A thought occurred to me while watching Shauna Gautam’s much-derided Nadaaniyan – starring Ibrahim Ali Khan and Khushi Kapoor. To be fair, it was 2.30 am (the hour of epiphanies) on a Saturday, and I was watching it for some laughs. After a while the clunky dialogue, the stiff performances and the air-brushed palette of the film began to feel more deliberate. The film was obviously beyond salvaging, but after a point it seemed like some studio executive had instructed the makers to lean into the ‘badness’ of the film, try to make it as grating an experience for the audience as possible. The thought behind it probably being: if you can’t make the best film, you might as well try and make the worst film out there. In an ocean of content, this might be a way to generate conversation, and stand out. What else explains so many shoddy choices, one after the other, going unchecked? Either that, or the crew, the producers and the platform had fully given up on the film. I have a feeling something similar happened with Robbie Grewal and Kookie Gulati’s Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins. Borrowing its name from Vijay Anand’s 1967 classic, the new version starring Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta and Kunal Kapoor is one of the most half-hearted, weightless films made in recent memory. Which is saying a lot given the sheer number of these being made in Hindi cinema, where nothing truly matters.David Logan’s screenplay appears to have been written using AI prompts: villain’s entry, hero’s entry, a montage featuring the exposition about the mission, twist #1, song, twist #2, clueless cop getting outwitted by the thief again, twist #3, the end. It’s a film that has such little faith in its ability to retain its audience, it goes from scene to exposition to set-piece with all the patience of someone trying to make the most of the last 10 minutes of an open bar.Saif Ali Khan – who had begun an exciting new chapter in his career by starring in Netflix India’s first original series in Sacred Games (2018), seems to have come full circle with arguably one of his laziest, paycheck-hungry performances, playing a master thief called Rehan Roy. Khan has often made fun of his on-screen age in Cocktail (2012) and Jawaani Jaaneman (2019), so it’s most jarring that the 54-year-old is trying to pass off as someone at least 15-20 years younger. Khan has no problems looking suave, but this is the most desperate he’s looked to seem young since Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal (2009). Also, there’s no reason for the audience to believe Rehan is a master thief – apart from the fact that the film tells us he is. He’s terrible with disguises, he is shown to be whispering to safes – something Anil Kapoor pulled off more believably in Roop Ki Rani, Choron Ka Raja (1992). Unlike in Dhoom 2 (2006), where Hrithik Roshan committed to his many disguises; and his escape plans were interesting – if nothing else. Over here, Rehan’s plan is to run out of a museum, with a dozen guards chasing him like they are on their notice period. Jewel Thief is the kind of film where a hacker has blue highlights in her hair because we’re still stuck in the mid-90s and aping the sensibilities of Jerry Bruckheimer productions. Where all a character has to do is pretend to furiously type on screen, thereby overcoming all screenwriting obstacles. It’s also the kind of the film, where the cop (Kunal Kapoor) repeatedly talks big game (“look forward to serving you tea in jail” etc), but chokes when it matters most. I’ve not seen a more listless performance under pressure, since the Indian cricket team in knockout stages under captain Virat Kohli. Nikita Dutta is so close to the bottom in the priority list for the makers that I didn’t know her character was called Farrah till the final 20 mins. Playing a moll, Dutta’s character is so much of an afterthought, I wonder if a gym reel might do more for her career.Which brings us to the only reason why the film remains even remotely engaging – Jaideep Ahlawat’s Rajan Aulakh. An actor’s actor, Ahlawat can elevate the most smarmy lines, and can find a personality within the most vacant characters. A departure from his oeuvre of playing the country bumpkin in most films/shows, here Ahlawat manages to make the most lifeless dialogue (by Sumit Arora) sing, with his sheer ability to take a pause at the right moment. Slashing, shooting, pummelling his loyalists, it almost felt like Ahlawat was channeling his inner frustration for having to suffer this boring, dolled-up enterprise where nothing seems to be of consequence.Produced by Sidharth Anand, Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins has the slickness and ideological hollowness of his other films like War (2018) and Fighter (2024). It also has the conflicting style of old Bollywood melodrama posited in a contemporary setting. Like when Rehan refers to his father as ‘Baba’ – and delivers an angry monologue about how his good samaritan father treated poor patients, only to remain a helpless spectator as his wife breathed her last. I laughed out the loudest when our titular character is asked how he plans to steal the diamond, and he says “… in the gagan (sky)” . Also, I was amused by the not-so-subtle tributes to classic heist films: a casino is called Bellagio (featured in Ocean’s 11) and someone is called Neil Macaulay (Robert De Niro in Heat). I’m half expecting Steven Soderbergh and Michael Mann to find out, and ask for an apology.*Jewel Thief: The Heist Begins is streaming on Netflix