Star Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta, Kunal Kapoor
Director: Kookie Gulati & Robbie Grewal
Streaming : Netflix
 
Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins is a film that wants to be a suave, globe-trotting thriller but ends up feeling like a poorly rehearsed stage play in designer costumes. With a premise straight out of a dusty Bollywood playbook — a master thief, a priceless diamond, a ruthless villain, and a reluctant romance — the film sets the stage for spectacle, only to trip over its own ambition.
 
Saif Ali Khan plays Rehan Roy, a conman who’s practically a jack-of-all-trades: thief, hacker, lover, escape artist, and, at one point, even an impromptu doctor mid-flight. He’s blackmailed into executing a sky-high heist by Rajan Aulakh, a bloodthirsty art collector played with gritty gravitas by Jaideep Ahlawat. While Ahlawat brings menace to the table — sometimes quite literally — the character is too cartoonish for his intensity to land. Nikita Dutta, playing Rajan’s unhappy wife Farah, tries to rise above the flimsy material, and at moments, she does — but the film rarely gives her enough room to matter.
 
The story zigzags from Budapest to Mumbai to Istanbul without ever earning the international flair it tries to flaunt. It's filled with ludicrous twists, unconvincing disguises, and a law enforcement subplot so underbaked it feels like an afterthought. Kunal Kapoor’s cop chases Rehan in a game of cat and mouse where the mouse keeps winning, not through brilliance, but because the script always lets him. The writing doesn’t just suspend disbelief — it abducts it and flies it out of a moving plane.
 
Visually, the film is polished. The locations are postcard-worthy, and there’s a slickness to the cinematography that makes everything look ten times better than it actually is. But beneath the gloss is a hollow narrative that collapses under its own clichés. Even the dialogues — meant to sound sharp — end up sounding like outdated Twitter one-liners.
 
The only saving grace? Jaideep Ahlawat, who refuses to let the absurdity of his scenes dull his edge. Whether he’s snarling threats or dancing to an unexpected song number, he’s the only one who seems fully invested.
 
Verdict: Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins is a glittery shell with little substance inside. It's watchable only if you’re out of options or in desperate need of background noise while folding laundry. Despite the talent onboard, the film feels like a misfire from the get-go — a heist thriller with neither the thrill nor the cleverness to steal your attention.