Oct 23, 2026 10:00am IST
‘Udta Teer’ Review: Ayushmann Khurrana’s Spy Comedy Is Caught Between Patriotism, Punchlines And A Plot With An Identity Crisis
A spy trained to infiltrate a neighbouring country’s government, sabotage its plans and smuggle out confidential information has become a familiar recipe for Hindi cinema over the last couple of years. But what happens when you throw comedy into the mix? In theory, you get a deliciously chaotic spy satire, one that can poke fun at patriotism, intelligence agencies and the absurdities of national identity. In practice, you get “Udta Teer,” a film so caught up in its own indulgence that it often forgets when to take itself seriously and when to let the humour do the heavy lifting.
Written and directed by Akash A. Kaushik with Dia Walia sharing screenplay credit, it's a story that practically begs to be mined for satire, “Udta Teer” begins with a premise that has plenty of comic potential. Bilal, a Pakistani spy who has infiltrated India’s defence establishment under the identity of Vikrant (Ayushmann Khurrana), is supposed to weaken the country from within. But an accident leaves him with amnesia, and he wakes up believing he is an Indian patriot who must protect the very nation he was trained to undermine. Patriotism survives the memory loss. The inconvenient question is: for which country?
There is a genuinely funny film buried somewhere in this confusion. Unfortunately, the screenplay seems determined to get everywhere at once, without establishing why we should care about the journey. The opening rushes through its setup with such haste that it feels as though Kaushik and co-writer Dia Walia assume the audience will fill in the blanks. Yet, when the narrative reaches moments that should be self-explanatory, it suddenly stops to spell things out. The result is an uneven rhythm in which the film alternates between withholding information and explaining far more than necessary.
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“Udta Teer” works best when it stops trying hard to make everything work. Its situational humour lands more often than not, and Kaushik demonstrates a decent instinct for comic timing, both as a writer and a director. The gags have a playful streak, while the references and Easter eggs occasionally add another layer to the absurdity. There is a promising satirical thread in a spy who cannot remember which side he is supposed to serve, particularly when the film toys with the performative nature of patriotism.
But a handful of effective jokes cannot compensate for a world that never feels fully lived in. The characters and situations barely get a moment to breathe before the film rushes towards its next gag, action sequence or plot revelation. It wants to be a spy thriller, a comedy of errors, a patriotic entertainer and a satire, all at once. None of these ambitions is inherently incompatible with the others. The problem is that “Udta Teer” rarely figures out how to make them coexist.
The screenplay’s biggest miscalculation comes towards the end, when twists begin arriving in quick succession. Instead of raising the stakes or making us reconsider what came before, the revelations start feeling like a bumper sale of plot points nobody particularly asked for. The more the film tries to surprise us, the less impact any individual twist has. By then, even its central identity crisis has lost some of its comic bite.
Khurrana tries his best to hold the film together, but the performance remains frustratingly one-note. This is the actor who made the blindness deception in “Andhadhun” so convincing that audiences were constantly questioning what his character could actually see. Here, despite a premise that offers him ample room to play with confusion, contradiction and shifting loyalties, the performance rarely develops beyond a single comic register. The character’s predicament should keep changing the way he behaves, but the performance does not always reflect that evolution.
Sara Ali Khan, as Yamini, is largely confined to familiar territory, with little variation in a role that offers her limited room to make an impression. Even a moment designed to underline her patriotism feels more like a box being ticked than a meaningful character beat. Suhail Nayyar fares better, bringing an energy and comic timing that make him one of the film’s more engaging performers. Ram Kapoor, late Mukul Dev, Rahul Bose, Smita Tambe and the supporting cast add to the ensemble, even when the writing does not give them enough material to make their characters memorable.
Sachin-Jigar’s music is another mixed bag. The opening and closing songs bring some welcome colour and pep to the proceedings, but the tracks in between struggle to leave a lasting impression. In a film that already has trouble maintaining a consistent rhythm, the soundtrack rarely adds the kind of recall value that might have helped it linger beyond the theatre.
Ultimately, “Udta Teer” is not short on ideas. It is short on discipline. The spy-comedy template gives it the opportunity to poke holes in the very conventions it borrows, but the film keeps confusing busyness with momentum and excess with entertainment. There are laughs to be found, and flashes of a sharper satire surface now and then. Yet the writing never quite trusts its strongest ideas enough to let them land.
For a film about a spy who loses track of which country he is fighting for, “Udta Teer” spends an awful lot of time losing track of what kind of film it wants to be.
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