If you like your political thrillers to move with procedure, paperwork, and the occasional crack of action, Article 370 is exactly that—an operation movie that wraps a decade of headlines into one mission. Directed by Aditya Suhas Jambhale and produced by Jio Studios with B62 Studios, the film stars Yami Gautam Dhar and Priyamani, runs a chunky 158 minutes, and opened in India on 23 February 2024 before landing on ZEE5 (19 September 2025). By April, the film’s worldwide gross had crossed ₹110.57 crore—unusually strong for a fact-adjacent, talk-heavy thriller.
The premise: one agent, one ministry, one timeline
Set in the run-up to the Union government’s move to revoke Jammu & Kashmir’s special status, the film tracks NIA agent Zooni Haksar (Yami Gautam Dhar) and PMO Joint Secretary Rajeshwari Swaminathan (Priyamani) as they synchronise fieldwork and policy to neutralise terror networks and manage law-and-order flashpoints. The opening sequence shows Zooni executing an unauthorised hit on militant Burhan Wani, which detonates protests and puts her on thin ice. Pulled into a higher-stakes matrix by Rajeshwari, she heads a compact multi-agency unit probing funding channels, fronts, and code-named handlers while the Centre works the parliamentary math for the abrogation. The IMDB capsule keeps it blunt—“ahead of a major constitutional decision, special agent Zooni Haksar is tasked with a secret mission to quell violence”—and that’s largely the film you get: operations, surveillance, convoy traps, and a climactic cross-cut with the Rajya Sabha count.
What the movie actually does on screen
Jambhale treats Kashmir like an ops theatre: informants, tapped phones, a “dry fruit” lead that turns into a code-name tree, and a strong use of Stage vs. street geography (press rooms, corridors of power, then alleys and safe houses). The mid-film stretch is essentially about logistics—how you keep secrets in a state under curfew; how you control information flow to media and to Pakistan; how you arrest separatist organisers without triggering mass unrest. In parallel, New Delhi scenes condense process into digestible beats—President’s Rule, floor management, and the tactical problems of pushing a controversial measure through the Upper House.
Cast: steady leads, recognisable faces in power
Gautam plays Zooni as a professional first and a Kashmiri daughter second—sharp, curt, visibly wound-tight. Priyamani’s Rajeshwari is the cool counterweight: a Joint Secretary who lives in memos and contingency plans. The bench is stacked with political lookalikes: Arun Govil as the Prime Minister (a clear nod to Narendra Modi) and Kiran Karmarkar as the Home Minister (read: Amit Shah), plus stand-ins for Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Yasin Malik and others, which the film labels with fictionalised names and “based on” parallels. Supporting players include Vaibhav Tatwawadi, Raj Arjun, Raj Zutshi, and Skand Sanjeev Thakur in field and bureaucratic roles.
Writing, craft, and choices that stand out
The script (Aditya Dhar, Jambhale, Monal Thaakar, Arjun Dhawan) is built like a case file—exposition front-loaded, then a cascade of operations, and finally a cross-cut crescendo. The edit (Shivkumar V. Panicker) is functional rather than flashy; the cinematography (Siddharth Deena Vasani) favours blue-grey interiors and drone glides over Srinagar. Shashwat Sachdev’s music stays on the procedural side, with a few vocal tracks (“Dua,” “Main Hoon”) spaced out; the soundtrack dropped days before release. The overall effect is of a film more interested in how than who—the engine is systems, not a single heroic flourish.
Release, streaming, and the box office collection
Theatrical release: 23 February 2024 (worldwide).
OTT Release: ZEE5 from 19 September 2025 (regional availability applies).
Runtime: 158 minutes.
Box office collection (as of September 19, 2025): ₹98.06 crore India gross, ₹12.51 crore overseas; ₹110.57 crore worldwide—healthy business for a political action thriller.
Reception: two tracks—thriller first, politics always
Reception splits the way you’d expect with a subject this charged. Trade and mainstream reviewers generally singled out Gautam’s performance and the thriller packaging, with reservations on nuance. The critical-consensus line on the Wikipedia entry is explicit: performances praised, but criticism for distortion of facts and a one-sided narrative aligned with the ruling party’s politics ahead of elections, plus a lack of Kashmiri civilian perspectives. If you want to sample audience sentiment, the IMDB review page is the usual spread—rousing five-stars calling it “must-watch” and dissenters flagging the film’s framing; the most-liked comments on release week praised pacing and the Pulwama-attack depiction sequence. As always with user reviews, treat them as temperature, not thermometers.
What to know before you press play (accuracy vs. argument)
Because the film dramatises real figures and events (with changed names), it has drawn fact-check scrutiny and op-eds about its timing and messaging. Wikipedia’s “Factual accuracy and political messaging” section aggregates several pieces that call out choices in the screenplay—Nehru’s depiction during accession, silence on specific coalition politics in J&K, normalisation of custodial force in set-pieces, and framing of media/opposition as obstructive foils. If your interest is purely cinematic—structure, set-pieces, performances—the movie delivers a clean, propulsive watch. If your interest is historical, it’s better treated as a perspective, not a neutral ledger.
So, is it worth your time?
If you like operation-led thrillers—files, phone taps, convoy feints, a big legislative countdown—yes. The film’s procedural core is sturdy, and Gautam–Priyamani make a sharp field–bureaucracy pair. If you’re watching for history class, calibrate expectations: this is a dramatisation with a declared point of view. For many viewers, the interest is precisely in that—how Bollywood packages a constitutional event for a mainstream audience, and how a female-led ops narrative anchors it without romance bloat or comic relief detours. The runtime is long; the payoff is a cleanly engineered final act where the RS vote tally and valley crackdown intercut to a finish that’s both inevitable (if you know the headlines) and tense in the moment.
Bottom line
Article 370 is best approached as a slickly mounted procedural about the run-up to a constitutional decision, not as a comprehensive history. By those terms, the film feels solid, strong cast, clear in intent, and brisk for a two-and-a-half-hour political thriller. On streaming, it sparks talk about the 2019 events and the way mainstream cinema chooses to remember them. If you want that talk, this text serves as a start, though some viewers challenge it, and debate can grow.
Bio of Author: Gayatri Tiwari is an experienced digital strategist and entertainment writer, bringing 20+ years of content expertise to one of India’s largest OTT platforms. She blends industry insight with a passion for cinema to deliver engaging, trustworthy perspectives on movies, TV shows and web series.
