May 02, 2026 11:00am IST
‘Glory’ Review: A Pulpy, Engaging Boxing Thriller With A Weak Final Punch
It’s hard to slot “Glory”, Netflix’s new series led by Divyenndu, Pulkit Samrat and Suvinder Vicky, into one genre. The series from “Mirzapur” and “Inside Edge” creator Karan Anshuman, Karmanya Ahuja and Kanishk Varma braids strands of a sports drama, a slowly unravelling murder mystery and a dysfunctional family drama together.
The world of “Glory” is Shaktigarh, a small town in Haryana, a sort of “Kota Factory” that produces boxers desperately vying for the Olympics, either for glory or a better life for their families. When the town’s most revered boxing coach Raghubir Singh's (Suvinder Vicky) daughter, Gudiya (Jannat Zubair Rahmani), and his star student, Nihal Singh (Yugam Sood), are brutally attacked, it spawns a police investigation, a journalist's (Sayani Gupta) interest and the return of the coach’s two estranged sons, Dev (Divyenndu) and Ravi (Pulkit Samrat), hell-bent on finding out who hurt the beloved sister they left behind.
“Glory” starts with a flash of something special amid the repetitive churn from the Indian streaming space, which it prima facie appears to be. The world of Shaktigarh feels tangible and immersive. The Haryanvi dialect, flavoured with local profanity, deadpan humor, the crass, cavalier manner of talking about women, even the flashy, modified purple car that Dev and Ravi drive, screams authenticity. At first, its familiar landscape is a mere mirage; its standout is in the details.
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The drive for revenge is a catalyst for reuniting the two brothers and deconstructing what they truly feel towards their abusive father and “coach sir” and their town’s fatal obsession with Olympic boxing glory that demands bloody sacrifices. “Brotherhood, Badla, Balidaan,” the trailer promises. And for most of its seven 50-minute episodes, “Glory” grips one tight in its pulpy, engaging embrace, even though the trained eye might be able to guess the big reveal before it is de-gloved in the last episode. The whodunnit remains engaging until the end, but it is clearly a vehicle for the other themes to unfold within it. Although they eventually suffer in the service of the first.
Somewhere along the way, “Glory” is distracted by its desire to be this clever murder mystery with red herrings galore. And it takes away from scenes that develop the emotional arcs, which would eventually lead to a great payoff in the final episode. Dev, the eldest son, sees right through his father and barely relents in his cruel criticism. He gives up a sport that he might have a natural inclination to, something most gifted children go through when they burn out or have traumatic experiences of obsessive ambition. But when he gets a moment of reckoning with his father towards the end, it feels a bit rushed and unearned because not enough time was spent building up to it.
Ravi, the middle child, chooses empathy over rage and conflict. Even as he returns to boxing as a way to follow a lead about his sister’s attack, he’s reminded of how much he’s drawn to, even if not consumed by, the sense of purpose that playing a sport can give one. Yet, there isn't enough time spent building Ravi up as a sportsman who misses the thrill of the game. His sincerity in the face of his other decisions (like his relationship with Kashmira Pardeshi's Bharti) starts feeling at odds and less like a character complexity. In one scene, when he offers a monologue about Muhammad Ali's defiance in the face of a society that expected him to fall in line, it brings to focus how the series squanders its chance for commentary on caste, despite a khap panchayat and sarpanch added into its narrative.
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And finally, we never get to see the father/Coach Sir have moments where he slowly sags under the psychological weight of his obsession for glory and the sacrifices it took from him, and how that plays into the grand scheme of the final episode. "Glory" also decides to end on a cliffhanger, as if to say all the loose ends and loopholes that can be held against it are merely saved to be answered in the next season.
"Glory"'s cast has actors who can hold their own in an ensemble, and they do it despite some of them having mere wisps of screen time to show us who they are (Yashpal Sharma's scream won't be easily forgotten). Unlike in Kohrra" season 1, in “Glory”, Suvinder Vicky feels underwritten and must elevate the character beyond the page, which he does brilliantly. The banter between the brothers Dev and Ravi is, in Divyenndu’s own words, a “palate cleanser” amidst the darkness. Pulkit, as the stoic and sincere Ravi, holds his own and is convincing. But it is Divyenndu's turn as Dev, a character with shades of Munna Bhaiyya's intensity, yet a fresh and juicy part, that gets the gold for Team "Glory".
All seven episodes of "Glory" are currently streaming on Netflix.
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