Maalik movie review: Rajkummar Rao film is predictable to a fault

Indian Express

11-07-2025

Maalik movie review: Can Rajkummar Rao, the established poster-boy of middle-class middle-India, pull off the role of a menacing gangster? That is possibly the only reason why I wanted to watch 'Maalik', in which Rao goes all out doing the mobster thing, hefting machine guns and goons, killing and rampaging with impunity in the Illahabad (Allahabad) of the late 80s-90s.
The secondary question, implicit in the first–is the film any good— has an easy answer. No, it isn't. 'Maalik' is too long, too dull, too by-the-numbers, to be anything other than what it is: a possible change of image for the leading man from the guy-next-door, to a guy who isn't born a gangster but becomes one, because he is left with no other choice.
It isn't as if Rao doesn't try his hardest. He has clearly worked on his look. Thick beard, half open shirt showing vest and a bit of chest, gold chains around neck, cigarette dangling from mouth. An opening scene shows him try for crassness as well as menace– a man is made to spit and lick it off the ground with Rao's Maalik grinning and getting off on it– and there's a flash of something new, something he hasn't done before.
But in the rest of it, it's like watching a mix of the filmi gangsters who've come before, as he goes about shooting mouth and gun off, with his faithful lieutenant (Anshumaan Pushkar) by his side, picking off his enemies– big and small netas (Saurabh Shukla and Swanand Kirkire), suspended cops (Prosenjit Chatterjee), and sundry others (Saurbh Sachdeva) who want a piece of the ganda dhanda he runs.
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Rao's thing with the effective Manushi Chillar, who plays Maalik's-wife-as-moral-compass, is watchable, because despite everything, Rao stays watchable. But the film is predictable to a fault– you see a car with a woman who has just bid a tender farewell to her beloved, and you know what's going to happen next; you see an askance look between master and loyal servant, and you know that betrayal is up next. A new gangster drama with old beats is not the break-out that Rao must have been hoping for.
Maalik movie cast: Rajkummar Rao, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Manushi Chillar, Saurabh Shukla, Anshumaan Pushkar, Saurabh Sachdeva, Swanand Kirkire, Rajendra Gupta
Maalik movie director: Pulkit
Maalik movie rating: One and a half stars