Kashyap’s Bandar Rattles Loudly, Says Half Truths. Film critic Arnab Banerjee reviews Anurag Kashyap's Bandar, a prison drama inspired by real events, examining its provocative themes, strong performances, moral ambiguity, and uneasy engagement with questions surrounding justice, accusation, and power.  

Director: Anurag Kashyap

Cast: Bobby Deol, Sapna Pabbi, Saba Azad, Riddhi Sen, Sanya Malhotra

Cinematographer: Saiyed Shaaz Rizvi

Rating: Rating: 2.5/5 ★

If Anurag Kashyap had, by some cosmic clerical error, wandered into academia instead of cinema, he might well have become a tenured authority on the anthropology of crime—specifically, the sort that festers in dimly lit alleys and moral grey zones. His fascination with transgression is neither new nor unwelcome; after all, crime, in fiction as in life, offers a perverse kind of narrative seduction. One is drawn not merely to the act itself but to the elaborate theatre of law enforcement—those who prosecute, persecute, or, on less scrupulous days, politely protect the very rot they are sworn to excise.

What grows wearisome, however, is Kashyap’s stubborn fidelity to the same old gangland grammar: interchangeable criminals, cut from identical cloth, trading smug one-liners like bored schoolboys passing notes in class. Variety, it seems, has been quietly smothered somewhere between the first act and the last cigarette.

The Familiar Criminal Universe Of Anurag Kashyap

Curiously, the film boasts a female co-director, Sakshi Mehta Lau—a detail that raises expectations of emotional nuance or, at the very least, a clearer moral compass. Alas, Bandar remains resolutely ambiguous about its victimhood; one emerges less enlightened than mildly perplexed.

The premise, though, is ripe with contemporary resonance. In an age where an accusation—particularly one as grave as rape—can function as both reckoning and ruin, reputations collapse with alarming efficiency. The past decade has seen no shortage of such narratives spilling out of the film industry, leaving behind careers in tatters and public sympathy in short supply.

Released internationally under the rather on-the-nose title Monkey in a Cage, Bandar follows Samar Mehra (Bobby Deol), an ageing actor-singer grappling with the indignities of obsolescence. His dwindling relevance drives him, rather tragically, to the algorithmic affections of dating apps. Here he finds Khushi (Saba Azad), his present solace—and previously, Gayatri (Sapna Pabbi), his impending catastrophe.

Inspired by real events and penned by Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee, the film wastes little time in dismantling Samar’s already fragile world. When Gayatri re-enters his life, he responds with the emotional maturity of a man who has learned nothing—blocking her, quite literally, out of existence. 

Predictably, the universe retaliates. The accusation arrives. The fall is swift.

Inside The Machinery Of Incarceration

From this point on, Bandar settles into a grim, almost obsessive study of incarceration. Kashyap, ever the connoisseur of discomfort, spares no detail: from the indignity of shared spaces to the culinary atrocities masquerading as prison meals. The celebrity is stripped, layer by layer, until only a rather ordinary man remains—bewildered, diminished, and increasingly irrelevant.

Inside prison, Samar encounters a microcosm of controlled chaos. Power structures emerge with bureaucratic efficiency: Lijo (Indrajith Sukumaran) presides over one faction, Bilal and Aatish over another. Loyalty is transactional, dignity negotiable. Elsewhere, inmates find amusement in hunting lizards—a detail that feels less like dark humour and more like existential commentary.

Meanwhile, Gayatri’s legal machinery works with admirable—if questionable—efficiency, ensuring that justice is indefinitely postponed. Samar’s frustration curdles into rage, and hope becomes a distant, almost theoretical concept.

Victims, Villains, And Moral Ambiguity

The film gestures, rather pointedly, toward themes of male entitlement and systemic decay, yet never quite commits to either. Is Gayatri a victim or a manipulator? Is Samar a casualty or a perpetrator of his own moral laziness? Kashyap, maddeningly, refuses to decide. In doing so, he sacrifices depth for ambiguity, leaving behind a narrative that feels less layered than simply unresolved.

More troubling is the film’s apparent flirtation with undermining the #MeToo movement, offering little context for genuine victims while indulging in the spectacle of a possibly false accusation. It is a risky narrative choice—one that courts controversy without earning its complexity.

Strong Supporting Performances Elevate The Drama

Bobby Deol throws himself into the role with commendable sincerity, though his performance is curiously monochromatic. Anger, pain, and defeat blur into a single, persistent expression, rendering Samar less enigmatic than merely exhausted. Sapna Pabbi transitions convincingly from social climber to something far more sinister, while Saba Azad is left with little to do beyond existing. It is Sanya Malhotra, as Samar’s fiercely protective sister, who injects the film with genuine emotional voltage—her restrained fury speaking volumes.

Technically, the film is polished. Aarti Bajaj’s editing ensures a steady, if somewhat predictable, rhythm, while Prashant Bidkar’s production design and Vivek Kerkar’s art direction conjure a prison so convincingly bleak one can almost smell the decay.

In the end, Bandar aspires to be both a psychological thriller and a socio-legal critique. It succeeds, intermittently, at being the former. As for the latter—it remains caged within its own indecision, rattling loudly but going nowhere in particular.