Alpha (2026): Alia Bhatt Anchors a Risk-Led but Uneven Female Spy Thriller
In the film’s most arresting image, a crimson stain blooms outward around Alia Bhatt’s Alpha in a swimming pool, the water turning pink while she locks eyes with Bobby Deol’s Aryan. It is a moment of brutal visual poetry that announces this isn’t your standard Bollywood action film, but by then, the movie has already tested your patience with a sluggish first act.
Alia Bhatt shoulders assassins’ weight with one restrained turn
Bhatt attacks the role with a coiled physicality, particularly in the pool confrontation where her face flickers between vulnerability and cold fury. She makes Alpha’s isolation feel lived-in, not acted.
Yet her strongest work comes in the hospital ward scene, where Vikram’s soldier program is unveiled and Bhatt registers horror without shouting a single line. This is a performer trusting the frame rather than the dialogue.
Shiv Rawail stages visceral chaos but fumbles the family drama
Rawail’s direction finds its rhythm in action-set geography, the water-logged fight choreography has a tactile, bruising quality that elevates the thriller stakes. He understands how to use space and color to amplify tension.
But the screenplay, credited to Soumil Shukla, Shridhar Raghavan, and Ishita Moitra, collapses under the weight of Vikram’s soldier program backstory. The family dynamics between Alpha, Riya, and Vikram feel sketched rather than earned, leaving emotional payoffs hollow.
This action thriller bleeds ambition but struggles with momentum
The swimming pool fight is Alpha’s signature setpiece, a slow-motion ballet of submerged violence where every punch is muffled, every kick sends ripples across the water. Rawail stages it with a spatial clarity that most Indian action films lack, letting geography inform the fight’s rhythm rather than cutting around it.
But the opening tattoo scene, where Alpha returns home and her mother panics about blood-borne infection, lands with the energy of a domestic drama rather than a spy thriller. That lack of immediate tension nearly sinks the first thirty minutes, and the film never fully recovers its pacing even as the body count rises.
Critics have called Alpha “a relentless action thriller, ” and the second half largely earns that descriptor with efficient stunt work and block-and-tackle momentum. Yet the plot holes around the soldier program’s logistics nag at the genre’s realism contract.
Sharvari and Anil Kapoor: supporting pillars in a muddled house
Sharvari’s Riya operates as the film’s emotional anchor in the hospital ward scene, her quiet confusion contrasting Alpha’s hardened resolve. She makes a thin part feel essential, her presence signaling the human cost of Vikram’s militarized family.
Anil Kapoor plays Vikram with a paternal menace that hints at deeper rot beneath the soldier program’s official narrative. His revelation scene carries a Shakespearean weight that the screenplay never quite supports, Kapoor is acting in a better film than the one surrounding him.
Bobby Deol’s Aryan is all sinew and silence, a physical antagonist who barely needs dialogue. His climactic battle with Alpha feels less like a fight and more like two damage-maps colliding.
Reception and the risk of female-led action in the YRF universe
Audiences have rewarded Bhatt’s ambition, the film holds a 7.2/10 on IMDb across 12, 450 votes and a 3.8/5 on BookMyShow, with the pool scene emerging as the consensus highlight. The 65% positive social-media sentiment suggests the gamble paid off, even if critics split at a 6.5/10 average on Rotten Tomatoes.
This is the first female-led out-and-out action film in Indian cinema, the claim itself carrying a weight the movie sometimes struggles to match. The UA 16+ certificate for drug content and underage drinking signals a studio willing to push boundaries, even if the storytelling plays it safe.
For more of the same intensity, browse our Hindi Action reviews covering Indian cinema’s riskiest genre experiments.
Should you watch Alpha? The honest answer
Go for Bhatt’s performance and that swimming-pool sequence, both are worth the ticket price on an IMAX screen where the visceral imagery can wrap around you. Skip if a slow first act and tangled family drama will kill your buzz before the bullets start flying.
Alpha reaches for something new, stumbles at the starting line, then finds its rhythm in violence and water. It earns exactly 3 stars out of 5, not a revolution, not a failure, but a welcome step forward.
Fans of messy, ambitious action should revisit Welcome Jungle review for another overstuffed genre swing that prioritizes energy over polish.
For a more focused emotional register, Main Vaapas verdict shares Alpha’s uneven tonal ambition but wraps it in quieter, more intimate stakes.
Ankit Jaiswal is the Chief Author, covering Indian cinema and OTT releases with honest, no-filler criticism. An SEO strategist by background, he brings a research-driven approach to film writing, cutting through hype to tell you exactly what's worth your time.
