Bobby Deol is back in the public eye, with a broken tooth and a grim look on his face. The first trailer for Anurag Kashyap’s Bandar focuses on Deol and puts him at the center of a scandal, the wear and tear of being famous, and an accusation that threatens everything he’s managed to hold onto with his celebrity. It’s a dark, tense trailer, and will likely get people talking immediately.
The teaser that has people talking
The trailer uses a soundtrack with a 90s feel, and shows Samar, who used to be very well-known on television, trying to stay relevant as he walks onto a stage where people don’t seem to like him anymore. That nervous energy quickly turns to fear as he is put in handcuffs, news stories appear, and angry people surround him.
Quick scenes show a humiliating arrest, dirty hallways at the police station, and the dullness of being in jail. The last image is Bobby Deol as Samar smiling with a broken tooth, and this sticks with you. It suggests his fall from being respected won’t be easy or neat.
Viewers are zeroing in on three things the teaser underlines:
– Bobby Deol leans into vulnerability and menace
– The tone is bleak, not performative
– The stakes feel uncomfortably real
A star caught between past love and new desire
Instead of simply giving a lot of background information all at once, the trailer mixes Samar’s complicated personal relationships with his public problems. Saba Azad plays Khushi, a younger woman Samar is now with, and Sapna Pabbi is Gayatri, Samar’s ex-partner, who wants to be back in his life, disrupting their somewhat stable situation.
Sanya Malhotra plays Samar’s sister, and she is calm and supportive as his life falls apart. The movie has many interesting actors in it – Raj B Shetty, Riddhi Sen, Jitendra Joshi, Indrajeet and others – which indicates a complex world around Samar’s breakdown, not just about him and his issues.
Plot beats without spoilers
The official description of the film tells us what happens. While Samar is trying to deal with his personal problems, Gayatri accuses him of rape. He is arrested very quickly and, as the description says, is thrown into a justice system full of corruption and which seems to want to keep him in jail.
Bandar is said to be based on something that really happened. This, combined with the trailer’s stark and honest mood, is why people think the film will be explosive. The movie shows fame as a weak defense: easily used against someone, and easily broken through.
Why this teaser matters now
There are lots of stories in Indian pop culture about celebrities losing everything, but few deal with what causes that downfall with this kind of attitude. Right from the start, Bandar rejects being shiny and perfect. It goes for making you uncomfortable, and shows Samar not as a hero to feel sorry for, but as a man who has to deal with the results of being famous, what he wants, and what he’s refused to admit.
Anurag Kashyap’s lens, and the team behind it
Anurag Kashyap previously worked with Abhay Deol on Dev D, and now is working with Bobby Deol on Bandar (also called Monkey In A Cage). Sudip Sharma and Abhishek Banerjee wrote the story; their past work with stories about crime and people’s weaknesses makes you expect the film to be sharp and full of little details.
Nikhil Dwivedi, Shivie Pandit and Gaurie Pandit are the producers of the film, and Saffron Magicworks is presenting it. The actors also include Sanya Malhotra, Saba Azad, Sapna Pabbi, Sukant Goel, Riddhi Sen, Jamini Pathak, Jitendra Joshi, Santosh Juvekar, Indrajith Sukumaran, Raj B Shetty and Joju George.
Festival pedigree and what comes next
Bandar was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival on September and before it’s in Indian cinemas. Showing it there first shows the filmmakers are sure of how strong and shocking it is, and of Bobby Deol’s change to a more serious acting style.
If the trailer is anything to go by, people will continue to talk about it. The movie is expected to be controversial, start debates about power and responsibility, and make viewers question how much they will accept from a main character who isn’t perfect and who is looking at you with a broken smile.
The film will be in cinemas on June 5, 2026.
