Currently streaming on Netflix, this Saif Ali Khan and Jaideep Ahlawat starrer thriller high-suspense thriller promises to glitter but delivers only so much cinematic sleight of hand. There’s a red diamond at the heart of “Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins”, and just like the movie itself, it’s all show. Directed by Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal, and produced under Siddharth Anand’s Marflix Pictures—the same banner that gave us “War”, “Pathaan”, and “Fighter”—this Netflix release is worth a billion bucks. But unfortunately, it never discovers its soul.
The movie gets off on the right foot with ambition: a global chase, exotic settings, ruthless bad guys, and a hero exuding charisma. Along the way from Budapest to Mumbai to Istanbul, however, the story sags. It seems the writers became enamored with the gloss and lost sight of the gold—good storytelling.
The Plot: A Con Job That Conned Itself
The central plot revolves around the much-coveted Red Sun diamond, a gemstone so precious that men will kill—and die—to possess it. Saif Ali Khan features as Rehan Roy, an international con artist who globetrots, and Rajan Aulakh (Jaideep Ahlawat), a merciless art dealer with a chill for bloodshed. In debt after a money-laundering embarrassment, Rajan brokers a deal with Rehan to swipe the Red Sun from a Mumbai museum.
Sounds exciting, huh? But the story rapidly disintegrates into a knotty heap of genre conventions. From blackmail to betrayal, taboo love to in-flight antics, the movie attempts to pack every conceivable turn in its two-hour running time. The end product is more tiring than thrilling.
Even the heist—the ostensible showstopper—is unimpressively uninspired. From museum floors to jetliner aisles, the film tries to up the ante, but it never quite takes off.
Saif Ali Khan: Stylish but Stranded
Let’s discuss Saif. He’s one of those few stars who can switch between suave and sinister, comedy and crime. And here, as Rehan Roy—a conman with swagger, smarts, and a dash of melancholy—he gives it his all.
In interviews, Saif fawned over the character: “He’s cool, larger-than-life, with an adventurous heart and a strong emotional core.” Rehan is not merely a thief—he’s also a devoted son, a troubled brother, and a roguish flirt. Saif obviously enjoyed playing him. “Filming was so fun,” he said, “that when I got home, I was itching to come back.”
The issue? The movie isn’t really backing up his performance. For all his efforts, Rehan is still more of an idealization than a fleshed-out human. You can glimpse what Saif was going for—a morally ambiguous anti-hero with a conscience—but the script doesn’t give him enough to play with and too much dross to slog through.
Jaideep Ahlawat: Evil, But Boringly So
Jaideep Ahlawat is a powerhouse actor. From “Paatal Lok” to “Raazi”, he’s shown that he can make even the most nefarious characters interesting. But in “Jewel Thief”, his Rajan Aulakh is a villain plucked from a musty playbook.
He’s angry, violent, and given to melodramatic violence—he smothers a man with a white cloth, for effect. He shoots his dog for being friendly to an enemy. He glares, growls, and sheds blood, but the threat never quite registers. It’s all surface, no depth. Ahlawat attempts to bring intensity, but the writing hobbles him with cardboard motivations and foregone conclusions.
The Women Deserved So Much More
Nikita Dutta gets to play Farah, Rajan’s wife, who is a painter, full of sorrow and secrets. She possesses all the elements of a typical femme fatale—beauty, mystery, discontent—yet the film wastes her.
Farah spends a couple of moments with Rehan, tense and intimate. At one point, he wonders if they’ve met. Her response—”Iss line ki expiry bahut pehle guzar chuki hai”—isn’t only a quick wit; it’s a meta shot at the outdated dialogue in the film. Unfortunately, like her character, the script seldom gets the opportunity to be cuttingly so.
Kunal Kapoor as STF officer Vikram Mehta is no better off. He is brought in as Rehan’s tenacious tracker but is time and again pushed to the margins of the story. Kapoor is intense enough, but the movie does not give him the scope to let rip.
All Shine, No Substance
If there’s anything that “Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins” does effectively, it’s appear good. The movie is bathed in neon color schemes and glossy production design. The outfits are garish, the action scenes are tightly cut, and the score attempts to keep up with the pace of a high-octane thriller.
The movie so desperately wishes to be a stylish globe-trotting epic—a “Mission: Impossible” with a heart of Bollywood. It ends up being more of a fashion extravaganza in which the models lost their cues. Everything in “Jewel Thief” is exaggerated: the lighting, locations, and chases—but nothing translates on an emotional level.
A Film Trapped in Its Own Fantasy
Saif likened the “Jewel Thief” world as “addictive… full of red diamonds, mafia dons, whiskey glasses flying, and people being thrown out of windows.” He equated it to that of a comic book world, and he’s not far off.
But even comic books require character development, stakes, and cohesion. This movie confuses style and story. It establishes conflicts—such as Rehan’s survivor’s guilt about his mother’s death, his tension with his doctor father (played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and his kid brother (Gagan Arora)—only to drop them when it’s time for the next twist or action set-piece.
And then there’s the conclusion—a flagrant set-up for a sequel, with the words “the heist continues” appearing on screen. It’s a risky move for a film that’s only just managed to stay together in its initial outing.
Nods to the Past, But No Real Homage
The title, naturally, calls to mind Vijay Anand’s 1967 classic “Jewel Thief”, a movie that’s held in such esteem for its cleverness and tension. The new version tips its cap to the original, but it’s more of a nod than an actual tribute.
Whereas the original provided edge-of-the-seat suspense and spectacular musical numbers, “The Heist Begins” is a nearly humorless, joyless exercise. It doesn’t have the lightness of touch that animates a great heist film. Rather than having fun with its tricks, it plods us through them.
The Verdict: A Stylish Snoozefest
In the end, “Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins”is a frustrating movie. It has all the ingredients of an effective heist thriller—star power, exotic locations, dramatic stakes—but forgoes the one thing that matters most: a tale worth stealing hearts for.
The acting is adequate, the images are slick, but none of it equates to anything worth remembering. It’s like a scam perpetrated on the audience—hype and intrigue promised, repetition and tedium delivered. There is something rather ironic about a movie about deception that winds up misleading its own potential.
Would You Still Watch It? Maybe.
If you’re a Saif Ali Khan fan, you may still want to take a look just to watch him strut through a role that’s custom-made for his charm. If you enjoy action and style, and can overlook the gaping plot and logic holes, “Jewel Thief” might offer momentary entertainment. But if you’re in the mood for a clever, twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller? This jewel may not be worth the hunt.
Would You Still Watch It? Maybe.
As the credits roll and the movie sets up another chapter in the “heist,” you can’t help but wish that the creators take a hard, long look at what did not work here. Because there is potential. The cast is solid. The world is great fun. The energy is real.
But none of that matters if the next film isn’t built on a tighter, smarter, more human foundation. Until then, “Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins” remains a shiny trinket that might look good in a trailer—but feels hollow when held up to the light.
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