The Daayra trailer has arrived, and it makes a strong first impression. Directed by Meghna Gulzar and starring Kareena Kapoor Khan alongside Prithviraj Sukumaran — a pairing that hasn’t happened before — the film looks like a crime thriller with something serious on its mind.
Inspired by true events, Daayra isn’t simply about solving a case. It’s about what happens when two experienced police officers look at the same situation and reach completely different conclusions about what should be done — and how far either of them is willing to go.
The 2-minute-19-second trailer builds that tension carefully, introducing a world where a sensitive investigation starts pulling two colleagues in opposite directions.
Kareena and Prithviraj Play Determined Cops
Kareena Kapoor Khan plays DCP Ajooni Kohli, and Prithviraj Sukumaran takes on DCP Raman Kumar. Both are senior officers, both are capable — and both are shaped by completely different beliefs about what justice actually looks like in practice.
Ajooni is measured and methodical, someone who believes in working within the boundaries of the legal system even when those boundaries are frustrating. She trusts the process, even when the process is slow.
Raman is different. He’s more aggressive, more emotionally involved in the investigation, and much more willing to operate in morally grey territory if he believes the situation demands it.
Neither character is drawn as simply right or simply wrong. That ambiguity is exactly what makes the conflict between them interesting.
A Missing Girl Becomes the Centre of the Story
The investigation at the heart of the film concerns a missing girl and the disturbing circumstances surrounding her disappearance. What begins as a police case becomes something far more complicated the deeper they go.
The trailer’s most quietly powerful moment involves a conversation where someone suggests that girls usually come home in cases like this. Raman responds with a simple, uncomfortable question about the one case where they don’t.
It’s a small exchange that opens up a much larger question — about the weight of uncertainty, about what happens when statistics offer no comfort, and about how personal the work of policing can become when the case in front of you refuses to stay abstract.
Law Versus Personal Justice
This is the thematic territory Daayra seems most interested in exploring, and it’s the most compelling part of the trailer.
Ajooni and Raman aren’t enemies. They’re colleagues who find themselves on opposite sides of a genuine moral argument about how far a police officer should go, what the law is actually for, and whether justice delayed is justice at all.
When someone believes the legal system isn’t moving fast enough, or isn’t capable of delivering the right outcome, does that give them the right to act outside it? The trailer doesn’t answer that question — and the fact that it doesn’t is a good sign. Daayra looks like a film that wants to sit in that discomfort rather than resolve it neatly.
Kareena Kapoor Khan Looks Impressive
Kareena is one of the clearest reasons the trailer works. Her performance is controlled throughout — no melodrama, no obvious reaching for big moments. She lets the character do the work.
Ajooni’s authority comes through without announcement. A look, a pause, the way she carries herself through a scene — it all adds up to someone who knows exactly who she is and what she believes, even when the situation around her is getting messier by the minute.
This feels different from much of what Kareena has done recently. The glamour and comedy she can do in her sleep are completely absent here. What’s in their place is something quieter and more demanding — and from what the trailer shows, she’s meeting that demand.
Prithviraj Sukumaran Adds the Intensity
Prithviraj brings a different kind of energy entirely. His Raman is restless, emotionally engaged with the case in ways that are starting to blur the line between professional investment and personal mission.
He has a track record with intense material, and the trailer gives him several moments where that intensity surfaces without tipping into excess. His scenes with Kareena generate real tension — not the tension of conflict for conflict’s sake, but the tension of two intelligent people who respect each other and fundamentally disagree about something that matters.
Crucially, this doesn’t feel like a conventional hero-heroine dynamic. They’re equals, they’re colleagues, and that makes the friction between them feel genuinely complicated rather than scripted.
Meghna Gulzar’s Serious Storytelling
Gulzar’s presence as director is one of the film’s most significant elements. Raazi, Talvar, Chhapaak — her films share a commitment to telling difficult, real-world stories without simplifying them for comfort.
Daayra appears to follow the same approach. The true-event foundation gives the story credibility. The central moral conflict gives it emotional weight. And Gulzar’s restraint — you can feel it in the trailer — suggests a film that trusts its audience to sit with uncomfortable questions rather than needing to be told how to feel.
The trailer is also smart about what it doesn’t show. There’s enough to establish the stakes and generate genuine curiosity, but the central mystery remains intact.
Strong Supporting Cast
The film’s supporting lineup — Jitendra Joshi, Kshitee Jog, Kanwaljeet Singh, Sandeep Kulkarni and Trupti Khamkar — suggests the world around the investigation has been cast with care.
These aren’t names chosen to fill space. Each brings real credibility to the table, and the depth they’re likely to bring to the police procedural and family dynamics will be important for making the investigation feel fully inhabited.
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The Daayra trailer doesn’t sell itself through action sequences or shock moments. It sells itself through the moral weight of its central conflict and the credibility of the two performances at its core.
Kareena Kapoor Khan brings quiet authority to Ajooni. Prithviraj Sukumaran brings restless intensity to Raman. And Meghna Gulzar brings the kind of directorial seriousness that keeps a film grounded in what actually matters — the human beings making impossible choices under extreme pressure.
The familiar rhythms of the cop-drama genre are present, and there are moments in the trailer where the material briefly feels like territory we’ve been in before. But the performances and the moral complexity of what’s being asked keep pulling it back to something more interesting.
Daayra releases in cinemas on September 18, 2026. If the film delivers on the promise of this trailer, it could be one of the more thoughtful crime dramas Hindi cinema has produced in some time.