‘Vibe’ (2026) Movie Review - Kunal Khemu Shines as an Actor but Falters as a Director

Kunal Khemu has the looks, the body, and—most importantly—superb comic timing. That last quality is as rare and precious as a jewel; it is not easily found among most actors in the industry. Khemu knows how to use his body to elevate the impact of a joke, just when to react, and how to deliver his lines. I don't know how much rehearsal the actor does off-screen, but in front of the camera, he seems to move almost effortlessly. Khemu is also not bad when asked to be sincere and dramatic.

There is a scene in Vibe where Khemu's Hardik, through an earpiece, overhears government agents Rawal (Yashpal Sharma) and Bansi (Dinesh Lal Yadav) scoffing at him and his brother-from-another-mother Bhagirath/Bugs (Sparsh Shrivastava), wondering whether the two buffoons can keep their lips sealed. When Rawal and Bansi enter a room and discover that Hardik and Bugs were listening to them live, Khemu—and, of course, Shrivastava as well—doesn't oversell his disappointment or his feeling of being underestimated. He gets the pitch just right. Later, when Hardik takes a red pill and transforms into a killing machine, Khemu sells the robotic demeanor of this new action hero quite effectively.

The bottom line is that Khemu is undoubtedly brimming with talent, which is something even Khemu agrees with. This is why he sits in the director's chair and gives himself the showcase he thinks he deserves. In Vibe, Khemu presents himself as a jester, a fighter, a romantic hero, a heartbroken lover, and the perfect guy to lead a buddy comedy. "I am the whole package," Khemu screams loudly, which is why labeling Vibe as a comedy or even as an action thriller would be a mistake. It primarily exists as a professional showreel—a showreel that says that if others won't provide me with a chance to prove myself, I will create my own opportunities.

This is why Vibe also does the job of clapping for Khemu the writer-director, who recognizes Khemu the actor's skills. It's something akin to a self-congratulatory closed loop—a personal ego massage where the client is also the masseur. It's not surprising, then, that it's Khemu's image and Hardik's eccentricity that you exit the screening with. It is Khemu who continues to revolve around your head, with his wild physical gestures and wide smile.

This is both the boon and bane of Vibe. Khemu the actor is such a funny guy and such a solid killing machine that Khemu the director offers him a flying kiss. It's hard not to laugh when Hardik, like the clown that he is, tries to woo Kareena (Vanshika Dhir) by asking her to give him a tour of the office while looking at her all lost and hypnotized. Even when he stumbles a little while taking a turn, he continues to adore her with his eyes. And as a fighter, when Hardik makes a man bounce and retrieves his neck chain from him, he appears like a mass-movie hero inviting whistles and screams.

Khemu, alas, is so in love with his own image that he doesn't do full justice to the contributions of his co-actors, whose performances don't fit into the film as smoothly as Khemu's Hardik does. As Madam H, Preity Zinta gets the serio-comic tone right, but there seems to be a disconnect between what she does and what she says in the film. Her Madam H is all business and is annoyed by Bugs and Hardik—an annoyance that feels real and comes through in her rebukes directed at the two clown-like "spies." Yet her physical gestures, with her slightly shaking body and wide eyes, appear to state the opposite: that whatever criticisms she is dispensing are not meant to be taken seriously. Before sending Bugs and Hardik to Thailand, when Madam H, at headquarters, salutes them and gives them a rousing speech, you are not sure whether to laugh at the joke or feel sorry for the desperate situation in which Madam H finds herself.

The only scene in which you are sure of H—and where Zinta gets to flaunt her comic skills—comes much later in the film, when her character pretends to be a foreigner in front of Badshah Al Sayeed (Mark Bennington) to rescue Bugs and Hardik. For a few seconds, Zinta becomes Khemu's equal in terms of comic effectiveness, which makes it a pity that she is mainly stuck in a strange zone between sobriety and comedy. Khemu the actor-director might have dug out the necessary expressions from within Zinta, but Khemu the writer-director doesn't know how to use them appropriately.

The same issue pops up with Shrivastava, who nails the image of a guy high on shallow patriotic chest-thumping and still manages to be only mildly effective because Khemu the writer-director doesn't give him enough good punchlines. Bugs is there merely to serve as a contrast to Hardik's buffoonery, and in doing so, he ends up elevating the latter's scenes. During a lie-detector practice test, the cut from a confident Bugs to an underconfident Hardik, who is so nervous that the machine detects his name as a lie, is so sharp and well-timed that the joke lands hilariously. It's Hardik—and by extension Khemu—who once again emerges as the definite highlight.

This single-minded focus on himself also results in Khemu fumbling the timing of many scenes. When Hardik, on a bike, drives towards an aeroplane running along the runway and ready to take off, the plane takes off at the last second, just before it can collide with the bike. Hardik's confused face suggests that this was supposed to be funny, but we are not sure, since Khemu abandoned the comic flavor long ago in favor of crafting an action thriller movie. These thriller portions ensure that no one in the theater is smiling. And so, when Khemu does try to commit to comedy occasionally, he looks unsure, as if he doesn't know what he is doing.

When Hardik's shirt tears and we see his abs and muscular body, Salman Khan-style, is it meant to be a spoof of certain kinds of mass movies? When Badshah puts on a mask, explaining that he is afraid of COVID, and the mask doesn't cover his nose but only his lips and chin, is it meant to be another joke? Was there a punchline? Khemu doesn't have a firm grip on his movie once it enters thriller territory. What he does display is a talent for mechanical polish. The scenes move with a smooth rhythm, but they don't sparkle as they do during the pre-interval portions, when everything is mostly light and bright.

The eye for comedy Khemu displays in these scenes is better than anything he did in Madgaon Express, his previous movie, which took fun out of funny. Vibe, for better or worse, marks a step forward for Khemu the director, who, above all, displays his "greediness" by tackling the subjects of patriotism, pawns, and terrorism. But the movie ultimately suffers from the baggage of Khemu worship.

It's less of a film and more of a shrine. It's self-endorsement masquerading as moviemaking. Khemu says, "I can act, and I can direct; I can do action, and I can do comedy. I can do romance, and I can also be dramatic." This movie does prove Khemu right. He can do all these things, but he can't do them coherently.

I wish, instead of beating his own chest, Khemu had made something along the lines of The Naked Gun movies. Making that kind of film is no joke; it requires real artistry. Khemu, nonetheless, for now, is more interested in proving himself to everybody. His Vibe is a collection of disparate parts awkwardly conjoined. I guess this is what happens when a movie is guided less by directorial intent and more by self-pride, less by an entertainer and more by a maker of a showreel, less by congruity and more by vibes.