Shatranj is the game of games—it is the game of life. We can compare life to chess in almost any situation.

However, very little felt authentic or engaging in this film. There were no special surprises or extraordinary storytelling. The movie felt forced, lacking fluidity in its screenplay, narrative execution, and performances.

It felt like Viswanathan Anand playing chess against an amateur like me: Anand knew every single move I would take well in advance, making the match boring. But once he started, he had to finish it.

And so did I.

I couldn't find a convincing narrative reason why Amitabh Bachchan should play the role connected to Wazir; it could have been played by any regular actor without altering the suspense element at all.

In fact, Bachchan playing the role tipped me off right from the start—a director/producer isn't going to cast someone of his caliber merely to play a harmless chess teacher without a major hidden twist attached to him.

By the middle of the film, I had already deduced who Wazir was. Neil Nitin Mukesh was similarly wasted in a tiny role; a masked junior artist would have preserved far more mystery until the climax.

John Abraham was also underutilized in a brief appearance with no standout moments or depth given to his character.

The film opens sluggishly with a slow-motion song and a wedding sequence, and the director never manages to elevate the pacing afterward. The incidents feel artificially forced onto the screen. While Amitabh ji did legendary work in Shatranj Ke Khilari, this particular game of chess was poorly handled by the writers and director.

Plot oversights abound: effortless tapping of a government ministry's phones, easy security breaches around India Gate, and Kashmir police accepting a suspect as a local resident without verifying documentation made it feel like a cliché film rather than a grounded thriller.

A few minor highlights worth mentioning:

• The symbolic decorative pots shaped like chess pieces in the backyard of Panditji's house (visible when he shows Farhan's character the escape route).
• The vodka-filled chess set and the clever dialogue accompanying that scene.

Logic gaps also pulled down the experience: ATS officers never question how a wallet could fall out of a jeep if the driver never stepped out. In the scene where Farhan is about to shoot himself, he pulls the trigger completely, yet no bullet fires—did he forget to load a round, or did he lack the intention?

Furthermore, the ATS/military tactical operations felt overly familiar, relying on tired tropes and cliché lines like "Ab tumhare paas keval 30 seconds hain..."

I found myself fast-forwarding through the climax because everything was predictable far in advance, completely spoiling the suspense.