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Join UsStar Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta, Kunal Kapoor
Director: Kookie Gulati And Robbie Grewal
What’s Good: Jaideep Ahlawat’s performance, the picturesque locations, and the cinematography.
What’s Bad: The movie is filled with illogical subplots, absurdities, and idiosyncrasies. The dialogues are extremely stereotypical, and except for Jaideep Ahlawat, none of the cast members manage to make an impact. Some of the sub-plots and twists are laughable and cannot even be watched as a guilty pleasure.
Loo Break: You can actually take one during the songs or otherwise, too, because this one does not require you to rake your brain.
Watch or Not?: If you cannot find any worthwhile content on OTT this week, this one can be a last resort.
Language: Hindi
Available On: Netflix
Runtime: 116 Minutes
User Rating:
For those who have experienced Lord Himesh’s Badass Ravi Kumar, there is a scene where Himesh Reshammiya literally camouflages himself like a chameleon to steal a diamond and the flies off from the museum while hanging himself in thin air using a zip line. The scene, even with its absurdities, came off as a supreme guilty pleasure. But Saif Ali Khan’s Jewel Thief does not even fall into that category. It neither manages to entertain because of the laborious sub-plots and stereotypical dialogues, but also makes us wonder why Saif and Jaideep Ahlawat were needed to do this?
The plot revolves around a jewel thief, Rehan Roy (Saif Ali Khan), who is forced to perform a challenging heist for a dangerous art collector/gangster Rajan Aulakh (Jaideep Ahlawat) after his estranged father’s life is at stake. Meanwhile, police officer Vikram Patel (Kunal Kapoor) relentlessly chases Rehan after the latter outsmarts him during his previous heists. Amid this, Rehan also falls in love with Aulakh’s wife, Farrah (Nikita Dutta), who is trapped in an abusive marriage with him. Will Rehan outsmart Aulakh and Vikram, or will he get embroiled in a life-threatening trap?
Jewel Thief Movie Review: Script Analysis
Director duo Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal attempted a stylized heist drama involving picturesque locales, numerous twists and turns, and characters who break into stereotypical dialogues with every scene but this one misses the mark big time. For starters, even for an exaggerated heist sequence, you need some sense of logic. But Jewel Thief is completely devoid of that.
How does Rehan manage to outsmart an efficient police force of the country every time? How can Rehan become a thief, a hacker, land some smooth punches to his opponents, manage to romance someone else’s wife, stay one step ahead of Vikram and Aulakh every time? It is almost as if he becomes a superhuman at this point. How can Rehan pose himself as a doctor mid-flight, when a search warrant has already been issued for him? This is just the tip of the iceberg, Jewel Thief is filled with such logic-less plotholes which make us go, “Yeh Ho Kya Raha Hai?”
And don’t even get me started on the extremely illogical plane heist which has to be one of the most bizarre sequences that I have watched. The writing for all the characters is also shoddy and barely strikes a chord. You do not see the needed chemistry between Saif Ali Khan and Nikita Dutta’s character, nor an intimidating aura between Saif and Jaideep Ahlawat’s character. Kunal Kapoor’s character’s writing has to be the weakest of the lot, who zeroes down to the Sasta version of Abhishek Bachchan’s character from the Dhoom series. He ends up missing the thief and acts frustrated every single time.
Jewel Thief Movie Review: Star Performance
Talking about the performances, I cannot even say that Saif Ali Khan was stuck in his Race mode with this one. Even though his charm was appealing, there was a sense of lacklustre in his performance. We could not connect or root with Rehan, who is supposed to be the central protagonist. Be his mission or his camaraderie with the other characters, there was no impact whatsoever, and Saif definitely had a tint of disinterest in this one.
Nikita Dutta looked pretty but her character’s low screentime and impact made the entire role quite forgettable. Not to forget, the actress could not channel the needed chemistry with Saif. Kunal Kapoor’s character fell prey to bad writing, and it also reflected in his monotonous performance. However, it’s Jaideep Ahlawat who stole the entire show.
Even though the writing for his character was also extremely stereotypical, the actor channeled that swag and menacing attitude in his performance, which created some impact. Not to forget, we also got to see his stellar dance moves in the song ‘Jaadu Sa’ from Jewel Thief which was definitely not on our bingo card.
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Jewel Thief Movie Review: Direction, Music
Director duo Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal tried to come up with an embellished heist drama, but this is just the old recipe served with some new garnishing.
The streetsmart hero, a disturbed family history, a menacing villain, hero falling in love with the villain’s wife/girlfriend, hero initially working for the villain but planning to outsmart him with a master plan in actuality. If this was not enough, the several plot holes make this one a tedious watch. The music is also more or less underwhelming. Barring ‘Jaadu Sa’, which also only has the eye-catching element of Jaideep Ahlawat’s dance.
Jewel Thief Movie Review: The Last Word
Jewel Thief had the potential to at least become an entertaining watch. But this one becomes a hardcore snoozefest, with just countless loopholes for subplots. But Jaideep Ahlawat, is there anything you can’t do?
Jewel Thief Trailer
Jewel Thief was released on 25 April 2025 on Netflix.
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