Udta Teer Turns Spy Patriotism Into a Memory Joke

Udta Teer opened on October 23 as a spy comedy about patriotism with the country left blank. Ayushmann Khurrana plays Bilal, a Pakistani agent listed in India as Vikrant Thapar of the Counter Terrorism Squad, who wakes from a blast still loyal and no longer sure to whom. Dharma Productions and Sikhya Entertainment sold that mix as a family caper. The 137-minute 41-second film, certified UA 13+, is also a test of whether an India-Pakistan spy plot can still fill seats if the flag is the punchline.

Debut director Akash A. Kaushik wrote it that way on purpose. The poster tagline is blunt: he remembers his patriotism, not the country. Early reviews split on whether the movie stays with that joke or loses its nerve.

He Remembers Patriotism, Not the Country

The plot starts in Pakistan, where Azhar Maqsood, played by the late Mukul Dev, promises revenge after Operation Sindoor. Intelligence places him in India. In Baramulla, Vikrant is already inside the hunt, and already a lie. His marriage to Yamini (Sara Ali Khan), who works in the Defence Ministry, is coming apart. CTS chief Rahul Bose is hunting a mole on his own team.

Bilal has been passing as Vikrant long enough to be trusted with that hunt. Then he loses his memory and becomes the most eager Indian in the room. He prays in a temple with gusto. He goes after Maqsood as if the man had killed his own parents, which is the cover story he now believes. His Pakistani handlers, including Suhail Nayyar as Ashfaq, watch their asset turn into a Gadar extra.

Ashfaq puts it in one line: Sunny Deol bana baitha hai, tu Tara Singh nahi Ashraf Ali hai. The Julie title song Bhul Gaya Sab Kuch lands on the amnesia like a rimshot. Kaushik is a comedy writer directing his first feature, and the first hour treats national identity the way Housefull treats a hotel corridor: people walk into the wrong room and refuse to leave.

It is India’s first patriotic comedy where I become a Pakistani spy and lose my memory in India. My character starts fighting for India. In a way, he remembers patriotism, but he forgets which country it is.

Ayushmann Khurrana, actor, during pre-release interviews

Dharma’s official trailer, posted on September 23 and past 39.4 million views, says the same thing in voice-over. He is, the spot claims, the first person in the world to remember his patriotism and forget the country he belongs to.

Sara Ali Khan has limited screen time as the wife who finds the new Vikrant easier to live with than the old one. Critic Rahul Desai noted that she looks as if she is acting in another movie, which, in a film about cover identities, is almost a method. The supporting bench does more of the comic lifting than the lead pairing.

A May Strike in an October Joke

The opening reel is not invented geopolitics. It borrows a year-old war. On April 22, 2025, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists killed 26 people in Pahalgam, including one national of Nepal, the deadliest attack on Indian civilians since Mumbai in 2008. On May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor and hit nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. A ceasefire took hold at 1700 IST on May 10.

FROM PAHALGAM TO THE HAMMOCK

1. April 22, 2025: Gunmen kill 26 tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir.
2. May 7, 2025: Indian aircraft strike nine camps between 1:05 and 1:30 a.m. IST under Operation Sindoor.
3. May 10, 2025: Both directors general of military operations halt firing from 1700 IST.
4. December 5, 2025: Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar, a 3.5-hour Ranveer Singh spy drama, opens and later finishes at Rs 895.96 crore in India.
5. March 19, 2026: Dhurandhar: The Revenge opens to Rs 90 crore on day one and goes on to Rs 1,108.09 crore in India.
6. October 23, 2026: Udta Teer puts a terrorist who wants revenge for Sindoor on a Pakistani dating app called Hinder.

Dhar’s films treated the border as a blood sport. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, recording after he had watched both parts, called out gruesome violence and “a lot of propaganda stuff built into it,” while still praising the plotting. He also noted bans in Pakistan and in several Gulf countries. Udta Teer arrives in that slipstream and asks for a laugh where those films asked for a cheer.

The reversal is mechanical. Dhurandhar sent an Indian agent into Karachi. Kaushik sends a Pakistani agent into the CTS and then wipes his drive. The makers even strung Ayushmann on a hammock between India and Pakistan border pillars for the poster. Deshbhakti yaad hai, par desh nahi, the line reads. A second trailer on October 13, at 26.1 million views, has him ready to celebrate Independence Day on August 14 because 15 August is not soon enough.

Why the Film Walks the Gag Back

The first half almost gets away with it. Bose, stuck in a hospital bed, does silent comedy with his eyes and, in one stretch, a paralysis gag that Desai compared to the Housefull films. Ram Kapoor’s handler Niazi takes his rage out on cutlery. Gulshan Grover’s general Mir snaps to attention when China calls. Maqsood swipes on Hinder instead of planning the next blast. The Julie cue and the Sunny Deol taunt work because the room knows the references.

Then the movie changes briefs. Desai wrote that saffron floods the screen, that four terrorists are bagged to a devotional anthem, and that a song called Jai Hind is staged as a humiliation ritual. The Khal Nayak theme that had been a quip when Bilal surfaced stops being a quip. “The 137-minute film sabotages its own cheeky premise,” he wrote. Shubhra Gupta called the whole thing a tedious mix of spoof and sentiment, neither Gadar nor Pathaan, and gave it 2 out of 5. Aishani Biswas went to 1.5, arguing it had the outline of a film about how loyalty is built and no patience for that question.

HOW NAMED CRITICS SCORED IT

Film critic Suchin Mehrotra put the same objection in plainer language on Friday morning. Udta Teer is too afraid to commit to the bit, he wrote. It has fun with patriotism and animosity, then walks it back, gets solemn and dull, and buries the viewer in twists “it hopes to confuse you into submission.”

That split is the movie, not a misunderstanding of it. One set of notices, some of them at 3.5, praise the first-hour farce, the Bose bits, and Ayushmann’s timing when his body is still playing a patriot his mind did not hire. Another set watches the same print go into an Incredible India advert. Scroll’s review went further on the Pakistani side of the joke: mockery as revenge, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan reduced to a cue over a shootout, contempt for Pakistan sliding into contempt for things Muslim, including prayer and the ability to read Urdu. Kaushik can say the characters never get preachy. The second half still puts the flag in the protagonist’s slot.

Mukul Dev’s Last Scene Is a Dating App

Mukul Dev died on May 23, 2025, at 54, after eight and a half days in intensive care. His brother Rahul Dev said he had stopped eating and had lost the will to live. A large chunk of Udta Teer had already been shot in 2024, including Dev’s face-off with Ayushmann. Son of Sardaar 2 looked like his last screen appearance until this one landed.

Mukul Dev was one of the brightest, most brilliant talents in our country. There was a film named Omerta. It was his brainchild. We sadly underutilized him. In Udta Teer, you’ll see him for the last time. This is like a swan song; it’s a tribute to Mukul Dev.

Ayushmann Khurrana, actor, Udta Teer trailer launch

Kaushik told the same room that Dev used to phone and ask what people would say about him when the picture came out. “This is not only his last film but actually his best work,” the director said. The introduction the film gives him is a terrorist on a dating app. It is a strange memorial and, in this register, a fitting one: the dread is a costume, the swipe is the point.

WHO ELSE IS IN THE ROOM

• Suhail Nayyar: Ashfaq, the colleague who smells the mole and the friend who has to live with a converted patriot; Desai noted he had already played the inverse, an undercover Indian in Pakistan, in Saare Jahan Se Accha.
• Rahul Bose: the CTS boss whose hospital stretch is the comic engine several notices name first.
• Ram Kapoor and Gulshan Grover: the Pakistani handler and the general who bows to a Chinese call, broad on purpose.
• Brijendra Kala, Raghubir Yadav, Sandeep Anand, Smita Tambe, Supriya Pilgaonkar: short, specific bits in a film that keeps handing the joke to the bench.

Sachin-Jigar wrote the songs with lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The music is doing Dharma karaoke in places, including a heart-monitor gag that turns beeps into an old house tune. That habit, Desai wrote, finally finds a genre that can use it, because a spy farce can absorb a Kuch Kuch cue without pretending the cue is the plot.

Three Release Dates, Then a Cleaner Window

The film was first aimed at September 11, then at October 9, which would have put it a week after Ajay Devgn’s Drishyam The Conclusion. On October 2 the producers said they wanted “a cleaner release window and a stronger theatrical runway instead of compromising on screens in a suddenly crowded marketplace.” October 23 was the third date. Karan Johar, Adar Poonawalla, Apoorva Mehta, Guneet Monga Kapoor and Achin Jain are the producers. It is the fourth Dharma-Sikhya pairing after The Lunchbox, Kill and Gyaarah Gyaarah.

The Central Board of Film Certification’s Revising Committee passed the print UA 13+ on a 137-minute 41-second runtime. The one major picture cut was a shot of blood on the map of India. The preceding shot was extended to cover the join. Smoking Kills cards went into five scenes, plus a liquor warning. Dialogues and action were left alone. A comedy about portable patriotism still had to wipe blood off the map before it could play.

THE OCTOBER 23 TRACKER AT 11:02 IST

• Friday live gross: Rs 78.20 lakh India gross from 33,508 tickets, 2,366 shows, 1,058 theatres and 323 cities, at Rs 233 average ticket price.
• Friday occupancy: 6.3 percent, with 5 housefull and 10 fast-filling shows on TrackTollywood’s live count.
• Saturday advance: Rs 97.07 lakh booked, 35,083 tickets, 5,719 shows, 973 theatres, 285 cities, 2.8 percent occupancy.
• Certificate: UA 13+, one map-blood shot gone, 137 minutes 41 seconds.

Those occupancy figures are a morning snapshot on opening day, not a verdict. They are also thin for a Dharma comedy that spent a month hunting a cleaner window and put 39.4 million views on the first trailer. Ayushmann’s last solo-ish comedy with Sara, Pati Patni Aur Woh Do, needed a full day to reach Rs 3.50 crore. This one will be judged on the weekend, not on 11:02 IST. The advance already says the walk-up has work to do.

The Issue-Film Star Takes the Spy Job

Ayushmann spent a decade as the face of films that argued in public: sperm donation, caste, colourism, a gay wedding, a cop in the hinterland. Thamma, the Maddock horror comedy from October 21, 2025, was the reset, his biggest day one at Rs 23.11 crore. Udta Teer is the next turn, a Pakistani spy who becomes an Indian patriot by accident, backed by the studio that usually sells weddings and tears.

RECENT DAY-ONE MONEY, INDIA

Dhurandhar opened months after India made its first strike across the boundary since 1971. It turned that mood into a two-part machine. Udta Teer is the cheap seat next to that machine: same border, same agencies, a terrorist who dates, a hero who cannot name his flag, a second half that names it anyway. Ayushmann has Yeh Prem Mol Liya and Mupapa still coming. Kaushik has his first feature in the market at 137 minutes 41 seconds, the map wiped, Mukul Dev swiping right, and a hammock still tied to both pillars.