The film opens on a 13-year-old girl in a sterile training facility, dismantling armed opponents with a cold, mechanical precision that immediately announces its ambition. Alia Bhatt, playing the assassin Alpha, moves through the combat like a coiled spring, each hit is economic, each evasion deliberate, and the choreography announces a new physical vocabulary for Hindi cinema.
This is not a film that gently introduces its star. It asks you, within the first few minutes, to accept Bhatt as a killer who was forged, not born.
Alia Bhatt: The Body That Carries the Film
Bhatt’s physical agility is the film’s single most valuable asset. In the opening combat sequence, she does not merely perform stunts, she occupies them, finding muscle memory in every duck, punch, and fall. Her face barely registers emotion during the early kills, which is exactly the point: this is a character who has been stripped of visible humanity.
The film’s emotional hinge, however, is the quiet confrontation with her stepfather. Bhatt shifts registers without dialogue, her eyes betraying the trauma the script refuses to name. I found myself wishing the screenplay had trusted this stillness more often.
Shiv Rawail’s Direction: Strong Action, Sagging Script
Shiv Rawail orchestrates action with genuine spatial intelligence, the chase through the city in Act 2 is a rare example of Hindi cinema understanding geography in a fight scene. The camera tracks bodies, not just movement, which gives the stunts weight and consequence.
The weakness is structural. The screenplay, credited to Soumil Shukla, Shridhar Raghavan, and Ishita Moitra, stalls in the middle act behind exposition-heavy dialogue scenes that feel like PowerPoint slides on conspiracy, a criticism echoed by Moviesda in its review. “We are the weapons they made,” Alpha says, and the line itself is not bad, but the scene around it is.
Action and Espionage: A Genre That Hits Its Marks
The action genre gets its due here. The setpieces are shot with a high-contrast, dynamic frame that makes each punch visible and each bullet trajectory traceable. The opening combat sequence alone is worth the ticket price for anyone hungry for well-staged violence in Hindi cinema. The choreography avoids the chopped-up editing that plagues most Indian action films, you can see the bodies connect.
The espionage layer is less assured. The film uses infiltration, undercover missions, and the familiar “illicit soldier program” trope, but it does not build tension through information. The audience knows Alpha’s agenda early, which drains the spycraft of its usual pleasure, waiting for the protagonist to be caught. The thriller elements work only when the antagonist assassin, played by Bobby Deol, is actively hunting her.
The final duel in the stepfather’s headquarters is the film’s best setpiece after the opening. It is tight, intimate, and uses the environment, walls, ledges, falling objects, as weapons. It is also where the film’s editing finally relaxes into rhythm after the sluggish middle act.
Bobby Deol, Anil Kapoor, and the Weight of Presence
Bobby Deol plays the antagonist assassin as a physical threat with almost no backstory, which limits his impact. He looms, he fights, he speaks lines like “You cannot hide from what you are, ” but he remains a silhouette rather than a character. His physical intimidation in the final duel is effective, but the film never tells us who he is before he arrived to kill.
Anil Kapoor, as the stepfather and commander, supplies the gravitas the younger cast cannot yet summon on autopilot. His performance is controlled, almost still, which contrasts sharply with the kinetic energy around him. Sharvari Wagh, as Agent 2, holds her own in the espionage missions and provides a necessary emotional counterweight to Alpha’s stoicism. The casting signals YRF’s intent to build a female-led franchise on multiple shoulders, not just one.
This film is being promoted as a landmark for Indian action cinema, and its box office performance supports that claim, the film opened to ₹45.2 crore in India, according to Bollywood Hungama, and earned ₹550.3 crore worldwide in its first week. The numbers are undeniable: a ₹180 crore budget has already been surpassed, making this a certified hit. But commercially assured does not mean narratively complete.
Critics have rated it 6.2/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, calling it “a relentless action thriller headlined by Alia Bhatt, ” while audiences on IMDb have given it a slightly higher 6.8/10. The gap is instructive: audiences are willing to forgive a messy plot if the craft holds. And the craft, in stretches, does more than hold, it pushes.
The film’s core theme, the cost of violence and the struggle for identity within a system designed to create killers, is gestured at but never interrogated. Alpha says in the climax, “The system is broken, and I am the one who breaks it, ” but the line feels written, not earned. The ending itself arrives abruptly, leaving threads dangling in ways that feel less like sequel bait and more like oversight.
The Audience Reception: Forgiving the Plot, Celebrating the Star
Audiences have been generous, with a BookMyShow score of 3.8/5 and 72% positive social media sentiment. The praise is concentrated on three things: Bhatt’s transformation, the intensity of action, and the visual style. The complaints mirror the critical response: a plot that is too complicated, a villain whose motivations remain opaque, and an ending that cuts off before the emotional catharsis can land.
For a film that positions itself as “the first female-led out and out action film of India, ” the absence of any political or social controversy is notable. The UA 16+ certificate is predictable for the action violence, but the film does not court or evade ideological debate. It wants to be pure genre cinema, and on that front, it largely succeeds.
If you are an action fan who cares about choreography and physical performance more than narrative logic, this is a clear watch in IMAX. The opening sequence and final duel justify the format. But if you need a coherent villain, a resolved emotional arc, or a plot that respects your attention span, you may leave the theatre admiring Bhatt’s effort more than the film itself.
Alpha is a milestone that leans too heavily on its own historic weight, but Alia Bhatt’s body of work here earns the praise, even when the script does not. 3 out of 5 stars.
For more well-crafted spy thrills, browse Hindi Action reviews.
Fans of franchise-building female leads should also check Welcome Jungle review, a film that similarly depends on star power to overcome a thin screenplay.
For a performance-driven contrast, see how Main Vaapas verdict carries its narrative on a single actor’s gravitas.
Ankit Jaiswal is the Chief Author, covering Indian cinema and OTT releases with honest, no-filler criticism. An SEO strategist by background, he brings a research-driven approach to film writing, cutting through hype to tell you exactly what's worth your time.
