Bandar(2026)

Storyline

Famous TV star Samar's entire life falls apart when his ex-girlfriend accuses him of a serious crime after he blocks her from ever contacting him. Arrested suddenly and fighting desperately for his freedom, he quickly discovers that the entire justice system is corrupt and completely stacked against him from the very start. Now Samar must find a way to prove his innocence while his new relationship continues to crumble and everything he's worked so hard for gradually collapses around him.

“Trapped by lies. Hunted by truth.”

Vibe & Tags

Cast & Crew

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Saba AzadKhushi

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Sapna PabbiGayatri

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Sanya MalhotraSuhani

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Bobby DeolSamar

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Joju GeorgeActor

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Jeetendra JoshiActor

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Jaimini PathakActor

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Ghanshyam GargActor

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Indrajith SukumaranActor

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Raj B ShettyActor

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Anurag KashyapDirector

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Nikhil DwivediCrew

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Sudip SharmaCrew

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Trivia

• Anurag Kashyap has long been drawn to stories where the system itself becomes the villain — with Monkey In A Cage, he turns that lens on the legal machinery, exploring how an accusation can imprison someone long before any verdict is reached.
• The title is a metaphor for the protagonist Samar's condition: a man who, despite public visibility as a TV star, finds himself completely powerless once caught inside institutional and social traps he cannot reason his way out of.
• Kashyap is known for casting against the grain of conventional Bollywood heroism — placing his leads in morally ambiguous situations where the audience is never quite sure who to root for, a tension that runs through the entire film.
• The film taps into a broader cultural conversation in India around the intersection of celebrity, social media, and sexual assault allegations — a space where public opinion often outruns the courts.
• Kashyap frequently uses intimate, handheld cinematography to create a sense of claustrophobia around his protagonists, and the 'cage' of the title is likely felt visually as much as thematically throughout the film.
• The character of Khushi — Samar's new partner — adds a rarely explored dimension: what it feels like to love someone whose past is suddenly under public scrutiny, caught between loyalty and doubt.
• Corrupt justice system narratives have deep roots in Hindi cinema, but Kashyap's approach, shaped by films like Black Friday and Ugly, tends to avoid clean resolutions — leaving audiences sitting with the discomfort rather than the relief.