There’s a lot to unpack here. 

Based off the marketing, if you’re going in expecting this to be John Wick in India, that is not what this is. 
This is much more of a political thriller than it is an action movie, yet there’s a clear effort to balance the two, and I don’t know if Dev Patel succeeds in that. 

There is quite a bit going on in this film with a lot of complex and compelling themes of class system, the effects that the wealthy have on politics, as well as minority persecution especially within the LGBTQ+ community. Much of it feels very undercooked. I won’t lie that I’m pleasantly surprised that Dev Patel was clearly aiming to make something more than just a John Wick redux but like I said, many of its more compelling elements felt undercooked and some plot threads kinda just fizzled out. 

When it comes to the action, unfortunately if you’ve seen the first trailer, you’ve seen it all. Even more unfortunate, the action isn’t even that great. What I thought I was getting were some sleek, well choreographed, interestingly shot and well edited fights. Although there is clearly great choreography on display, the cinematography and editing does no favors. A lot of the action (most of the action) was pretty incomprehensible and shaky, which I thought we were past. That said, a lot of the scenes outside of the action had many interesting shots and editing choices that made it clear that Dev Patol had a voice, vision and intention. 

Overall I hate to say that I’m pretty disappointed in this film.