Raazi: Alia-starrer flick you cannot afford to flick off

Dubai - Alia Bhatt plays the role of a Kashmiri girl, who embarks on her journey as a spy after marrying into a Pakistani family.

Nothing comes before the nation. That's the message that you drive home with after watching Raazi.
In the movie, Alia Bhatt plays the role of a Kashmiri girl Sehmat, who embarks on her journey as a spy after marrying into a Pakistani family.
As we've come to expect from her, Alia looks the part, playing it perfectly with the way she dresses, her accent and dialect. Her character goes through a transformation from a rather submissive girl at Delhi University to undergoing self-defence training to learning the Morse Code and getting ready as a spy.

Even as it's the first time that Alia plays a grey character, she does so convincingly and without losing her innocence. A self-declared patriot, she won't think twice before killing somebody for her country.
Vicky Kaushal ably supports her as her Pakistani husband. The movie explores the equation between Alia and Vicky beautifully - from an awkward beginning to falling in love to him discovering her spy status. The scene where she is holding a gun to his face and the exchange that follows will leave you with a lump in the throat.

With this movie, Vicky enters the big league and proves that he is a bankable actor.
Director Meghna Gulzar is back after her critically acclaimed Talwar and also takes care of the screenplay and dialogues. Look out for some real gems in terms of dialogue for each character in the film.
She has put together a perfect ensemble cast in Rajit Kapur as the father and Soni Razdan as the mother, who has limited screen time but a strong role. The special bond between the father and daughter is beautifully captured and comes alive on the screen in the song Dilbaro.
The other known faces in the film, Shishir Sharma, Jaideep Ahlawat and Arif Zakaria, all perform their parts brilliantly and help the strong narrative.
Meghna's direction is brilliant in that it manages to fit the long story in little over two hours. Raazi is a well-made film which doesn't shove forceful emotions down our throat but instead lets us soak them at our pace.
Alia Bhatt yet again proves she is one of the best female leads we have in Bollywood at the moment.
Kudos to Alia for picking up the right films to prove her versatility. She ups the projects by being associated with it and Raazi is definitely one of the best films of 2018 so far.
3.5/5