‘Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga’ (2023): Netflix Originals and the Overthought Premise

Directed by: Ajay Singh || Produced by: Dinesh Vijan, Amar Kaushik

Screenplay by: Siraj Ahmed, Amar Kaushik, Raj Kumar Gupta || Starring: Yami Gautam, Sunny Kaushal, Sharad Kelkar, Indraneil Sengupta, Barun Chanda

Music by: Ketan Sodha, Vishal Mishra || Cinematography: Gianni Giannelli || Edited by: Charu Thakkar || Country: India || Language: Hindi

Running Time: 110 minutes

The general consensus online, as I see it, is that Netflix is much better at producing original television series (e.g. various early Marvel shows [2015-2019], Orange is the New Black [2013-2019], Stranger Things [2016-], The Dark Crystal [2019], Black Mirror [2011- ; shared with Channel 4]) than it is at producing original feature films (e.g. Red Notice [2021], The Adam Project [2022], The Gray Man [2022]). Critics seem to eat up the artsier dramas (e.g. Roma [2018], Mank [2020], The Power of the Dog [2021]; what else is new?), but most everything else is overlooked if not outright derided (e.g. Bright [2017], The Cloverfield Paradox, Bird Box [both 2018],  Polar, In the Tall Grass [both 2019], The Kissing Booth [2018, 2020, 2021],). For my part, I’ve long maintained that a major strength of the streaming platform is its distribution, if not direct funding of, international, non-English language features (e.g. The Night Comes for Us [2018], Blood Red Sky [2021], Black Crab [2022], Lost Bullet [2020, 2022]), which many critics appear to forget when evaluating Netflix as a whole, and to which most domestic viewers seem oblivious. Perhaps with the recent success of projects like All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) that dynamic will change, but my ultimate guess is that the few international Netflix gems that gain steam will remain in the awards-bait category, even if they’re much more than that.

The cornball, cliched opening act that details leads Yami Gautam (right) and Sunny Kaushal’s (left) romance is ironically the strongest part of the film in hindsight.

Indian productions exclusive to Netflix are a part of that strong yet overlooked contingent; beyond the impressive series of Sacred Games (2018-2019) and Delhi Crime (2019, 2022), original features such as Bulbbul (2020) and Thar (2022) offer South Asian audiences quality yet sidestream filmic experiences that may struggle at the Indian box office. Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga (“The thief has escaped” in English), the latest Indian Netflix Original Film I sampled, is most definitely not one of those.

While I appreciate the concise runtime (110 minutes; always a pleasant surprise in Indian cinema in particular) and the lack of any shoehorned musical numbers, Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga (henceforth, CNKB) boasts plenty of qualities infamous within Hindi cinema/Bollywood (e.g. overblown performances, lame villains, heavyhanded dialogue, etc.) but commits its gravest sin by wasting an otherwise intriguing high-concept premise. That premise revolves around co-leads Yami Gautam and Sunny Kaushal attempting an airborne diamond heist that goes awry when religious extremists hijack their flight. What might have been a neat midstory genre-switch (see also: Psycho [1960], Predator [1987], From Dusk Till Dawn [1996], Audition [1999], Kill List [2011]) instead devolves into a convoluted wannabe take on Ocean’s Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen (2001, 2004, 2007), where every narrative twist makes the film less interesting and more unbelievable.

The first act of CNKB is fine, if drawn out; we learn how Autam and Kaushal became a couple and about their motivation to execute the aforementioned heist. None of the direction here — or in the rest of the movie, for that matter — is particularly striking, but it’s serviceable enough to pace out all relevant plot details and establish the context of the heist target: A diamond-studded cellphone case to be sold to a wealthy international client.

When the movie reveals its hand at the end of the second act, however, much of the tension of the earlier sequences is revealed to be fake and the subsequent third act drama isn’t as satisfying as that initial premise would’ve been had the screenplay’s three writers played it straight. Whatever drama is left in the third act following CNKB’s big revelation is, in fact, shortchanged by a truncated ending that allows our primary heroes to get away scot-free. In other words, both CNKB’s narrative and its abrupt conclusion feel unearned due to our screenwriters way overthinking their premise, to say nothing of the bizarre, unbelievable complexity of the film’s actual plot.

I’m not sure what the writers’ justification was for transforming a weird yet dramatic heist setup into a weird sort of revenge thriller. Maybe someone thought they were being clever, but — spoiler warning — the sting-within-a-sting gimmick, the complicated catfishing scheme that Autam and Kaushal play on each other just does not work given their overacting, the sloppy reveals, poor pacing, and overly convenient ending.

Enjoy the plane hijack sequence while you can, because in hindsight it’ll feel much dumber.

Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga is the sort of sloppy, underdirected Netflix project that critics of the platform hold up as a feature of the streaming giant rather than a bug. For me, the sheer depth and diversity of the platform’s library make scrolling through various obviously forgettable titles on its user-interface worth it; I’m willing to slog my way through the occasional bad feature that slips past my normally sensitive filter for cinematic bullshit (I believe I have a rather effective cinephile nose, if I may say so) given all the worthwhile hidden gems I’ve found thus far. The end result is this blog often deviates into one small man’s warning system for others regarding films such as Ajay Singh’s (he’s the director, by the way, not that he leaves a mark on your viewing experience) The Thief Has Escaped given the current ubiquity of Netflix’s distribution system. Netflix has many great titles exclusive to its library, arguably more than any other service, but they’re all surrounded by so much mediocre to bad “content (art?)” that it’s hard for the good stuff to stand out.

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SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga wastes a great premise to showcase what its creators think is a clever subversion of audience expectations, but that subversion makes the film’s overall story less interesting, not more so. Leads Yami Gautam and Sunny Kaushal work fine as underdog characters in over their heads, but as conniving masterminds behind devious, oh so complicated supervillain plots, they’re actors in over their heads.

— However… Singh’s movie doesn’t overstay its welcome thanks to a reasonable length and a decent first act. Elements of the greater pseudo plane heist are interesting in theory.

—> NOT RECOMMENDED, as the film is a waste of time if you believe its Netflix description.

? How did Gautam know those other accomplices? Was she also a super secret professional thief in a previous life?