Operation Romeo Movie Review: Sharad Kelkar and co. shine in an otherwise pointless thriller

The film is a cat and mouse race between two egoistic men played by Sidhanth and Sharad, and the thrill that binds the conflict together.

Written by Himesh Mankad , Journalist

Updated on Apr 23, 2022 | 09:02 PM IST | 786.1K

Operation Romeo Movie Review: Sharad Kelkar and co. shine in an otherwise pointless thriller

Title: Operation Romeo

Director: Shashant Shah

Cast: Sharad Kelkar, Bhumika Chawla, Sidhanth Gupta, Vedika Pinto and Kishor Kadam

Platform: Theatrical

Rating: 2 /5

We have often heard stories of how fear is used to mint money by many in several spectrums of lives. Operation Romeo is about the night when Aditya Sharma and Neha Kasliwal (Sidhanth Gupta and Vedika Pinto) are caught on their date night by two men – Mangesh and Kiran (Sharad Kelkar and Kishor Kadam) posing as powerful police officers.

The film is a cat and mouse race between two egoistic men played by Sidhanth and Sharad, and the thrill that binds the conflict together. Director Shashant Shah builds up the ambience in the first half and does well to hold attention despite all the story revolving around just four central characters. The thrill in the screenplay stems from dialogues and some claustrophobic situations. The initial portions are engaging but it’s the second half where the film completely goes off the tangent.

The attempt made by Aditya to redeem himself and his relationship is way off the track and something uncalled for. The biggest issue in the second half lies in the fact that it’s neither engaging nor interesting. The twists and turns that a thriller warrants are also absent. He explores the darker side of human emotion, but that’s loaded with ample loopholes. Yes, Aditya wants to seek revenge for the wrong done by Mangesh. But the director lacked conviction to put forth the route he chose.

It's a low budget film with most of the film shot in three locations, but the rich production values reflect in the cinematography. The dialogues are decent till they enter the preachy space, especially in the confrontation scenes involving Sharad Kelkar. Despite a run time in the range of 120 minutes, the film drags in the second half with episodes of Sidhanth and Bhumika Chawla.

Talking of performances, Sidhanth Gupta makes a confident debut and leaves a mark as the egoistic boyfriend, Aditya Sharma. He is good at displaying a sense of fear in the first half and redeems himself into someone with grey shades as the story progresses. A bit of polishing is needed in the emotional scenes, but he is fine and confident on the screen through the film. Sharad Kelkar is solid as Mangesh. His command over the diction and the transformation of his body language throughout the film is commendable. Vedika Pinto doesn’t have much to do but is decent in her part. Bhumika Chawla is confident in mouthing those dialogues with a Maharashtrian dialect, but yet again suffers from a half-baked character. Kishor Kadam is good and brings in some laughs too with his poker-faced comic timing.

All in all, Operation Romeo can be skipped. The film has some thrilling moments but is far too preachy and tends to get pointless in the second half. It’s about two men fighting their way out of a conflict that could have ended in a minute by dialling 100.