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Gandhari: Taapsee Pannu’s Bani is hardly a fresh addition to her repertoire. The biggest disservice is done to ace actors like Chhaya Kadam, Mita Vashisht, Swastika Mukherjee.
Gandhari starring Taapsee Pannu is now streaming on Netflix. It marks her return to action 9 years after Naam Shabana.
Gandhari U/A
2/5
Starring: Taapsee Pannu, Ishwak Singh, Chhaya Kadam, Mita Vashisht, Swastika Mukherjee, Jatin Sarna and Prashant NarayananDirector: Devansh MakhijaPlatform: Netflix
Gandhari Movie Review: Taapsee Pannu starrer Gandhari starts off well but then gets trapped in its own labyrinthe of ambitions. On the surface of it, there are enough motifs that could have made this social thriller novel. But the problem arises when the makers only look at these motifs like ornaments to make the narrative look nice and are unable to actually interweave them into the fabric of the story.
Remember how Kolkata came alive like a character in Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani? That doesn’t happen here. There’s an attempt and a desperate one at that to make Joypurra, the fictional town in which Gandhari is set, an animated entity – one that deifies a goddess and breeds monsters at the same time. But eventually, Joypurra gets reduced to the stereotype of a Bengali town seeped in occultism and crime.
And then there’s the Bahurupi community. Gandhari makers try to use them effectively, adding dollops of eerie suspense and an almost folkloric quality to the narrative. But by the time the climax arrives, it becomes apparent that they were little more than a narrative trope, brought in to bloat the story. Ultimately, their presence feels entirely underdeveloped and superfluous.
But thankfully, director Devashish Makhija and writer Kanika Dhillon waste no time in establishing the crux of Gandhari. During a train ride, Bani and Gokul’s five-year-old daughter Mishty gets kidnapped under broad daylight. While Bani’s on the run to rescue Mishty from the clutches of the perpetrator, she injures herself. The trauma leads her to lose vision in both eyes temporarily.
The couple then goes to the Joypurra police station to file a report but the cops are indifferent and even lax. When anti-human trafficking unit officer Kabir enters the picture, we learn that Mishty’s kidnapping is a part of a larger child sex trafficking racket by a gang called Blackhole. When the police prove to be ineffective, Bani decides to take matters in her own heads.
With the help of a woman named Jhunu Amba, who’s also secretly trying to rescue the children who’ve been kidnapped, under the garb of a jhalmuri seller, Bani learns martial arts. She and Gokul start staying in Joypurra to understand the city and its nooks and cranies better. Even when she regains her vision, she conceals the fact that she can see, allowing her to gather information without arousing suspicion.
This is a story that holds a lot of potential. But Gandhari tries to go above and beyond the realm where human beings exist. The narrative is rich in mythological allusions. We learn that Joypurra is home to Chaumukhi, the goddess who rescued children from a demon named Magrasur by foraying into the netherworld.
And no points for guessing that Taapsee’s Bani is made to become the modern-day Chaumukhi. In fact, in a scene, she too steps into an underground tunnel (a version of ‘paatal lok’) as goddess Chaumukhi is immersed. And suddenly, Bani becomes sublime and gets deified in a way that doesn’t really create any impact. The sequence is a contrived attempt at making her a glorious victor.
Taapsee also gets a mahisasur vadh sequence. There are also three other women in Gandhari – Churni, who runs an NGO, Jhunu Amba and Usha, Bani’s neighbour. It’s baffling how they’ve been reduced to such paper-thin character sketches under the guise of being women, who drive the narrative forward and add an element of complexity to it.
Their arcs are abruptly curtailed not because the narrative demands it but because the film seems determined to ensure that no other woman gets to share the spotlight or agency that belongs to Bani. It also feels as though their eventual fate has been written primarily to elevate Bani as the story’s singular heroine and its ultimate saviour.
Taapsee’s Bani is, unfortunately, not a character we haven’t seen her play before. She once again inhabits the familiar mould of the fiercely protective woman with a saviour complex – morally uncompromising, combative and unwilling to see eye to eye with her when he chooses to save his daughter at the cost of other children.
There are shades of characters she has played in the past, which makes Bani feel less like a fresh addition to her repertoire and more like a variation on a familiar template. Whether Bani is confronting someone, fighting for her child or navigating moments of grief and emotional vulnerability, the intensity largely remains at the same pitch.
The action sequences have physical conviction but the emotional ones could have benefited from greater intensity and gravitas. As a result, Bani’s rage, anguish and determination often begin to blur into one another. Much of this, however, feels like a failing of the middling script rather than the actor alone. But the biggest disservice is done to an ace performer like Chhaya Kadam.
As Usha, she hardly gets to bring anything substantial to the table, that can set her apart. Mita Vashisht as Jhunu Amba looks the part and the mix of exhaustion, helpless and silent resilience in her eyes is palpable. Swastika Mukherjee as Churni also suffers due to an underwritten role. It’s confusing as to why she has been brown-faced in the film.
Ishwak Singh as Gokul gives it his all. In the emotionally heavier scenes, he does leave an impact. But somehow, Gandhari relegates him to the periphery as though a father’s grief of losing a child is lesser than that of a mother. There’s a layer of complex backstory added to his Gokul. It almost seems like the makers wanted him to function in the grey area so that Bani remains numero uno.
And then there’s Prashant Narayanan, who plays the leader of Blackhole. There’s so much suspense built before introducing him in the final chapter that you run out of patience by then. Jatin Sarna, who plays Kabir, hardly has anything to do as Bani does all his work. This is a character that needed a little more bite and a little less bark.
But unlike other Bollywood women-led action films, Gandhari is rooted and grimy, steering clear of the gloss and glamour that often accompany the genre. Its world feels tactile, with the action grounded in a more recognisable, unvarnished reality rather than being packaged as spectacle. But that’s not enough to elevate a bumpy screenplay. Plus, nuance isn’t its strongest suit. This one is skippable.
Quick Answers
Ask News18Taapsee Pannu has started turning down films when the audience can easily guess the ending, choosing instead to experiment with characters that people would not typically associate with her to avoid being typecast. Additionally, she has stated that she does not want to simply repeat her earlier action roles, aiming instead to offer audiences something beyond what they have seen from her before.
Ask News18About the Author
Titas Chowdhury is a Special Correspondent at News18 Showsha. She writes about cinema, music and gender in cinema. Interviewing actors and filmmakers, writing about latest trends in showbiz and bringi…Read More
September 03, 2026, 12:31 IST
