Costao Review | An Insipid, Overlong Biopic That Fails Its Subject

There라이브 바카라 something particularly frustrating about a film that takes a sensational true story and somehow drains it of all urgency. Costao, Zee5라이브 바카라 latest crime drama based on the life of real-life Goa customs officer Costao Fernandes, does exactly that.

Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the titular role, this biographical film could have been a taut tale of one man라이브 바카라 heroics against a powerful smuggling syndicate. Instead, it collapses under the weight of its own indecision—about tone as well as genre—leaving behind a two-hour slog that feels more like a filler episode in a tired procedural TV show than a compelling feature film. Unfortunately, that can be said about most Zee5 productions.

Set in the 1990s, Sejal Shah라이브 바카라 feature debut Costao follows Siddiqui라이브 바카라 Fernandes, a principled customs officer who uncovers a massive gold smuggling racket and risks everything to bring the perpetrators to justice. This premise should offer ample material for a layered thriller or a moving personal story of sacrifice. The material is already there in a ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ true story that inspires the events of Costao. But the film neither leans into the adrenaline of its crime-thriller possibilities nor fleshes out the human costs of its protagonist라이브 바카라 crusade. What we’re left with is a tepid attempt at a biopic with a lone honest officer, corrupt bureaucratic pushback, a reluctant family, the threatening gang lord who is not even that intimidating, despite the music soaring at all the correct junctures to make him appear so.

Siddiqui라이브 바카라 casting as Costao Fernandes seems promising on paper. After all, he has built a career out of portraying morally complex characters in India라이브 바카라 underworld or adjacent systems. But here, he looks surprisingly disengaged. The script insists that he is a martyr-like figure sacrificing everything for truth, but the performance never breathes life into that narrative and neither does the rest of the story.

The rest of the cast fares no better. Kishore Kumar G as D’Mello, the supposed villain of the piece, lacks any menace. Priya Bapat as Maria, Fernandes’ wife, has a few moments of resistance and weariness, but the character exists only to underscore the officer라이브 바카라 moral burden.

The action sequences, few as they are, don’t help either. The choreography is glaringly visible, robbing the confrontations of any stakes with rehearsed punches and obvious pauses before the commencement of each kick. To make things worse, it is also devoid of sharp wit that can be distracting enough. A scene at his children라이브 바카라 school sports day, where Fernandes tries to freak out a fellow parent with silly banter—what was supposed to inject some much-needed humour into the film ends up embarrassingly inert.

The visual palette, like the writing, is relentlessly dull. Goa—one of the most vibrant, culturally rich settings available to an Indian filmmaker—is reduced to a generic, anonymous backdrop. There is no flavour, very little sense of place, no texture that could have elevated Costao beyond its template approach.

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the film is its structure. It attempts to be many things—a gritty crime thriller, a family melodrama, a police procedural—all at once. And what emerges is an incoherent and lacklustre patchwork. The voiceover by Fernandes’ young daughter—who also calls him by his name—meant to humanise the narrative, feels awkward and cringe. It appears sporadically, adding nothing to the emotional landscape. If anything, it draws attention to how utterly unsure the film is of its own purpose.

I do want to give Costao credit for avoiding the kind of cheap sensationalism that often plagues “based on true events” dramas. It doesn't indulge in glorified violence or excessive heroism. But this restraint seems to come from a place of fear rather than a deliberate attempt to keep it from becoming a run-of-the-mill masala biopic. The film tiptoes around the political and moral complexities of Fernandes’ real-life decisions bookending the story with a portrait of an “awesome father” not an absent one—an honest hero whose heroism came at great personal cost.

What could have been an urgent story about systemic corruption and personal sacrifice becomes an exercise in missed opportunities. The filmmakers seem to believe that merely recounting the events as a highlight reel of Fernandes라이브 바카라 life is enough. But cinema—especially when dealing with real lives and real stakes—requires insight and needs enthusiasm about its subject.

I gave up even pretending to be interested long before the film limps to its conclusion. Costao aspires to be a stirring portrait of an unsung hero but ultimately never musters the emotional conviction such a story demands. It becomes a gold smuggling drama that neither shines, sparkles, nor stirs.

Debiparna Chakraborty is a film, TV, and culture critic dissecting media at the intersection of gender, politics, and power