Ulajh Review: Gulshan Devaiah shadows Janhvi Kapoor in this spy thriller that takes a dig at nepotism

'Ulajh', starring Jahnvi Kapoor, Gulshan Devaiah, Roshan Mathew, Meiyang Chang and Rajesh Tailang, released in theatres on August 2.

Ulajh dives into the closed world of diplomats (IFS, or Indian foreign services), which is not oft seen on the big screen. It goes meta and stars a Bollywood nepo kid so as to take a dig at nepotism, albeit in another sector.

Ulajh Movie Review: The Plot

A spy thriller should have a grand opening, but this one, like its protagonist, falls flat. Suhana Bhatia (Janhvi Kapoor), a third-generation civil servant, has been made the country’s youngest deputy high commissioner in the IFS. Her father Vanraj Bhatia (Adil Hussain), India’s permanent representative to the United Nations, questions her deputation at such a young age. She’s on a mission to prove that she’s worth her salt and to clear her name as an alleged ISI spy, whose action can put a peace plan with Pakistan at risk. On deputation in London, she gets played on, in more ways than one.

The film entwines the world of IFS with that of R&AW (Research and Analysis Wing) and Black Cats (National Security Guard).

Ulajh Movie Trailer

The Ulajh trailer showed promise of a thrilling narrative and looked intriguing with a woman on a mission.

Like the lead pair (Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif) in Sriram Raghavan’s film Merry Christmas (2023), Janhvi Kapoor and Gulshan Devaiah make for an unusual pairing, too.

Ulajh Movie Overview

On the face of it, Ulajh is a father-daughter film but the complicated relationship of father-daughter is told not shown. Any son would have done the same, gone to great lengths to make their father proud. Films have exploited that trope since time immemorial, and more recently, in the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Animal (2023), where, just to rise in his father’s esteem, a psychologically disturbed son wreaks havoc.

Ulajh, which translates to entangled, is convoluted and nowhere near a good, complex script. It is a standard template of a spy movie, it checks the boxes of a spy thriller, and just flips the gender. Instead of a man walking into honey traps, at its centre stands a woman entangled by men, intrigue and deceit, and how she has to fight (literally, too) through it all, untrained. It must have been a task for stunt director Nick Powell (Gladiator, The Bourne Identity, The Last Samurai, RRR, Kalki 2898 AD) to train the soft, feminine Janhvi to take in punches. She’s so hardened that in the film, despite the kicks in her stomach, internal bleeding notwithstanding, she’s not rushed to a hospital but to the Security headquarters for further questioning.

While genres should not be limited by genders, Darjeeling man Sudhanshu Saria, who’s previously directed the queer drama Loev (2015), won a National Award for his short film Knock Knock Knock, and has written the episodes of the series Big Girls Don’t Cry (2024), helms this female-led project in an industry (Bollywood) and a country which cannot think of a film without a male star. But it goes for a plain Jane female ‘star’ in its place.

A still from 'Ulajh', which released in theatres on August 2.

Ulajh Movie Overview

The film is worth a watch and might inject some life into a flailing Hindi film industry whose trajectory this year has been abysmally dismal. Ulajh has the right ingredients, although it is not set in any exotic locale but in the land of the “Master of Suspense” Alfred Hitchcock (in London) where a majority of action takes place. It has a great cast for the most part. And fleeting moments of writing that stick, including dialogues by Atika Chohan (Chhapaak, Margarita with a Straw, Agra), such as bakri pura sher kha jayegi (the prey will gobble up the predator) and Gaddari, wafadari, capitalists ki bichhai hui trap hai, jisme hum jaise ulajhte hain. Nations, borders…ret mein kheenchi lakeere hai (Betrayal, loyalty are traps laid by capitalists in which the common man gets entangled. Nations, borders…are all lines drawn on sand).

But every moon has its craters and so does this film, despite its ingenuity.

Ulajh Movie Review: Writing and Direction

Ulajh shoehorns itself into human relationships, personal and professional, but is in a hurry to be much of a people picture. Within its 2-hour, 30-minute runtime, it rushes through some of these interpersonal correspondences even before establishing them and thereby misses out on holding on much of the mystery and intrigue. The lust-trap between Devaiah’s character and Suhana ends as abruptly as it begins. It should have been fleshed out.

Janhvi Kapoor in a still from 'Ulajh'.

Ulajh is stripped off jingoistic hogwash and melodrama around ‘nationalism’ that so many Bollywood films bankroll on, presently. That is refreshing. But in undoing some stereotypes, Ulajh reiterates others. It has the prototypes of good Muslim, bad Muslim. If Rajesh Tailang’s Salim, a former IPS officer, now a chauffeur with the Indian High Commission in Britain, who’s ferrying Suhana around, is trying to do his bit to rescue his country, India, from blame for an impending event; the film embeds Bollywood’s favourite stereotype: an Indian Muslim who’s a terrorist, Yasin Mirza (Himanshu Malik), who’s in captivity in Pakistan. There are talks of returning him to India on its Independence Day, when the Pakistani premier will be the guest of honour. Threat looms large.

Rushad Rana looks the part as a Pakistani prime minister. It’s clever to make an Indian play the Pakistani premier and a Pakistani (or British Pakistani), Alyy Khan, play an Indian diplomat in London.

For those on a steady diet of Hollywood thrillers, the thrill and suspense in this film will feel insipid. The early reveal of characters’ motivations ruin the experience of a good spy film. Keep the audiences guessing, why spoon-feed? Why turn Suhana into an apologetic being every time a man/RAW agent (Jacob and Sebinkutty) confronts her for spying? A few shades of grey would have looked just fine on Suhana. Even in producer Junglee Pictures’ previous female-led spy film, Meghna Gulzar’s Ali Bhatt-starrer Raazi (2018), the early reveal of motivations was a dampener. It augurs the question: Bollywood, why try spy? But unlike Raazi, Ulajh’s plot is convoluted, lead character is questionable and secondary characters aren’t given a chance to get engaging.

Ulajh Cast: Motley group of solid names

(From left) Roshan Mathew, Janhvi Kapoor, Gulshan Devaiah from the film 'Ulajh'.

The reticent Meiyang Chang’s Jacob Tamang (perhaps, an Indian Nepalese) should have been given a longer role. He keeps the element of intrigue intact with just his expressions.

Ulajh presents a smorgasbord of multi-ethnic, multilingual characters, as a microcosm of India in the diplomatic circles. Malayalee actor Roshan Mathew’s Sebin Kutty, who is initially Suhana’s difficult subordinate who chides her for grabbing Jacob’s job, slips into his mother-tongue when he’s furious. Mathew’s character has echoes of his role from Richie Mehta’s miniseries Poacher where, too, he assisted the female lead (Nimisha Sajayan) in solving a complicated case.

It is good to see Rajendra Gupta (as Foreign Affairs Minister), Jamini Pathak as R&AW boss Sanjeev and Jitendra Joshi’s R&AW agent Prakash Kamat. I was hoping that this Marathi actor (Joshi) isn’t cast as a cop for a change, and while he’s in R&AW now, he was a cop in his past life, in the film.

Devaiah is fantastic casting. If old Bollywood had “Bad Man” Gulshan Grover, new Bollywood boasts of Gulshan Devaiah, both magnetic in their villainy. Devaiah, with his main character energy, is crisp, his devious charm and dagger-sharp acting chops cuts him out for negative roles. Devaiah’s character has many names: Nakul, Humayun and David. This character has been smartly not given a backstory. The writers (Saria, Parveez Sheikh, Chohan), in an ‘against the tide’ act, refuse to ascribe this qualm-less criminal to any particular religion.

Janhvi Kapoor in a still from the film 'Ulajh'.

For her first espionage film, as Suhana Bhatia, Kapoor undertook a nine-day acting coaching with Atul Mongia, as she told to Variety magazine. Suhana’s moral dilemmas, however, remain surface level. She’s a prototype, the individual is amiss. She gets played on, emotionally, professionally. She chases the mole and villains down. And, yet, who is Suhana the person; when devoid of her identity, we don’t really know her.

Kapoor, who did a decent job with the biopic Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020), in the spy thriller Ulajh, despite all her efforts, she remains one-note: when she’s seduced, when she’s hurting, when she’s angry, when she’s distraught, when she’s combative. Unlike the current-gen Bolly nepo brigade, she is trying wring herself out of the happy-go-lucky girl flitting about a boy in romance dramas, and is choosing a variety of scripts, but while she has the screen presence, she lacks depth.

Ulajh Movie Review: Cliffhanger ending

The trend now is a ‘marvelisation’ of cinema, that is subsequent films feeding off the existence of their predecessors and OTT-isation of cinema, or rather, like some south Indian films, ending on a cliff-hanger. Ulajh, too, ends with the promise of a sequel.

Star Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Ulajh is now playing in theatres.