Director: Meghna Gulzar
Rating: ***
Released in theaters globally today, September 18, 2026, Daayra (The Boundary) marks director Meghna Gulzar’s (Talvar, Raazi, Sam Bahadur) return to the morally complex procedural space. Produced by Junglee Pictures and Pen Studios, this 143-minute crime thriller strips away cinematic heroism to examine institutional failure, extrajudicial encounters, and public thirst for instant vengeance.
Carrying an A (Adults Only) certification for its unflinching themes, the film pits Kareena Kapoor Khan against Prithviraj Sukumaran in an ideological duel where neither side offers an easy moral resolution.
The Story & Script
The narrative begins with a heinous, ripped-from-the-headlines crime: a young woman, Ragini Pujari (Pragati Mishra), disappears on her way home, and her charred remains are discovered days later on the city outskirts. Facing intense public fury, protests, and round-the-clock media scrutiny, the department tasks DCP Raman Kumar IPS (Prithviraj Sukumaran) with delivering swift closure.
Under pressure and disillusioned by legal loopholes that repeatedly favor offenders, Raman and his squad track down the accused. Shortly after the arrests, Raman leads the suspects to the crime scene for a recreation, culminating in a controversial police encounter that leaves all the accused dead. While the public and media celebrate Raman as a righteous savior, civil liberties groups demand accountability.
Enter DCP Ajooni Kohli IPS (Kareena Kapoor Khan), assigned to head the Special Investigation Team (SIT) tasked with probing the legitimacy of the encounter. What follows is not a standard cop-and-robber chase, but an internal procedural probe where Ajooni’s commitment to constitutional process clashes with Raman’s belief that a broken system demands extreme remedies.
Direction & Screenplay
Written by Meghna Gulzar, Sima Agarwal, and Yash Keswani, the screenplay avoids sensationalism. Echoing Talvar, Gulzar dissects the procedural mechanics—forensic inconsistencies, ballistic trajectories, call data records, and administrative pressure points—with clinical restraint.
The tension comes from the film’s central moral query: What happens when the enforcers of law abandon the framework of law? The first half moves with taut, documentary-like efficiency, capturing the suffocating claustrophobia of media trials and public outrage. In the post-interval stretch, the pacing dips as the administrative depositions and procedural inquiries unfold, yet the quiet, simmering ideological confrontations between the leads maintain the film's dramatic tension.
Performances
Kareena Kapoor Khan: Kareena delivers a disciplined, grounded, and unadorned performance as DCP Ajooni Kohli. Free of dramatic speeches, she captures the quiet exhaustion of an officer defending constitutional process against overwhelming public hostility. Her scenes opposite her retired judge father (Kanwaljit Singh) bring warmth and nuance to her ethical stance.
Prithviraj Sukumaran: Prithviraj plays DCP Raman Kumar with quiet, steely authority. Instead of playing a ruthless, renegade cop, he renders Raman as a tired officer who genuinely believes his unlawful actions served the greater moral good, making his character all the more unsettling.
Supporting Ensemble: Seema Azmi (as SP Indira Pandey) and Biswapati Sarkar (as Police Commissioner Anand) provide solid institutional friction, while Kshitee Jog delivers a heartbreaking turn as the victim’s grieving mother.
Technical Craft
Cinematography & Editing: Saurabh Goswami’s camera relies on muted, desaturated tones, gray concrete government offices, and dim corridors that mirror the story's moral ambiguity. The editing by Charu Shree Roy and Meghna Gulzar favors long takes and measured cuts over hyperactive transitions.
Sound Design & Background Score: Eschewing traditional song-and-dance routines, the film relies on Ketan Sodha’s subtle score to support pivotal investigative discoveries without dictating audience emotion.
Final Verdict
Daayra is an uncomfortable, well-researched, and mature exploration of the fragile line separating justice from vengeance. Rather than serving easy catharsis, Meghna Gulzar forces the viewer to interrogate their own complicity in demanding instant retributive justice. Backed by understated turns from Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran, it is a sobering procedural that lingers well after the lights come up.
Critic's Quote: “Meghna Gulzar delivers a clinical, thought-provoking examination of institutional shortcuts. Daayra dismantles the myth of instant justice, asking hard, necessary questions about what happens when the law burns its own book.”
