# Subedaar (film)
**Subedaar** (सुबेदार) is a 2026 Indian Hindi-language action drama film directed by Suresh Triveni and starring [Anil Kapoor](https://www.edgepedia.org/anil-kapoor) as Subedaar Arjun Maurya, a retired army soldier whose civilian life in a small North Indian town collides with a violent sand mafia. It premiered on Prime Video on March 5, 2026, in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu across India and in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.[1](https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/entertainment/subedaar-anil-kapoor-prime-video)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / writers | Suresh Triveni; written by Triveni and Prajwal Chandrashekar, dialogues by Triveni, Saurabh Dwivedi, and Prajwal Chandrashekar[1](https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/entertainment/subedaar-anil-kapoor-prime-video) |
| Producers | Vikram Malhotra, Anil Kapoor, and Suresh Triveni[1](https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/entertainment/subedaar-anil-kapoor-prime-video) |
| Production companies | Opening Image Films and Anil Kapoor Film & Communication Network (AKFCN)[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f6zF_ITKKk) |
| Release | Prime Video, March 5, 2026, in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, India and over 240 countries and territories[1](https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/entertainment/subedaar-anil-kapoor-prime-video) |
| Runtime | 2 hours 25 minutes[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar) |
| Lead cast | Anil Kapoor (Arjun Maurya), Radhikka Madan (Shyama), Mona Singh (Babli Didi), Aditya Rawal (Prince), Saurabh Shukla (Prabhakar), Faisal Malik (Softy)[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31852278/fullcredits/) |
| Critical scores | 69% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 13 reviews; 2.5/5 from The Indian Express; 3/5 from Filmfare; IMDb 6.0/10[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar) • [5](https://filmipatakha.com/films/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-prime-video-thriller) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and setting
The film follows Arjun Maurya, a mid-level army soldier who retires after 25 years of service following the death of his wife (Khushbu Sundar) and returns to a small town in [North India](https://www.edgepedia.org/north-india) to rebuild his relationship with his college-going daughter Shyama (Radhikka Madan).[6](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/) • [7](https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-amazon-prime-video) His grief and estrangement from his daughter are compounded by a corrupt, apathetic local administration, and then by the town's real power: a sand mafia run by Babli Didi ([Mona Singh](https://www.edgepedia.org/mona-singh)) and her violent son Prince (Aditya Rawal), whose rampant illegal sand mining sustains an army of goons and a complicit bureaucracy.[6](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/)
The collision with the gangsters begins when Arjun refuses to move his car from a parking spot Prince wants, and the retired soldier's military instincts resurface as the conflict escalates.[7](https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-amazon-prime-video) Reviewers noted that the film contains relatively few action sequences for its genre, concentrating instead on the slow-burn buildup between Arjun and Prince, and that Arjun is portrayed not as a man forced back into violence but as one seeking an outlet for his rage.[7](https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-amazon-prime-video) Shyama has a parallel arc as a young woman fighting her own battles against predatory men at her college.[6](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/)
The setting is a fictitious Wild West-type town in the badlands of North India, with a dusty, decaying landscape in which sand functions as a currency of power; the dialogue draws on khadi boli.[8](https://scroll.in/reel/1091091/subedaar-review-one-) • [6](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/) • [9](https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/thr-video/thr-reviews/subedaar-movie-review-anupama-chopra-thr-india)
## Production and release
The project was announced with a first look released on Prime Video's social channels on Anil Kapoor's birthday in 2024, described as an Opening Image Films and Anil Kapoor Film & Communication Network production.[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f6zF_ITKKk) Filming was underway by late 2024, and Kapoor wrapped his work on the film in early 2025.[10](https://www.thefinancialworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/FW-2-November-Chandigarh-Edition.pdf) • [11](https://aroundodisha.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/AROUNDODISHA-10-2-2025.pdf) The official teaser and trailer followed in February 2026, with the trailer introducing the illegal sand mining nexus at the story's center.[12](https://www.indiatoday.in/entertainment/ott/story/subedaar-trailer-out-anil-kapoor-takes-on-illegal-sand-mining-nexus-2873131-2026-02-23)
Kapoor also served as a producer, his first collaboration with Triveni, Vikram Malhotra, and Prime Video; he described the role as one of the most emotionally demanding of his career. Triveni called the film a tribute to the mainstream cinema he grew up with and, beneath the action premise, a father-daughter story.[1](https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/entertainment/subedaar-anil-kapoor-prime-video) It was Triveni's third directorial effort, after *Tumhari Sulu* (2017) and *[Jalsa](https://www.edgepedia.org/jalsa-2022-film)* (2022).[9](https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/thr-video/thr-reviews/subedaar-movie-review-anupama-chopra-thr-india)
## Cast
Anil Kapoor heads the cast as Arjun Maurya. Radhikka Madan plays his daughter Shyama, Mona Singh plays the mafia matriarch Babli Didi, Aditya Rawal plays Prince (Shashikant), [Saurabh Shukla](https://www.edgepedia.org/saurabh-shukla) plays Arjun's friend Prabhakar, and Faisal Malik plays Softy, the go-between for Didi and Prince.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31852278/fullcredits/) Khushbu Sundar appears as Arjun's wife.[6](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/)
## Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film held a 69 percent approval rating from 13 critic reviews, a small sample that commentators treated as a rough indicator only.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar) • [5](https://filmipatakha.com/films/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-prime-video-thriller) [The Indian Express](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-indian-express) gave it 2.5 out of 5, with Shubhra Gupta calling it a throwback to the old-fashioned crime thriller in which a lone hero clashes with a corrupt system, while faulting the insistence on showcasing Kapoor's physical prowess and the chapter-title devices that break the flow.[6](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/) Filmfare's Devesh Sharma gave 3 out of 5, writing that the film leans heavily on Kapoor's presence and that without him it would be a fairly standard action template.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar)
**Common critical threads.** Reviewers repeatedly praised Kapoor's performance while finding the screenplay uneven. Anupama Chopra of The Hollywood Reporter India wrote that Kapoor brings gravity to a story that trips itself up with an overlong screenplay, and her full review noted that the film's basic one-man-army plot is enriched by the father-daughter subplot but weakened by a one-note villain.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar) • [9](https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/thr-video/thr-reviews/subedaar-movie-review-anupama-chopra-thr-india) [The Hindu](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-hindu)'s Anuj Kumar praised the gripping, vividly tense buildup but criticized Triveni's resort to familiar tropes of larger-than-life heroism in the later stretch.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar) The Quint's Suchin Mehrotra called it a curious, uneven ride that wants to be mass entertainment and a character study at once, though he judged that Arjun's rage-seeking-a-target made the film closer in spirit to *[Nobody](https://www.edgepedia.org/nobody-2021-film)* than to *John Wick*.[7](https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-amazon-prime-video) The Hollywood Reporter India's comparison of the film to a "Desi John Wick", a retired fighter pulled back into violence, was picked up in review roundups.[5](https://filmipatakha.com/films/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-prime-video-thriller) On IMDb the film stood at 6.0 out of 10.[13](https://www.primevideo.com/-/hi/detail/0NN4216VIK9FYUUO2D54PZC1MO?tr=tf)
## References
1. [Anil Kapoor's Subedaar now streaming on Prime Video, About Amazon India](https://www.aboutamazon.in/news/entertainment/subedaar-anil-kapoor-prime-video)
2. [Subedaar – First Look | Anil Kapoor | Prime Video India, YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f6zF_ITKKk)
3. [Subedaar, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/subedaar)
4. [Subedaar (2026) – Full cast & crew, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31852278/fullcredits/)
5. [Subedaar Review Roundup: Anil Kapoor's Prime Video Thriller, Filmi Patakha](https://filmipatakha.com/films/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-prime-video-thriller)
6. [Subedaar movie review: Anil Kapoor leads gritty throwback to Bollywood's heroic thrillers, The Indian Express](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/subedaar-movie-review-anil-kapoor-leads-a-gritty-throwback-to-bollywoods-heroic-thrillers-10565843/)
7. ['Subedaar' Review: Anil Kapoor Stars In A Curious, Uneven Misfire, The Quint](https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/subedaar-review-anil-kapoor-amazon-prime-video)
8. [Subedaar OTT review: One random provocation after another, Scroll](https://scroll.in/reel/1091091/subedaar-review-one-)
9. [Subedaar Movie Review | Anupama Chopra | THR India, The Hollywood Reporter India](https://www.hollywoodreporterindia.com/thr-video/thr-reviews/subedaar-movie-review-anupama-chopra-thr-india)
10. [The Financial World, Chandigarh edition, November 2024](https://www.thefinancialworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/FW-2-November-Chandigarh-Edition.pdf)
11. [Anil Kapoor wraps up Subedaar, Around Odisha, 10 February 2025](https://aroundodisha.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/AROUNDODISHA-10-2-2025.pdf)
12. [Subedaar trailer: Anil Kapoor takes on illegal sand mining nexus, India Today](https://www.indiatoday.in/entertainment/ott/story/subedaar-trailer-out-anil-kapoor-takes-on-illegal-sand-mining-nexus-2873131-2026-02-23)
13. [सुबेदार, Prime Video](https://www.primevideo.com/-/hi/detail/0NN4216VIK9FYUUO2D54PZC1MO?tr=tf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 2020s › Hindi films of 2026*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license