Nishaanchi

Anurag Kashyap ventures back into the shadowy world of crime with *Nishaanchi*, a film that throbs with raw authenticity and a filmmaker's unmistakable command over his craft. There's genuine grit here—the performances carry weight, the world feels lived-in and textured, and moments of dark humor cut through the bleakness with unexpected warmth. You can feel Kashyap's fingerprints all over this story, his ability to find humanity in morally grey spaces and extract honest work from his actors. Yet ambition doesn't always translate to execution, and at nearly three hours, *Nishaanchi* buckles under its own sprawl. What should have been a taut, cutting crime narrative gets tangled in its own indulgences—meandering subplots, familiar revenge beats, and pacing that tests your patience when it should grip your throat.

The film exists in an interesting space where individual scenes genuinely arrest you, where you glimpse the masterful storyteller at work, but these moments feel marooned across an oversized canvas. The mixing of grit with comedy and family saga has potential, but the execution feels scattered, asking the audience to invest considerable time and emotion without the disciplined narrative architecture to justify it. *Nishaanchi* is a film of genuine moments adrift in a story that needed tightening, a reminder that even talented voices benefit from the courage to cut.

Rating: 6/10