Bandar Review: Anurag Kashyap Delivers a Gut-Punch With Bobby Deol’s Boldest Performance Yet
Genre: Crime Thriller | Director: Anurag Kashyap | Cast: Bobby Deol, Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad, Sapna Pabbi, Indrajith Sukumaran, Raj B. Shetty, Jitendra Joshi | Runtime: 2 hrs 16 min | Release Date: June 5, 2026
There are films that entertain you. There are films that disturb you. And then there are films that do both — and make you sit with the discomfort long after the credits roll.
Bandar is the third kind.
Anurag Kashyap, the director who gave us Gangs of Wasseypur and Black Friday, returns with yet another story rooted in the ugly, unfiltered realities of Indian society. This time, the target is something far more contemporary: the intersection of celebrity, sexual assault allegations, media hysteria, and a justice system that fails almost everyone it touches.
The Story: Fame, Fall, and the Cage In Between
Bobby Deol plays Sameer Mehra — a once-celebrated television star whose glory days are clearly behind him. He is not a hero. He is not a villain either, at least not in the clean, comfortable sense. He is a flawed, ageing man, out of step with the changing times, unable to fully comprehend how the world now views men like him.
When his ex-girlfriend Gaytri (played by Sapna Pabbi) accuses him of rape, the machinery of public outrage, legal proceedings, and prison life comes crashing down on him. What follows is a harrowing journey through India’s prison system, its courts, and the court of social media — each more brutal than the last.
The screenplay, written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, is inspired by real events. That detail matters. It gives the film a weight that purely fictional thrillers often struggle to carry.
Direction: Kashyap at His Most Controlled
If you are familiar with Kashyap’s body of work, you know he rarely does subtle. Bandar, however, shows a more restrained side of him — and it works better for it.
The film does not sensationalize. It does not take easy sides. It places you inside Sameer’s world and forces you to observe, not judge. Kashyap builds tension not through action sequences or dramatic confrontations, but through atmosphere. The prison sequences, in particular, are suffocating in the best possible way.
The pacing is deliberate. Some viewers expecting a fast-moving thriller may find the first half slow. But Kashyap is doing something specific: he is making you understand who Sameer is before tearing that identity apart. By the time the second half hits, the emotional payoff is earned.
Cinematographer Saiyed Shaaz Rizvi deserves a mention here. The visual language of the film — muted, claustrophobic, occasionally raw — matches perfectly with the tone Kashyap is going for.
Performances: Bobby Deol Rewrites His Story
Let’s be direct: Bobby Deol is outstanding in this film.
His recent career reinvention — through Ashram, Animal, and Class of 83 — already showed he had more range than Bollywood had bothered to explore. But Bandar takes it further. This is a performance built on restraint. No larger-than-life posturing, no dramatic monologues. Just a man quietly unravelling, and Bobby makes you feel every bit of it.
He said in interviews that Kashyap wanted honesty over theatrics, and it shows. The vulnerability he brings to Sameer is not performed — it feels lived in.
Sanya Malhotra is equally compelling. She plays a character with considerable moral complexity and handles it without ever making it feel like a showcase. Indrajith Sukumaran brings a quiet authority to his role, and Saba Azad, in a layered supporting turn, holds her own against the stronger material around her.
Themes: More Than a Courtroom Drama
Bandar is not really a film about whether Sameer is guilty or innocent. It is about something messier: how allegations reshape identity, how institutions amplify suffering rather than resolve it, and how public opinion — weaponized by media — moves faster than truth ever can.
The film touches on cancel culture without becoming preachy about it. It interrogates power without letting anyone off the hook cleanly. These are conversations India is actively having right now, and Bandar enters that space without flinching.
It will make you uncomfortable. It is meant to.
What Doesn’t Quite Land
No film this ambitious is without its rough edges.
The film’s handling of Gaytri’s character — the woman who makes the accusation — feels somewhat thin. Given the subject matter, her interiority deserves more screen time and nuance. A film this intent on complexity occasionally forgets to extend that same complexity to the women in its orbit.
The runtime, at over two hours, also tests patience in patches. A tighter edit in the second act would have sharpened the impact considerably.
Final Word: Should You Watch Bandar?
Yes — but go in prepared.
Bandar is not a comfortable film. It is not an escape. It is Kashyap at his most purposeful, paired with Bobby Deol at his career best, tackling a subject that Indian cinema has largely avoided with this level of seriousness.
It will leave you exhausted. It will leave you unsettled. And it will stay with you, which is more than most films manage these days.
Rating: 4 / 5
Bandar release in cinemas on June 5, 2026. Written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee. Produced by Nikhil Dwivedi under Saffron Magicworks in association with Zee Studios.
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