Vibe Review: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Vibe is genuinely funny when it focuses on the chaotic friendship between its two leads, but an overstuffed screenplay stuffed with spy movie clichés eventually buries its best comic instincts.
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Genre: Comedy, Spy
Director: Kunal Kemmu
Cast: Kunal Kemmu, Sparsh Shrivastava, Preity Zinta, Vanshika Dhir
What happens when two men who have absolutely no business being anywhere near a national security operation suddenly get handed one? In Vibe, the answer is exactly what you would expect: everything goes hilariously wrong.
Kunal Kemmu’s second film as director is not really interested in making its heroes competent. It is far more interested in making their incompetence entertaining, and for a good chunk of the runtime, that approach genuinely works.
At the center of the story are Hardik, played by Kemmu himself, and Bugs, played by Sparsh Shrivastava, two friends whose everyday lives are nowhere close to the world of espionage they eventually stumble into. Hardik is impulsive, immature, and constantly led by his gut instincts.
Bugs is the relatively sensible one of the pair, though his constant closeness to Hardik rarely lets that sensibility actually matter. What begins as a fairly straightforward story about romance and bad decisions eventually pulls the two into a much larger mission overseen by intelligence operative Madam H, played by Preity Zinta.
On paper, this sounds like a familiar buddy comedy mixed with spy thriller formula, but Kemmu is clearly less concerned with the actual mechanics of espionage than with the comedy that comes from dropping two chaotic, unqualified men into a world that demands precision.
And that is exactly where Vibe shines brightest. The film carries an anarchic, loose energy reminiscent of Kemmu’s earlier hit Madgaon Express, finding humor in awkward silences, ridiculous overreactions, and characters treating absurd situations with complete, unwavering seriousness.
Kemmu is clearly comfortable playing Hardik as a lovable nuisance, never trying to make him smarter or more heroic than the character actually is, which keeps the comedy grounded rather than forced.
Shrivastava proves to be an excellent counterbalance, and his restraint allows the film to retain some sense of reality even as everything around him spirals into chaos.
Honestly, the friendship between Hardik and Bugs ends up being far more engaging than the actual spy plot, functioning as the true emotional core of the film.
Preity Zinta gets to play a very different kind of comic role here. As Madam H, she brings real authority and composure that sharply contrasts with the chaos surrounding her, and there is genuine amusement in watching a controlled, professional operative try to extract even basic competence from these two.
Zinta clearly seems to be enjoying herself, and her presence adds real energy to the film, including one of its most fun action sequences.
Unfortunately, the film’s biggest weakness lies squarely in its screenplay. Vibe has enough comic ideas for several separate movies, but not all of them belong in this one. Instead of letting a funny situation simply play out and breathe, the writing constantly piles on more twists, more complications, and more escalation, and things noticeably worsen once the story shifts to Thailand.
Suddenly, the film gets weighed down with terrorism plots, AI paranoia, and geopolitical conspiracies that feel lifted from countless other films, none of which land with real conviction.
Vanshika Dhir makes her debut here and looks the part, though the film does not give her much beyond that to actually work with. Sharmila Tagore also makes a brief, delightful appearance that leaves you wishing the film had found more room for her.
The irony is that Vibe never really needed all this extra plot to work. Its strongest moments come simply from watching Hardik and Bugs exist together, bouncing off each other’s chaos. Whenever the film slows down enough to let that chemistry breathe, it becomes genuinely warm and funny. The moment it tries too hard to become a bigger, louder spy thriller, that charm starts to fade fast.
Still, something is refreshing about a film that refuses to treat espionage with any real reverence. Vibe is messy, occasionally overstuffed, and undeniably indulgent, but it does have a distinct comic voice buried underneath all that noise.
If you want to check out what this film reportedly cost to make and how much its cast earned, our breakdown of the Vibe cast salary and movie budget is worth a read. And if you’re deciding between theatre releases this week, our review of Daayra, starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Kareena Kapoor, covers another new crime thriller currently in cinemas.