Inspector Zende Review
Director: Chinmay Mandlekar
Date Created: 2025-09-05 17:20
3.5
Inspector Zende Review: Directed and written by Chinmay Mandlekar, this Netflix film has a running time of 111 minutes. Starring Manoj Bajpayee as Inspector Madhukar Bapurao Zende and Jim Sarbh as the cunning crook Carl Bhojraj. With them, actors like Sachin Khedekar, Girija Oak, and Bhalchandra Kadam provide supporting heft to the story with solid performances. The film is based on the biography of Madhukar Zende, the Mumbai police constable who succeeded twice in catching Charles Sobhraj (here fictionalised as Bhojraj).
Inspector Zende Review
The movie establishes itself with a suspenseful hook: Carl Bhojraj, a charismatic and cunning serial killer, breaks out of prison. Inspector Zende, who earlier had apprehended him, is once more called upon to put him back behind bars. It’s a plot that has high stakes, historical value, and an almost larger-than-life cat-and-mouse game.
My expectations were understandably high for the film because of the cast, as it is a delight to watch Manoj Bajpayee depict any cop. Netflix’s Inspector Zende is not a dark, suspenseful kind of movie. It instead opts for a lighthearted type of tone, often meshing tension with comedy. It is at first a nice mixture, seeing the tendency of some of the other Indian policeman films to overdo action and macho one-liners. But as the story progresses, the comedic seasoning at some points overwhelms the tension, which makes it less effective than it could have been.
While one may have a reason to watch the Inspector Zende movie, and that reason is actor Manoj Bajpayee. He has immense integrity and charm attached to the character of Zende. It is not that of the larger-than-life super-cop kind of character, but that of a man who is regimented, resolute, and very human. How he manages to keep the private and the official separate is very understandable as well as believable. There is comedic subtlety that Bajpayee adds to the character, as well as natural screen presence, such that he is instantly likeable.
As soon as Bajpayee appears on screen, the movie comes alive. Wherever he is commanding his team during high-tension operations, having thoughtful conversations with his family members, he once again establishes the reason he is one of the great actors Indian cinema has produced.
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On the other hand, Jim Sarbh’s interpretation of Carl Bhojraj didn’t quite work with me, though Sarbh is usually an actor of edgy roles. He can be seen as clearly miscast here. The menace and virality that a man of that notoriety deserves don’t quite exude. At times, the act appears forced, and one ends up getting sidetracked rather than being afraid/of Bhojraj. In a cop versus criminal hunter storyline, the villain’s role is equally important as the lead character. But the imbalance of the above does render the tension less intriguing than it could have been.
Director-writer Chinmay Mandlekar is keener on providing us with a mass entertainer than a subtlety-rich crime drama. The choice of peppering the movie with humour doesn’t quite work every time since it also dilutes the suspense. The chases, say, are well-directed but barely hit the tension.
It is one of the better aspects of the show that it is attentive to daily detail. You see the movie taking us along the Mumbai and Goa streets as Zende’s team follows Bhojraj. You get the sensation of history unfolding, and it makes it more real. But because the tone is never serious, the audience never quite feels the fear of Carl’s crimes. It just comes across as an entertaining storyteller and not a thrilling one.
The second issue is of predictability. Though the history of Inspector Zende is known to most of us, the film does not leave much to the element of suspense. It is very clear long beforehand that Zende will outclass Bhojraj. This predictability and the comedic nature of the film reduce the level of risk and make the climax of the film somewhat ineffectual.
That doesn’t mean that it isn’t fun at all, of course? It does have some fun laced in it here and there? Some of the discussions ring true, and the Zende team has some friendliness, but the presentation never quite hit “good but not great.”
Netflix Inspector Zende Review: Summing Up
Inspector Zende is not, by any stretch, a bad film. It has charm, a very strong lead performance by Manoj Bajpayee, and a slice of Indian crime drama that the viewer will be interested in. It’s an insubstantial film, doesn’t put many demands on the viewer, and throws some laughs down the road, along with a glimpse of the lifestyle of a maverick cop.
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