ALPHA: A Review in Chapters

ALPHA: A Review in Chapters
YRF Spy Universe, Film 7 | Dir. Shiv Rawail
Starring Alia Bhatt (Sita), Sharvari (Durga), Anil Kapoor (Col. Vikrant Kaul), Bobby Deol (Col. Fateh Singh Lakhawat / Maj. Zarrar Khan), Dia Mirza (Janaki Kaul)

Chapter 1: The Price of Peace

Every YRF spy movie has to open with a war scene these days, and Alpha is no different, kicking things off with a Kargil-era flashback. It is supposed to set up the “why” for the whole film: why this secret program exists, and why it had to be this extreme. But it feels more like a formality, a box the movie checks before it gets to the real story: Sita.
The bigger problem starts right here. To justify why R&AW needed a program like this, the film makes DRDO, the army, and the entire system look slow, stuck in red tape, and basically useless without cutting corners. That is a big claim to make in the very first chapter, and the film never really earns it.

Chapter 2: Daughter of the Shadow Program

Sita (Alia Bhatt) is shown as a child raised in isolation and trained to be a weapon rather than a person. It is a good idea on paper, and Khushi Hajare and Kiara Hajare, who play the teenage and young versions of Sita, do a genuinely solid job.
The trouble starts once she grows up. The film wants adult Sita to feel bold, cold, and dangerous. Instead, Alia Bhatt's performance often looks like she is trying very hard to look tough, and you can see the effort. Durga (Sharvari), who is introduced soon after, handles the same kind of scenes far better, and a lot of people online said as much after day one.
There is also the small matter of time. Sita ages from child to teenager to adult over the course of the film, and the film clearly wants us to buy that years, maybe decades, have passed. Fine. But Bobby Deol and Anil Kapoor look exactly the same age in every single timeline, whether it is supposed to be the past or the present. Either the serum works on vanity too, or nobody on this production believed in a hair and makeup budget.

Chapter 3: Queen of Nautanki

Bobby Deol plays two roles here: Colonel Fateh Singh Lakhawat on the outside, Major Zarrar Khan underneath. This double role was supposed to be the backbone of the film. It is not. Word is this character was first written as an Indian officer who turns traitor, but the writers changed it, likely to dodge the exact criticism another recent hit film had already received for showing an Indian insider as the mole. What is left is a villain whose Haryanvi accent switches on and off like a light bulb, and whose menace comes more from dramatic editing than from actual acting. Pure nautanki, drama for the sake of drama.
It is also worth pointing out directly: the film puts real effort into making its Pakistani-coded villain look sharp and strong while every Indian institution around Sita looks slow, broken, or self-interested. Whatever the intention was, it does not come off as balanced writing. It comes off as the scale tilted the wrong way.

Chapter 4: Bullets and Bikinis

The action mostly works, decent and occasionally creative, let down by bad guys who seem to be standing around waiting to lose, like in every old-school masala film. The real problem is everything happening around the action.

Take the line where Sita tells Zarrar, "sher toh bas khoonkhar banta hai, asli shikar toh sherni karti hai, aur mera naam toh Sita hai" (a lion just looks fierce, the real hunting is done by the lioness, and here I am, Sita). As if Sitaji from the Ramayana ever hunted anyone despite living in the wild. She's remembered for patience and dignity, not growling one-liners at men.

Then attackers break into Colonel Vikrant Kaul's house and Sita declares, "Sita hoon main, lao agnipariksha"* (bring on the trial by fire). What follows isn't fire, it's Sita and Durga fleeing while the camera finds time for bikini shots mid home-invasion. The real Agnipariksha was Sita walking into fire to prove her purity. This version is Sita walking into a swimsuit while the house is under attack. Not quite the same weight.

The brand plugs don't help. Durga's introduction lingers low enough to catch a Calvin Klein logo. Later, mid-interrogation, Sita pauses to say, “I love Desi Chinese," before tying up her target, and you half expect her to break into "My Name Is Ranveer Ching." It doesn't happen, but the instinct to check is telling. Feels like ad space with dialogue stapled on.

The background score, to its credit, is genuinely good. Close your eyes and you might enjoy yourself. Open them, and that feeling doesn't last.

There's also a fight where Sita flat out beats the daylights out of Durga, less like a plot beat and more like a metaphor for two lead actresses fighting over screen time, fittingly, since the first-look poster and teaser featured only Sita, with Durga nowhere in sight.

Chapter 5: The Alpha Serum

An untested, unapproved serum, never cleared by DRDO because DRDO apparently takes too long, gets injected straight into a dying agent's eye in a moment of panic. It is supposed to hit hard emotionally. Instead, it just makes the system look reckless and the writers look desperate for a shortcut.
Then there is the hacking. A character figures out the exact travel plans of an experienced R&AW asset with a few keystrokes. No real hacking is shown, just movie-typing and instant results. Colonel Vikrant Kaul (Anil Kapoor), who runs this entire program, is written to be careless enough to leave that kind of trail behind, which is strange, because two scenes later the film wants us to believe the Pakistani-coded operatives are the sharp, careful ones.

Chapter 6: The Guardian of R&AW (?)

Vikrant Kaul is supposed to be the moral center of the film, the one both women report to. Instead, he is a man who keeps choosing family over duty, over and over, and his authority feels more like a plot device than something he has earned on screen.
For a franchise that usually leans hard into patriotism, making its top intelligence officer this flawed is a bold choice. It is also the second time in this film that the real problem is not the enemy outside, but the system on the inside.

Chapter 7: The Butterfly Effect

Every small shortcut in this script snowballs into a bigger one. The serum causes problems the film never fully deals with. Changing the mole's nationality makes the second half painfully predictable. The teaser, released weeks before the film, already gave away the ending, and people online had guessed the mole reveal from that trailer alone. By the time the climax hits, there is barely anything left that has not already been spoiled, and the one twist the film did have left got softened instead of sharpened.
None of this is especially surprising once you remember who wrote the story: Uday Chopra. Who would have guessed this guy would rise from the ashes out of absolutely nowhere and build this masterpiece.
It also does not help that Alpha landed right after Dhurandhar, a film that changed what audiences now expect from this genre. Alpha was reportedly already deep into filming before that happened, and it shows. This movie feels built for 2018, not 2026.

Chapter 8: Et Tu, Zarrar?

“Et tu, Brute?” is what Julius Caesar is said to have uttered in his final moments, seeing his own friend Brutus among the men stabbing him. It is the ultimate “wait, you too?” moment, betrayal from the one person you never saw coming. That is the energy this chapter is aiming for with Zarrar Khan's reveal.
Except the film already used up its big surprise two chapters ago, and its emotional card on a cameo that did not need to exist. Hrithik Roshan shows up as Kabir Dhaliwal, carefully staged so he never outshines the two leads, gets about two minutes of fighting, and changes nothing about the plot. Sita and Durga were never written to actually need his help, so the cameo feels more like “why tu, Kabir.” A guest appearance that exists purely to sell tickets, not to serve the story.
The reveal that Zarrar Khan has been working for the other side the whole time is treated like the movie's biggest bombshell, complete with dramatic music and a slow zoom. Except you could have called this one the moment he personally tattoos the Alpha logo onto Sita's arm and casually says the words “Alpha secret program” out loud while doing it. That may be the least secret way to run a secret program in the history of secret programs. At that point it is also fairly obvious he never intended for her to survive the mission anyway, so the big twist ends up feeling less like a twist and more like a formality everyone already saw coming. Other than that, her spending the rest of the movie in sleeveless outfit makes me wonder if she just had too much faith on her plot armour or if she was just too desperate to get more fighting scenes and troubles with that exposed tattoo.
Speaking of that tattoo scene: throughout the whole ordeal, Sita's face runs through a parade of heavy breathing, wide eyes, and exaggerated expressions presumably meant to make her look like she enjoys being a killing machine. Honestly, they looked a lot like the exact same expressions the audience was making at that point in the theatre, especially the eye-rolling from the audience everytime Bobby Deol attempts to speak Haryanvi and Alia pretends to be tough.

Conclusion

Let's not pretend this was anything other than bad. The writing is lazy, the institution-bashing is careless, the fan service undercuts its own “girl power” message, and the plot was already spoiled by its own teaser. This is not a “mixed bag” or a “flawed but fun” watch. It is simply a bad film, dressed up with a good background score and a few competent action beats to distract you from how little else works. At this point, the YRF Spy Universe does not need another sequel, prequel, or spin-off. It's simply a universe which needs a Big Bang, so it can start all over again from scratch.
Verdict: 2/5.