Never Ending Movie Carnival
Never Ending Movie Carnival
Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins review: Cool Saif, Hot Dutta and Swaggy Ahlawat entertain in a campy crime heist caper
What: ‘Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins’ – the harmless tribute to Vijay Anand’s 1967 cult classic spy thriller heist musical ‘Jewel Thief’ that starred the evergreen Dev Anand, the 2025 Netflix’s film starring Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta and Kunal Kapoor helmed by Kookie Gulati and Robbie Grewal is a decent one-time watch.
Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins movie synopsis
Con artiste Rehan Roy (Saif Ali Khan) is hiding in Istanbul, a personal calamity forces Rehan to join Rajan Aulakh (Jaideep Ahlawat) a dreaded gangster for a huge heist in Mumbai. Police Officer Vikram Patel (Kunal Kapoor) is after Rehan for quite some time now. Vikram golden chance has arrived as Rehan is planning to steal the precious ‘Red Sun’ diamond. Will Rehan succeed? what is the threat surrounding Rehan?, and what Farah (Nikita Dutta) – wife of Aulakh has to do in this game?.
The movie tries to answer the above questions.
A cool thief, a stylish gangster, the hot wife of the stylish gangster, an honest no-nonsense cop (smelling a bit of YRF dhoom series…?, carry on). Now put these characters into a heist caper, now you have style and substance. Of course, style is more – chalega har koi Vijay Anand nahi hota,. So, toss this all, add some twist here and there – basic twist like nakli bullet, nakli diamond – kuch yaad aaya Robert…? and pay a weird but harmless tribute to one of Hindi cinema’s cult classic like Vijay Anand’s ‘Jewel Thief’ and you get a crime caper like ‘Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins’ which is fit for OTT only.
‘Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins’ is more about style and the characters with some baap beta emotion thrown in just to evoke emotions which doesn’t happen. Veteran Kulbushan Kharbanda is the father of Rehan, Rehan has left his father who charges ten rupees from his patients and his father cannot tolerate a thief in his home.
Emotions don’t register, but the oomph does, Farah (Nikita Dutta) – the satayi hui wife of Aulakh and Rehan do ignite some fire when they are together.
Jishnu Bhattacharjee’s eye popping cinematography, Aarif Sheikh’s sharp editing and the set pieces, locations uplift the film giving a good glossy experience.
Saif Ali Khan is cool and does fantastic job.
Jaideep Ahlawat shows some rare raw swag,
Nikita Dutta looks gorgeous and does a fabulous job, her chemistry with Saif works. Good transformation from Sony Liv’s thought provoking ‘Waking Of A Nation’ to this complete mainstream glam avatar.
Kunal Kapoor does well in a role which is somewhat similar to Abhishek Bachchan from ‘Dhoom’
Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins review – final words
‘Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins’ is predictable but entertaining romp of a crime caper film which the aam junta can enjoy if they go without much expectations.
Going with three stars
Made under the banner of Marflix Pictures, ‘Jewel Thief - The Heist Begins’ is streaming on Netflix from April 25, 2025.
A child born from life & fed by cinema. A filmi keeda from child & a film journalist for the last fifteen years. a father, seeker, foodie who loves crooning bollywood melodies twitter.com/cineblues More By vishal verma