1977). His first movie as the lead actor was Barsaat (1995). Since then, Bobby has appeared in movies like Humraaz, Bardasht, Dillagi, Dosti, Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo, Chor Machaaye Shor, Chamku, Yamla Pagla Deewana, Apne and Poster Boys.

Bobby Deol

Sanya Malhotra is an actress who rose to fame with her performance in the sports drama film Dangal.

Sanya Malhotra

Sapna Pabbi

Indrajith Sukumaran

Saba Azad

Jitendra Joshi is an Indian actor and reality show host who predominantly works in Marathi cinema. He is well known for his lead role as Sant Tukaram Maharaj in the 2012 marathi movie Tukaram. He starred as constable Katekar in the hit Netflix television series Sacred Games.

Jitendra Joshi

Raj B. Shetty

Riddhi Sen is an actor who primarily appears in Bengali cinema. A National Award winner, Sen has been constantly active on stage and screen alike. His achievements in theater has earned him widespread recognition. Some of his best known films include Nagarkirtan, Iti Mrinalini, Lion, Open Tee Bioscope and Chirodini Tumi Je Amar 2.

Riddhi Sen

Anurag Kashyap is a filmmaker, producer and actor known for dealing with realistic scenarios in his movies. As a director and screenwriter, he draws inspiration from the themes of drug and alcohol abuse, depression, rage and self-destruction. Kashyap picks up excerpts from real-life scandals happening in day to day life and retells them through his films. Some of his most well known works include Black Friday, That Girl in Yellow Boots, Gangs of Wasseypur, Bombay Velvet and Raman Raghav 2.0. His contributions to cinema have earned him widespread critical acclaim and he has been awarded the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Government of France in 2013. As an actor, he has made memorable cameo appearances in many films.

Bandar

Bandar(2026)

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