KHUDA HAAFIZ is the story of a simple man whose wife goes missing under mysterious circumstances in a foreign country. In October 2007, Lucknow-based Sameer (Vidyut Jammwal), a software engineer, gets into an arranged marriage with Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi). Both fall in love with each other in no time. All is going well until recession strikes the world. Sameer has to shut down his business.

Khuda Haafiz's leading man Vidyut Jammwal is known for his over-the-top action and the parts where the film comes truly alive are when Vidyut shuns his common man's identity and becomes an avenging angel on the lines of Liam Neeson from Taken. As Vidyut's playing a software engineer and not an army commando, the action has a toned-down, non-professional quality to it. Given his prowess for perfect moves, it would have been kind of hard to achieve.

Following the tried and test non-linear flashback route, we see an injured and arrested Sameer Choudhary requesting for help from the Indian Embassy in Oman. How did he reach there? Well, that's what the first half of the film explores. Set in 2008, Newlyweds Sameer and Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi) are also from the millions hit by the 'great recession' worldwide.

If the world had not suffered an economic meltdown in 2008, Sameer would perhaps have spent that year gazing moonily at his bride Nargis in Lucknow, and she would most likely have continued existing as a virtually wordless, porcelain-doll-like figure. Instead, the global economy went into a tailspin, Sameer and Nargis found themselves unemployed, and Bollywood invented a Middle-Eastern country called Noman where the couple find jobs and he runs amok to find her when she goes missing.

Can a Martin Scorsese film be silent or a Rajkumar Hirani production be subtle? Can Vidyut Jammwal be in a movie without lashing out with his fists and legs? One of Hindi cinema's finest action heroes seeks to expand his repertoire in Khuda Haafiz, which is being streamed on Disney+ Hotstar. Written and directed by Faruk Kabir, the movie reimagines Jammwal as an ordinary man dropped into a hot mess and not always able to fight his way out.

Set during the global economic crisis of 2008 when millions lost their jobs and looked for stop gap arrangements, Khuda Hafiz features a Lucknow family that faces the most harrowing time for no fault of theirs. Sameer (Vidyut Jammwal) and Nargis Choudhary (Shivaleeka Oberoi) are newly married but fate would take the wife to a country called Noman where she gets kidnapped. She, somehow, manages to make one last call to Sameer, who sets out in her pursuit.

The woman-rescue trope has been a staple in cinema. Princesses and brides have forever gone missing and valiant men have scaled mountains and seas in search of them, battling villains and befriending golden-hearted strangers on their way. Over time, the sleeping princesses became teenage daughters and the brave princes became fathers with a 'very particular set of skills'. But at the core of it, the Taken genre is not vastly different from the fairytales we all grew up with.

How do you get an action star to play a common man forced into situations where he has to use his fists-and-fangs but not like an action star, and still be credible? That's the dilemma that Khuda Haafiz grapples with right through, as Jammwal slaloms between being a Lucknow-based software engineer working honestly for a living, and a desperate husband in search of his missing wife in a fictional Middle East country called Noman.

The lives of newlyweds Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi) and Sameer Choudhary (Vidyut Jammwal) come crumbling down as economic slowdown hits India in 2008 and the couple's now out of work. The duo applies for jobs in the Sultanate of Noman. But as fate would have it, Nargis is snatched away by some dangerous people in the foreign land.

Vidyut Jammwal sheds his Commando skin and assumes the guise of an ordinary man faced with an extraordinary crisis. But, pitted against human traffickers in a fictional Arab nation, he still has to do plenty of huffing and puffing in Khuda Haafiz. In the process of drawing blood and breaking bones, he, in marked departure from past practice, has to reckon with self-doubt, confusion and blowbacks.

One Word Review... Khuda Haafiz: INTERESTING. Smart writing... Absorbing moments... Big canvas, stunning visuals [#Uzbekistan]... Director Faruk Kabir succeeds in keeping you hooked... #VidyutJammwal delivers his career-best act, packs a punch. #KhudaHaafizReview