Subedaar Review Roundup: Anil Kapoor's Prime Video Thriller
Suresh Triveni's Subedaar, with Anil Kapoor, premiered on Prime Video on March 5. A roundup of the verified reviews and ratings.
Subedaar, directed by Suresh Triveni, premiered on Prime Video on March 5, 2026. It is an action thriller built around Anil Kapoor as a former soldier, and it arrived directly on streaming rather than in theatres. Critics were divided, and this roundup gathers the published reviews we could verify.
What the film is
Anil Kapoor plays Arjun Maurya, with Radhika Madan, Khushbu Sundar, Saurabh Shukla, Aditya Rawal and Mona Singh in the cast, according to Wikipedia. The film runs 142 minutes. It was shot between October and December 2024 and deals with the sand mafia, an illegal trade that has been the subject of news reports across several Indian states.
A promotional film titled "Lalla Anthem" featured cricketers Harbhajan Singh and Shikhar Dhawan, according to the sources we found, and was used to build interest ahead of the premiere.
The reviews
Rotten Tomatoes lists a 69 per cent approval rating from 13 reviews. That is a small sample, and the score should be read as a rough indicator only.
The Indian Express gave the film 2.5 out of 5. OTT Play also gave it 2.5 out of 5. The Hindu praised the tense build-up but criticised the second half as formulaic. The Hollywood Reporter India described it as a "Desi John Wick", a comparison to the Hollywood action series about a retired killer pulled back into violence.
The consensus, therefore, is that the film is an effective genre piece in its first half and a conventional one in its second. No outlet we reviewed called it a failure, and none called it a masterpiece.
Anil Kapoor's year
Subedaar is the first of three Anil Kapoor releases in 2026. Alpha, in which he appears with Alia Bhatt and Sharvari, opened in theatres on July 3 and ended at about ₹99 crore worldwide on Koimoi's count. King, with Shah Rukh Khan, is due on December 24.
Director Ahmed Khan told News18 that Anil Kapoor was not approached for Welcome to the Jungle, because the film is a different script from the earlier Welcome films. That film opened on June 26, so Anil's year has not included it.
Why streaming matters here
A direct-to-streaming release does not produce box office figures, so there is no Sacnilk, Koimoi or Box Office India collection to report. Success for such a film is measured by viewership numbers that platforms rarely publish in detail. We did not find an official viewership figure for Subedaar, so we make no claim about how widely it was watched.
The director
Suresh Triveni also directed Maa Behen, a Netflix comedy released on June 4, 2026. Both films went to streaming, and both split critics. Triveni's output this year has therefore been on platforms, not in cinemas, which is increasingly common for mid-budget Hindi films.
What the reviews say
The reviews we found point the same way on structure. The build-up is praised, the second half is where the complaints begin, and the genre comparison to John Wick suggests a lean revenge story. Reviews are opinions, and the sample here is five outlets, so none of this is a settled verdict.
The bottom line
Subedaar is a competent, mixed-reviewed action thriller with a clear lead performance and a 142-minute runtime. If the sand mafia setting or Anil Kapoor's turn attracts you, the published reviews suggest the first half is the stronger one.
Sources
*Cover photo: This photograph was taken with a Canon EOS 7D by U.S. Embassy New Delhi., Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anil_Kapoor_%28Eleanor_Roosevelt_Dedication_Ceremony,_2012%29_10.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anil_Kapoor_%28Eleanor_Roosevelt_Dedication_Ceremony,_2012%29_10.jpg)* (Public domain).*