Director: Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Kunal Kapoor, Nikita Dutta
Where to watch: Netflix
Rating: 2.5 stars
Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins is an easy and breezy watch with Jaideep Ahlawat’s acting standing out, however, there isn’t anything novel about the movie.
Saif Ali Khan plays Rehan Roy, a master thief who accepts a mission to steal the legendary Red Sun, Africa’s most famous diamond. Desperate to get the diamond is Jaideep Ahlawat as Rajan Aulakh, a mafia boss, while tracking Rehan to catch him red handed is Kunal Kapoor as detective Vikram Patel. Nikita Dutta is Farah, an artist and Jaideep’s girlfriend, who ends up falling for Saif, and vice-versa.
Produced by Siddharth Anand and Mamta Anand’s Marflix Productions, Saif has teamed up with Siddharth after 18 years, their last collaboration being Ta Ra Rum Pum in 2007.
Saif is effortless in playing the charming thief, and matches it up with some great style, the jacket he wears in his first scene reminding us of the one which Michael Jackson wore in Bad (1987), following it up with another green one which can certainly be a good add to our wardrobes.
Jaideep is undoubtedly the reason the movie survives despite no real surprises in it. He is convincing in whatever role he plays, whether as a top media anchor in The Broken News (2022), the harried inspector in Pataal Lok (2020), the God like baba in Maharaj (2024) or in this case, a mafia boss cum art connoisseur. With his Chinese dragon imprinted bathrobes, Jaideep is definitely the one to watch out for.
Whenever Saif and Jaideep share screen space, their jugalbandi shows, and they would be an interesting pair to watch out for in future projects, albeit with a deeper storyline. Kulbushan Kharbanda plays Saif’s father, and it's always nice to see the veteran on screen. Interestingly, his Mirzapur bodyguard Maqbool Khan (played by Shaji Choudhary) is here too, this time being Jaideep’s henchman.
The music is catchy and peppy, and its slick, easy on the eyes style make it a breezy watch, but the heist movie has no real surprises or heart pounding moments, using the same old tropes, like entering the museum through a manhole outside or the entire process of stealing a diamond.
Which reminds me of the movie with the same name which was actually a huge hit, Dev Anand’s Jewel Thief (1967), maybe it's time to give that a watch and see if it has stood the test of time.
