Udta Teer Movie Review: Akash A Kaushik’s Udta Teer starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Sara Ali Khan is genre-bending. And that’s all that’s there to this film. Billed as a spy comedy, the film delivers a few chuckles but rarely a big laugh. Cinematically, it’s far too lacklustre. It’s this monotony, compounded by its linear storytelling, that brings the film down.
Logic leaves the room pretty early, but that isn’t the problem. The trouble begins when Udta Teer tries to be more than its core premise warrants. What could have been a quirky, contained story gradually morphs into a jingoistic narrative peppered with an unnecessary love ballad and a deshbhakti song. On paper, the genre blend sounds exciting, but onscreen, it feels tonally confused.The film opens in Pakistan’s Mudirka with terrorist Azhar Maqsood planning a retaliation on India after Operation Sindoor. Now hiding in Delhi, he spends his time looking for his ‘hoor’ on a Muslim dating app called Hinder as a track titled Azerbaijaan plays in the backdrop. It’s funny, and for a moment, you almost believe the film will sustain this irreverent tone throughout its comic caper.Running parallel to this is the story of Pakistani military agent Bilal Ahmed, alias Vikrant Thapar, who operates within India’s Counter Terrorism Squad under the guise of a Pakistani spy. Having lost his parents to cross-border firing, Vikrant sees his role as an agent as an opportunity to avenge their deaths. He’s joined on the Indian intelligence team by fellow Pakistani Dhruv, aka Ashfaq.
During an operation, however, Vikrant and Dhruv’s boss, Burman, discovers their true identities. A scuffle inside the car leads to an accident, leaving Burman in a vegetative state. Vikrant, meanwhile, suffers memory loss and begins to believe that he’s a deshbhakt agent working for India. What follows is a series of missions that descend into a comedy of errors and chaos.
On the personal front, Vikrant’s life is equally chaotic. His marriage to Yamini, who works at the Indian Defence Ministry, is on the verge of collapse, with the couple headed for divorce. This subplot, however, hardly contributes to the larger narrative. It disrupts the flow, feeling jarringly disconnected from the central plot and acts as a device that doesn’t do much beyond giving Yamini some screen time.
