Mrs Undercover Movie Review: Radhika Apte's Splendid Performance Isn't Enough to Uplift This Perfectly Average ZEE5 Series (LatestLY Exclusive)

Mrs Undercover Movie review: Some stories start out really well both on paper and on screen but nobody cares when it goes downhill, again both on paper and on screen. Mrs Undercover belongs to that category. It's a great concept with a great actress in the lead. Only if they were not failed by random cliches and oft-seen execution. Mrs Undercover: Radhika Apte Says She Fell in Love with the Film’s Character the Minute She Heard the Script.

Durga (Radhika Apte) is married to Deb (Saheb Chattopadhyay), a businessman. She is a housewife who spends all her time taking care of her son, in-laws and husband. But she is also a dormant undercover agent. Twelve years after her training and living undercover, she gets contacted by the intelligence bureau to tail a serial killer who is against empowered women. The latter goes by Common Man (Sumeet Vyas) and slaughters women who stand up on their own feet. Whether she manages to finish her mission or not forms the rest of the plot.

Quickly wrapping up the good parts, the concept, as mentioned earlier, is quite interesting. It gives a lot of window for the writer to play with the characters' surroundings from the agents to the mission to the culprit. The script makes good use of the same to some extent. Kolkata adds a lot of character to the story as well with its old-world charm. What also deserves acknowledgment is the makers cast Bengali actors in a lot of supporting characters which gives it an authentic approach. Even Radhika Apte started her career as a lead actress with a Bengali film while Rajesh Sharma has been part of several Bengali movies. This is quite rare for a cast in India to stay this authentic to the script.

Now coming to the part where everything starts spiraling out of control. Apart from the fact that everything is extremely predictable, from the way Mrs Undercover is written, it feels as if the makers never really wanted it to have any depth. So you have an unaware mother-in-law suggesting Durga at the exact time she gets to about her mission, her cover doesn't get blown even when it is exposed, she conveniently shoots an assassin in her house without alerting anyone, and so on and so forth.

What worsens it further is the neglectful way the culprit's psyche is addressed. The only justification for his crime is he doesn't like empowered women. There's no explanation behind why he turned against self-made women. All efforts to make him look sinister don't work except perhaps for the opening sequence. Also, the humour in the first half is good at places but it seems the makers lost interest. Mrs Undercover: Anushree Mehta Claims Radhika Apte's Spy Thriller Will 'Celebrate Homemakers Across the Globe’.

Watch the trailer of Mrs Undercover:

When you have Radhika Apte in the lead, you are guaranteed a great performance and she exceeds expectations. She has always been spectacular in intense scenes but here, she aces comic timing as well. The woman is simply brilliant as Durga. Sumeet Vyas has the potential to turn his character really dangerous but the script fails him. Rajesh Sharma is as usual amazing and so is Saheb Chattopadhyay.

Yay!

-good concept

-authentic casting

Nay!

-no explanation for the culprit's psychology

-humour loses track

-convenient twists and turns

Final Thought

Mrs Undercover is a classic case of a movie that could have been great but ended up being very ordinary. Mrs Undercover streams on Zee5.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 14, 2023 12:10 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).