‘Bandar’ (2026) Movie Review - Anurag Kashyap's Most Immersive Film in Years

The screenplay of Bandar might have been written by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, but it is very much an Anurag Kashyap movie. That magical Kashyap touch is on full display from the film's very first scene, a chase sequence in which cops, on foot, pursue a man on a bike. It's not that only Kashyap can light up a sequence like this through small, comical touches (that seem very organic), like a policeman who, tired after all the running, stops a scooter, sits on the back seat, and signals the driver to move quietly. It's that only Kashyap is expected to elevate even such a sequence with the stuff of reality, as is evident in the way the man being chased drives. Without wearing a helmet, he swings his bike sideways, and I think I even caught him spitting by bending toward one side. Here is a director who has spent time on the streets and absorbed how people behave, talk, run, and, yes, drive.

Kashyap is so in touch with the psychology of our world that, with Bandar, he first effortlessly makes a psychological comedy, then a psychological drama-thriller, and finally a psychological horror movie. I don't remember the last time a movie gripped me so tightly—and simultaneously entertained me. To say I was hooked throughout might be an understatement. There were moments when I even forgot to breathe. Hell, I sometimes forgot I was in a theater watching a movie. Kashyap first sets up his world and then introduces us to a has-been star named Samar Mehra (Bobby Deol), who sings at functions for audiences that either don't know him or don't care to listen to him. At one such function early on, some girls take selfies, but Samar thinks they are taking photos of him, so he starts dancing and posing. At the airport, the paparazzi swarm around Daniel Weber and Sunny Leone, while Samar simply takes a selfie, posts it on Instagram with a "Nothing beats coming back home" kind of caption, and reassures himself that his life, his work, means something.

We are with Samar when he masturbates and when he stares at women exercising at the gym. We feel his sexual frustration; we feel how unsatisfied he is. When he grills his girlfriend, Khushi (Saba Azad), with questions about her friends and her parties, you sense how obsessive and insecure he can be. Hence, when he accuses Khushi of cheating on him with another guy and she calls him out for not understanding the meaning of friendship, you nod, understanding that something like this was bound to happen, given what we learn about Samar in such a short span of time. And yet, Kashyap doesn't exactly turn Samar into the kind of unidimensional antagonist you can't identify with. The reason you stay with Samar throughout the film is that Kashyap wants you to stay with him. He puts you in touch with this TV star's confessions and conflicts, fears and arrogance, flaws and soft side. The decision pays off extremely well because, while walking alongside Samar, you end up inside the prison with him. There, Kashyap unleashes the horrors of being locked in a cell with people who can harm you, strip you, humiliate you, and make you feel so small that death seems like a blessing.

The prison Kashyap takes you into is real and scary. It's filled with inmates who seek refuge in various groups and who despise rapists. One character mentions that the men found guilty of raping a girl in Delhi were made to eat their own feces. Samar, too, is almost forced to go through the same ordeal. You can't help but feel sorry for him. And because you feel sorry for him, you are even more horrified by the prison's established system. The strip search, in which every man is asked to cough, looks abusive. The stale, bland food crawling with insects feels offensive. The unclean toilets are nauseatingly disgusting. Additionally, through the repetition of routines such as an early morning song and the pairing of prisoners for headcounts, Bandar gradually familiarizes you with Samar's surroundings, creating an experience that can truly be described as intimate and immersive. Forget Samar; you begin to wonder how dehumanizing the entire system is. By bringing you face-to-face with an ugly reality, Kashyap ends up criticizing those prison dramas and mainstream movies that have painted prison as some sort of slick board game where macho men assert their muscular superiority and plot escape schemes with their buddies. Kashyap destroys what can only be described as a male fantasy.

But Kashyap isn't all gloom. He finds subtle comic beats almost everywhere and in almost everything. There is a superb scene set within the premises of a court where airplanes interrupt emotional exchanges and prompt everybody to look up. A judge, while defending India's "culture," rants about Bollywood and its vulgarity by mentioning drugs and booze and referring to the practice of "casting couch" as "couch potato." Inside the prison, a terrific Raj B. Shetty plays a character who gets high through lizards and is probably the only character who laughs and moves and dances like a...bandar (monkey). The song "Pinjara" seems to have sprung from Shetty's wild, intoxicated mind (the song's philosophy—that everything from sex to society is a cage—sounds like something that comes from a person who becomes "philosophical" after getting high late at night). He dances to the beats jubilantly, and his exuberance is matched by a camera attuned to the prisoners' happiness, excitement, and energy. Even the long, tense conversation between Samar and the cop played by Jitendra Joshi is provocatively, uncomfortably funny, as when the latter, on Samar's insistence, talks "politely" about sexual organs in the human body. The cop also delivers a quick joke about Subhash Ghai and his Trimurti. The humor in Bandar, however, never deflates the tension; it doesn't stick out as funny. It is, in fact, smoothly integrated into the overall mood of the film. It further heightens the substance Kashyap is working with.

One of the primary pleasures of watching Bandar is listening to the lines the actors speak. They don't feel rehearsed; they don't feel preplanned or polished. Both Kashyap and Deol have talked about the filmmaking approach adopted for this film, in which scenes were handed to the actors on set and they were asked to go through the lines just before shooting, without meticulously memorizing them, and then repeat them in their own words from memory. The result is absolutely natural and fantastic. Every interaction gives the impression of unfolding in real time. It helps that Kashyap has assembled an outstanding cast—there is not a single false note or false performance in the entire film. Deol might be at the center, but he bounces off his co-actors, and they bounce off each other and him. Bandar is a work of extraordinary synchronization of bodies and minds. Every character in every scene moves with precision, with perfect timing. It's the kind of discipline that looks seamless, hidden, easy. The segues are beautiful; with Aarti Bajaj as editor, Bandar unfolds fluidly.

Kashyap takes real-life politics and political slogans and converts them into quiet jokes, ominous threats, and warnings. The police intimidate Samar and force him to sign a declaration written in Marathi (Samar constantly emphasizes that he doesn't know Marathi). A dream sequence contains the words "Acche din aane waale hai" as a warning sign. Samar explains the context of a text message through demonetization, which cracks you up a little. What this reveals about the Kashyap of today is that he sees the real world with a mix of anger and a wry smile. It's the kind of worldview he also displayed in Kennedy. Instead of attacking his targets directly and viciously, he distills the noise around them and tosses their essence into his film, and that essence exposes a brainwashed society's stupidity. In Kennedy, Kashyap both laughed at and scoffed at the men who equated patriotism with banging utensils during COVID. He does something similar in Bandar by imposing the same gaze on characters who mock Bollywood, assert the dominance of Marathi, and blame vulgar songs for spoiling the youth of this country.

The main subject Kashyap deals with in Bandar is sensitive, and I think I last saw it explored in Ajay Bahl's well-made Section 375. Both movies are about women accusing men of rape, and while Rohan Khurana gets his day in court, Samar doesn't even get the chance to defend himself at trial. For Samar, there is no trial. His sister, Suhaani (Sanya Malhotra), describes him as someone who lives in his own bubble; he has a tooth problem, and he suffers from back pain, which leads him to start exercising. Samar talks about missing the comfort of minor objects and facilities, like a wall to lean on and a mirror, among other things. By the end, he loses some of his teeth, his back pain ceases to bother him (or perhaps heals), and his bubble bursts completely. What we are left with is a man who no longer cares if he is labeled a rapist. He becomes tough, comfortable, crazy. Samar becomes at ease with his surroundings; the filth no longer bothers him. He looks like a cockroach who might survive prison but lose his sanity—like that old man who suddenly starts howling uncontrollably in the middle of the night.

What makes Bandar so distinct and stunning is that it inserts clues suggesting that Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), the woman who falsely accuses Samar of raping her, may also be beginning to wonder whether she has taken things too far, whether she has screwed up monumentally. When Samar's mother tries talking to Gayatri, the latter's lawyer interferes and leads her away. But before leaving, Gayatri looks back at Suhaani with a face that seems to say, "I am sorry." It's a terrific scene in a film bursting with many terrific scenes. Kashyap doesn't just show us Samar's suffering. He shows how the people close to him are struggling and suffering as well. Forget #MenToo and such labels (no man, anyway, is entirely a saint in this story); what Kashyap explores in Bandar is the morally grey and utterly disturbing side present in all human beings. Some suppress it; others act on it. Gayatri is mentally disturbed (there are multiple cuts on her skin), and Samar's rude behavior activates her worst tendencies. A watchman says he was made a scapegoat based on CCTV footage of him using the stairs and the victim's best friend's testimony that he used to stare at her lecherously. Another man says the woman he used to sleep with accused him of rape when her husband caught them together. Yet Kashyap doesn't portray either man as wholly innocent. The watchman, after all, holds misogynistic views. At the same time, there is a sense of tragedy and injustice, as when a character commits suicide. Bandar doesn't have easy answers—it doesn't deal in blacks and whites. It's terrifyingly, incredibly, breathtakingly complicated. Bandar is a great film.