Kartavya — Netflix Review

Kartavya 

“Kartavya” (transl. Duty), directed by Pulkit and produced by Gauri Khan under Red Chillies Entertainment, released on Netflix on May 15, 2026. Running at 108 minutes, it stars Saif Ali Khan as Station House Officer Pawan Malik — a cop providing security for a journalist investigating a powerful godman. When the journalist is shot and Pawan’s brother goes missing under circumstances involving caste politics, Pawan is caught between his professional duty and his family’s honour.

Plot:

On his 40th birthday, Pawan Malik is assigned to protect a journalist investigating the influential godman Anand Shri (Saurabh Dwivedi). The journalist is shot dead. His colleague Ashok (Sanjay Mishra) is injured. Pawan faces suspension before he can even begin investigating. Then his own brother goes missing — believed to have eloped with a girl from a lower caste, a notion that enrages their father Harihar (Zakir Hussain), who operates on an atavistic idea of honour. As Pawan digs into both cases — the journalist’s murder and his brother’s disappearance — he uncovers the rot underlying the godman’s empire and the corrupt system that protects him. Themes of caste hierarchy, honour killings, godman-bureaucracy collusion, and media persecution play out against a heartland noir setting.

Acting:

Saif Ali Khan carries the film on his shoulders and does it convincingly. His Pawan Malik is an exhausted, ordinary cop caught between a broken system and a fractured home — the kind of role Khan has been gravitating toward since Sacred Games, and one he plays with increasing ease. He captures the psychological toll of a man whose personal and professional worlds are collapsing simultaneously. Rasika Dugal brings solidity to the journalist role, and Sanjay Mishra works well as the injured colleague who grounds the narrative in naturalism. Zakir Hussain as the patriarch is slightly off-key, occasionally undermining the character’s gravity. The weakest link is Saurabh Dwivedi as the godman Anand Shri — a real journalist playing a villainous figure, which is an interesting meta-touch but doesn’t quite land on screen. The film denies Saif a dynamic rival to bounce his performance off, leaving him to fight a flattened antagonist which limits the friction that could have elevated the whole thing.

Cinematography & Visuals:

Anil Mehta’s cinematography gives Kartavya a gritty, grounded visual identity. The heartland setting is captured with restraint — no unnecessary stylization, just clean, functional framing that suits the noir tone. Some of the investigative sequences are shot with real tension, and the editing holds a flat pulse for most of the film’s runtime. The godman’s interior world is suggested through production design and lighting rather than explained, which works well enough — though the film’s cautious approach to its social themes does show. Critical reviews have noted that “a legal team sat directly beside the editor, scrubbing away uncomfortable truths,” and the visual restraint sometimes reads more as sanitisation than good taste.

Music & Sound:

Anurag Saikia’s background score does the heavy lifting in the film’s better moments, especially during sequences where Pawan’s moral conflict plays out silently. The music adds weight without ever becoming overwrought. One line lands with particular resonance: “Committed journalists are an endangered species” — delivered by the godman, it reads as a cynical diagnosis of a system without protections for truth-tellers. The sound design is clean and unobtrusive, which in a film dealing with systemic corruption feels like a deliberate choice.

Pacing & Storytelling:

The first half of Kartavya is genuinely good. The setup is clean, the stakes are established efficiently, and the investigative thread keeps you mildly engaged. The caste honour subplot — Pawan’s brother, the missing boy, the father’s blinding prejudice — has real weight and relevance. And then the second half runs out of road. Plot threads are left unresolved. The godman’s empire, which was carefully constructed in the first half, collapses without a proper confrontation. The climax doesn’t land so much as it simply ends. Multiple critics have noted this — Sukanya Verma at Rediff called it “a demo reel for an OTT series” (meaning it feels like setup without payoff). The film’s commentary on caste and honour killings remains relevant, and parts of the investigation keep you engaged, but the emotional depth doesn’t materialise. The tension builds and builds, and then the credits roll.

Final Verdict:

Kartavya is a film with genuine ambition and relevant themes — caste, honour killings, godman corruption, a journalist’s murder — and it has Saif Ali Khan doing some of his better work in recent years. The heartland noir setting, Anil Mehta’s cinematography, and Anurag Saikia’s score all do their jobs. But the screenplay holds a flat pulse, the antagonist is flattened to the point of being ineffectual, and the film’s cautious approach to its most volatile themes makes everything feel over-vetted. It’s not a bad film — it’s a frustrating one. It had all the right pieces and never quite assembled them. The result is a tense, intermittently gripping thriller that ultimately settles for a safe parking spot when it should have gone somewhere much harder.

Rating: 2.5/5