There is a scene towards the end of the film where the police raid a godown. The gate yields just enough for the chowkidar to peek through, and a voice calls out, “Ami police” (We are police). In that almost casual announcement, the film makes its point: seeing is not believing; it must be spoken aloud to be true. This is the filmmaking of Atanu Bhuyan in his new Assamese film Khakee (sometimes also written as Khaki). There is actually nothing wrong with the staging or the dialogue of this particular scene, but I am using it as a soft reference to make a point.
And the point is that Bhuyan does not bother with the old “show, don’t tell” conventions of filmmaking. He insists on telling the tale, as if to remind us that in his world, the louder it is, the more important it is. The story, which is based on real-life events, is thus very explicitly at the service of its intended purpose — to highlight the better side of the ruling regime. For a film that tries to sympathise with the cause of the cops, it is vocal to the point that the characters themselves go on to talk about the pride and the frustrations that come with their uniforms.
To cite another example, a man in police custody is shot and ends up in the hospital. The police predictably claim that he tried to escape and therefore had to be stopped. But the film does not let the audience settle there. Moments later, it visually re-creates the incident in full detail, showing how the person was practically forced to run by his superiors so that he could be punished and sent to the hospital bed for his misdeeds. The drama is so heightened that the act feels justified, especially when placed in the context of the man misbehaving with an on-duty woman police officer. But this justification carries an agenda, and the film soon gets too busy propagating it.
The story revolves around a police officer who is transferred to a small town in Assam. As he becomes familiar with the town and its residents, he realises that the local police force is almost dysfunctional, corrupt, and closely aligned with local politicians and criminals. However, the best thing about the film is that it is not about the self-righteousness of its protagonist (played by Pawan Gayan), nor is it a Gangaajal-style flick about eradicating crime and cleansing a district. Instead, Khakee is more about how political power and position determine what the police can and cannot do.
In another scene, Pawan Gayan’s wife (played by Shreya Borthakur) begins to lose her mind because her undergarments are repeatedly stolen from her yard. Meanwhile, her husband remains dutifully helpless, caught in the inertia of his job and forced to bow down to those in power. Loud and overdramatic, the film reaches one of its laziest peaks here, as it uses the character to verbally spell out each of the turbulent causes behind her anger.
Obviousness is not necessarily a flaw here, but the problem lies in the filmmaking grammar that dictates Khakee. It lays out its moral and procedural aspects with such bluntness that it forces the viewer to confront not just the action, but also the spoken logic behind it. For instance, the green-coded NPF and the saffron-coded IPP (the political parties in the film) should have been enough to convey the political divide, but the film goes further by explicitly spelling out their ideologies. And if words aren’t spoken, the characters are often shown cooking in kitchens — try counting how many such scenes appear the next time you watch the film.
In all honesty, I have no personal quarrel with a film carrying an agenda. In recent years, cinema has become increasingly vocal about its commitments, whether it’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another or, closer to home, Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar. I also have no issue with a film wearing its agenda on its sleeve. The problem arises when a film stops feeling like cinema and starts feeling like an advertisement. Yes, Khakee feels more like an advertisement than a film — a three-hour-long promotion of the good deeds of the party in power.
The closest analogy I can summon is that of a Chief Minister addressing the state’s journalists on New Year’s Day. There is no need to bother with such speeches when Khakee can become the ultimate mouthpiece of the establishment. The film touches on everything — sly attacks on the opposition, anti-drug campaigns, child marriage eradication, nepotism in party politics, the troubles of the Miyas, government jobs — nothing escapes its earnest and almost bureaucratic enumeration. This is because the agenda is no longer hidden; it is in full broadcast, as the stories of the cops function merely as vessels to drive it home.
There is also a massive tonal imbalance and pacing inconsistency at the heart of Khakee. The first half unfolds like a political drama, giving politicians generous stretches of screen time as they manipulate events, marshal the police, and exploit the machinery of power. Actors Jahanara Begum and Arun Nath, as incumbent officials, get fair screen time here. While it highlights the moral struggles of those in uniform, this track is tediously slow, and after a point, everything begins to feel repetitive.
However, after the interval, the film shifts sharply into a cop thriller, and it is here that some tension is generated for the plot to function. The entire sequence of Nazrul’s capture from his minority hideout proves that Khakee could have been a better film had it focused more on storytelling rather than petty politics. Some moments in the second half are genuinely thrilling and far more compelling than the entire political drama of the first half.
Meanwhile, some of the moral criticisms levelled at the government also extend naturally to the film. Is a police encounter truly the solution to every problem, and can it ever be fully justified? Can entire communities be painted as monolithic villains? Although the film states that not all Muslims are bad, Khakee rarely pauses to interrogate these questions.
In terms of technical standards, Khakee deserves appreciation, particularly for its cinematography by Pradip Daimary. There is a well-planned one-take sequence inside the police station that captures the past and present of an event within the same temporal and spatial frame. It is a tricky and sophisticated design, but it is executed very well.
A special mention also goes to actor Gitartha Sharmah, who convincingly plays the spoiled brother of a powerful woman. However, the editing could have been tighter, as the runtime nearly touches three hours. It is also one of those rare Assamese films that takes production design seriously.
Released on February 27, Khakee was screened in 72 cinema halls across Assam in its first week. Although it faced massive backlash and boycott calls on social media, the film ran for three weeks in various towns and cities before being replaced by Dhurandhar: The Revenge.
Apart from that, the decision to greenlight AI-generated posters for Khakee is unforgivable. It is a major discredit to the actors, who appear almost unrecognisable in them. Some of the visuals in the posters also bear no relation to the film’s plot. Later, a different set of posters appeared, but those were merely mugshots of the actors — Pawan Gayan, Arun Nath, and others.
Moreover, the same issue extends to some of the promotional videos, which lack any connection to the film’s story or plot. Curiously, Khakee arrived in theatres without a proper trailer — only a teaser masquerading as one was released a few days before its debut. So, would the film have been more successful with better publicity and promotion?