The release of Alpha on July 2 was supposed to be a coronation. Here was a big-budget Bollywood action thriller headlined by Alia Bhatt, promising a visceral, adrenaline-soaked ride through the world of covert military operations. The pedigree was impeccable: Shiv Rawail directing, a supporting cast that included Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol, and a surprise cameo from Hrithik Roshan, and a premise dripping with dark, familial conspiracy. And yet, as the dust settles on its theatrical run, the film lands with a complicated legacy - one that is visually spectacular, narratively muddled, and frustratingly close to greatness.
The story centers on Sita (Bhatt), a highly trained assassin raised in total isolation as a super-soldier by a rogue commander, Fateh Singh Lakhawat (Bobby Deol). She is a weapon, efficient and cold, until a glitch in her conditioning cracks open a vault of suppressed memories: she has a sister, she had a family, and her entire childhood was a theft. When she discovers the dark truth about her origins, she breaks free and teams up with her long-lost sibling, Durga (Sharvari), to dismantle Lakhawat’s illicit military program and confront the man who designed her, Vikrant Kaul (Anil Kapoor).
The first act is a masterclass in kinetic storytelling. Rawail directs the action with a brutal, grounded ferocity that is rarely seen in mainstream Hindi cinema. The choreography is sharp, the hand-to-hand combat is bone-crunching, and Bhatt commits to the physicality with a ferocity that is genuinely startling. She doesn’t just play Sita; she embodies a coiled spring of trauma and violence. Sharvari matches her beat for beat, bringing a raw, street-smart energy to Durga. Their chemistry is the film’s beating heart, a believable bond forged not in shared joy but in shared pain.
But as the narrative shifts from revenge thriller to conspiracy exposé, the script begins to sputter. The villainous machinery, led by Kapoor’s icy bureaucrat, is rendered in broad strokes that feel more comic-book than credible. Bobby Deol, frankly wasted in a role that should have been menacingly complex, oscillates between snarling and sulking. And then there is the Hrithik Roshan problem. His character, Kabir Dhaliwal, is introduced with the fanfare of a deity descending from the heavens, but his arc is so underwritten and his resolution so abrupt that his presence feels less like a gift and more like a tease for a sequel that may never come.
This is the central paradox of Alpha. It is a film obsessed with its own intensity but often unable to breathe. The dialogue, particularly in the first half, is clipped and portentous, but the emotional beats are hammered home with such heavy-handedness that they lose their impact. A key reveal about Janaki Kaul (Dia Mirza) and her connection to the sisters is delivered with a telenovela flourish, undermining the gritty realism the film works so hard to establish.
The TMDb rating of 5.6/10 feels harsh, but it is not wholly unjust. This is a film that will reward those who check their expectations for narrative coherence at the door. The cinematography is lush, and the production design creates a convincing dystopian underbelly of India, a world of sterile labs and rain-slicked warehouses. The sound design is immersive, placing you inside every punch and gunshot.
Ultimately, Alpha is a film of fragments. It has a brilliant performance from Alia Bhatt, who proves once again that she is the most fearless actress of her generation. It has a stunning, 141-minute canvas that feels both epic and claustrophobic. It has a sequence involving a helicopter and a cargo net that will leave you breathless. But it also has a screenplay that needed another pass, a villain who needed more dimension, and a cameo that derails the momentum.
What remains is a fascinating, flawed spectacle. It’s the kind of film that sparks furious debate on social media - a true swing for the fences that lands somewhere in the outfield. For Hindi Movie Buzz, we’d call it an ambitious miss that’s well worth a watch for the action alone, but don’t go seeking catharsis. The film ends on a note of setup, not resolution, leaving our heroines standing on a precipice. One hopes they get a better script to jump into next time.
