Tehran Movie Review:

John Abraham as the man-on-duty is a sub-genre in Hindi films. Over the years, it has come in varied forms, like the layered, nuanced army officer he plays in Shoojit Sircar’s Madras Café (2013) or the hyperbolic, masala action star in Satyamev Jayate (2018) delivering dialogues that elevate his sturdy machismo. From displaying his ever-pumped-up biceps to navigating complex geopolitics with a cerebral spirit, John has done it all with an almost stoic honesty. He carried a similar energy in his last two films, Vedaa (2024) and The Diplomat (2025), playing a sort of saviour in different landscapes and capacities. Vedaa was more earthen while The Diplomat dealt with Indo-Pak affairs. With Tehran, John goes to completely unexplored geographies, playing neither a larger-than-life saviour nor a traditional, chest-thumping patriot. He doesn’t overpower the story but stays a worthy catalyst. The filmmaking subsumes to a mood; there is no motive to drive an empty spectacle with loud music and fast cuts. This is a slow-burn.

That way, Tehran is not a traditional Independence Day release. It refuses to tap into the same-old emotions with the same-old approach. There is ambition to rise up from the populist storytelling devices with a motive to engage rather than provoke. John doesn’t get a slo-mo entry here with an elevating background score. We see him enter the frame rather nonchalantly as he engages with a gangster at a dhaba around Delhi. He plays Rajeev Kumar, a dedicated, empathetic officer of the special cell, who is called in to investigate the bombing of Israeli diplomats in the capital. The year is 2012, when Iran and Israel were at loggerheads with each other, looking for ways to attack and counter attack, as we are swiftly told through a crisp voiceover. The film is based on real events but fictionalises many things. Like the mention of a homeless girl being killed due to the bombing, while in reality the attack resulted in no casualties. It is what sprawls Rajeev in action as he feels strongly for the innocent girl who paid the price in a spat between two countries. Rajeev won’t let it pass off as collateral damage.

Directed by: Arun Gopalan

Starring: John Abraham, Manushi Chhillar, Neeru Bajwa, Dinker Sharma, Hadi Khanjanpour and Madhurima Tuli

Streamer: ZEE5

He takes on the case with an urgency, navigating suspects and leads with a gritty style that looks and feels from a different time—reminiscent of that short-lived period in the 2010s when we saw the likes of Talvar (2016) and Raazi (2018), where government officers existed in the larger world without losing their sense of humanity. There is nothing glamorous about what they do as we see them functioning in dimly lit rooms full of files and papers, working on important matters while handling office politics and personal chaos. Every character has a mundane look, which cinematographers Ievgen Gubrebko and Andre Menezes capture with pressing simplicity. The tint of grey in the visuals with only a faint presence of hues adds on to the complexity. The stark visual style goes on to complement smaller moments, such as when Vijay (Dinker Sharma), an officer who speaks Hindi with a heavy Haryanvi flair, signs his divorce papers while sitting at his office table. Or when in the same monochrome corridors, Rajeev asks a R&AW officer, Sheilaja (Neeru Bajwa), if she loves her job more than her country. In any other film, the answer would have been simple. But Sheilaja lays out the complications involved in the job with no holidays, no work-life balance, lesser pay and working from an office which is the size of a bathroom. “With such an amazing job, how could anyone love their country?” she wonders sarcastically.

These are all smaller, touch-and-go moments which don’t get much time to marinate. The film has a structure of a series with a dense atmosphere and a storyline that extends to different countries. The second half is entirely set in Iran as Rajeev goes to eliminate the bomber, Afshar Hosseini (Hadi Khanjanpour) without the support of his own country, which is soon to engage in a gas deal with Iran. There is also an angle about the Israel–Iran conflict, with Palestine explicitly mentioned in a torture scene, along with several behind-the-door conversations between country administrators—all of which would have benefited from more scenes to explore them. With just under two hours, it does tend to get a bit too easy, as characters die with no space to feel for their absence.

However, the makers don’t negotiate authenticity. It is rare for an Indian film to have Farsi dialogues in its entirety without resorting to dubbing or having characters speak in a forced, accented English for wider appeal. Even John speaks the foreign language with the Iranians in a couple of exchanges. The actor is sincere and in-control of his performance, keeping it mellow and to-the-point, which also tends to become a bit too dry in some instances. He needed some more layering, which would have come out well only in a longer format. Manushi Chhillar plays his subordinate in a role that feels hastily written. She leaves little impact with her barely-there screentime. Her character enters with no introduction and just exists as if she had been there long. It feels incomplete.

There is a growing feeling while watching Tehran that there was more to the story which got lost in the time it has taken for it to come out. The film has long been in the making, with the shoot wrapping in October 2022. It was set for a theatrical release but came out directly on OTT after delays. It seems like a good decision, as a big-screen mount would have completely diluted it. There is no space left in theatres for stories that showcase complex geo-politics and that too with such a subdued tempo. These are times for driving agendas and manufacturing facts by manipulating emotions, something John said he would never do in a recent interview. He walks the talk with Tehran. But with almost zero promotion, the film will easily get lost in the gung-ho of the two star vehicles released this week. Cinema goes beyond muscle flexing, but the cerebral spirit seldom makes it to the front row.