Khufiya movie review: Tabu, Ali Fazal film is more drab than fab

How the mole is flushed out is very much a part of the plot, and no secret. The nuts-and-bolts of how spies actually go about their jobs — tailing the suspect, planting spy cams in their homes, passing the baton from one to another on a high-octane mission — isn’t all that new, but keeps us with it.

The cross-border intermingling of these characters who live double or even triple lives also gives us a different vantage, especially in the creation of a Bangladeshi operative (Azmeri Haque Badhon, playing a sexy Mata Hari type), and the manner she inserts herself into KM’s professional and personal life. The relationship between KM’s ex-husband (Atul Kulkarni), and their teenage son is nicely etched; other mothers-and-sons — chief suspect Ravi Mohan (Ali Fazal) and his elderly mother who knows a thing or two about survival (Navnindra Behl), the strong bond between Mohan’s wife Charu (Wamiqa Gabbi, already coming off familiar, not ideal for an almost-new actor) and their young son — is intended to lend Khufiya an emotional slant, telling us that everyone, even those whose jobs force them to live in the shadows, has a softer, vulnerable side. But the Fazal-Gabbi chemistry is off, and this crucial part of the movie doesn’t land.

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In the second half the film slides into a slump involving Mohan and his family hiding out in snowy South Dakota and waiting — an interminable part of a spy’s life — for something to shift. There are parts when the danger of discovery and certain death is mixed with tense laughter or tenderness – for example, a dinner featuring rogan josh and table full of people looking askance at each other, or a sequence full of frisson between KM and her passionate operative– lifts the proceedings somewhat, but it isn’t enough for us to stay consistently engaged. And every time Tabu is not on screen, we miss her: we needed more of her and Badhon. We needed more of the older Bhardwaj who makes things sing.

Khufiya movie cast: Tabu, Ali Fazal, Wamiqa Gabbi, Ashish Vidyarthi, Atul Kulkarni, Azmeri Haque Badhon, Navnindra Behl
Khufiya movie director: Vishal Bhardwaj
Khufiya movie rating: 2 stars