Operation Romeo

<p>Aditya Sharma (aka Adi, ) and Neha Kasliwal ( ) are a couple in a romantic relationship, though their parents are still unaware. Adi works for an IT company, while Neha is a college student. For Neha’s birthday, they plan a long night drive. Adi has bought her a ring as a birthday gift and also intends to propose to her during the night. During the drive, Adi asks Neha for a kiss. Neha agrees but doesn’t want to do it in the middle of the road, so Adi parks the car in a dark street. As they’re about to kiss, a man ( ) knocks on the window holding a phone, recording them. He introduces himself as Sub-Inspector Mangesh Jadhav and is accompanied by his junior officer, Patil ( ). They accuse Adi and Neha of public indecency and threaten to arrest them and inform their parents. Terrified, as they both come from conservative families where romance before marriage is taboo, Adi and Neha plead with the men to let them go. But the “officers” insist on filing a case. Mangesh then begins verbally sexually harassing Neha, which traumatizes her and makes Adi extremely uncomfortable. Eventually, the two agree to let them go if Adi pays a bribe of ₹35,000. Adi agrees but doesn’t have that much cash, so they drive to a nearby ATM to withdraw money. Mangesh insists on sitting next to Neha in the back seat and continues to harass her. When the first ATM is out of order, they head to another one. On the way, Adi—unable to tolerate Mangesh’s behavior anymore—pushes him to the ground. Enraged, Mangesh calls his station and threatens to have them arrested. Terrified, Adi falls to the ground, begging for forgiveness. Mangesh then agrees to revert to the original deal: ₹35,000 in exchange for their freedom. At the next ATM, Adi withdraws the money. But when he returns to the car, he finds Mangesh has locked himself inside with Neha, apparently misbehaving with her. Furious, Adi drags Mangesh out. Mangesh denies doing anything wrong. After taking the bribe, the two “officers” finally leave. Adi drops Neha off at her college and asks her what Mangesh did inside the car. Still shaken, Neha unintentionally wounds Adi’s ego by implying he hadn’t acted “man enough” during the incident. Hurt, Adi leaves without another word. In the following days, Neha tries to reach out to apologize, but Adi ignores her messages and calls. Determined to prove his “manhood” to Neha, Adi returns to the scene of the incident—and is shocked to discover that Mangesh and Patil are not real police. Mangesh is actually an ambulance driver, and Patil is a tailor. They had been impersonating officers to extort couples like Adi and Neha. Adi then goes to Mangesh’s home while he’s away and harasses Mangesh’s wife Chhaya ( ) and daughter in a similar way to how Mangesh harassed Neha. When Mangesh arrives, a fight breaks out between the two. Adi beats him and threatens to harm his daughter unless Mangesh confesses what really happened that night. Under pressure, Mangesh admits everything in front of his family and apologizes to Adi. He says he tried to kiss Neha, but she slapped him and nothing further happened, as Adi had returned shortly after. Adi then visits Neha at her college. He tells her everything he did to “prove his manhood.” Neha is happy to see him again and ready to reconcile. She begins to finally answer the question Adi had asked her earlier—what exactly Mangesh did to her in the car. But Adi interrupts, saying he already knows and that since nothing happened, “it’s all cool between them.” Neha, puzzled, asks, “What if something had happened? Would you still be cool with me?” Adi doesn’t respond. Instead, he proposes to her. Disappointed by his silence, Neha rejects the proposal. The film was announced in 2021, a remake of the 2019 Malayalam film . The film’s music composed by while lyrics written by . On 5 April 2022, the first song titled ‘Abhi Abhi’ sung by was unveiled. Six days later, the second song ‘Tere Bin Jeena Kya’ sung by and Rupali Jagga was released. A motion poster of the film featuring the cast was released on 31 March 2022. The film was released on 22 April 2022. The film was released in theatres on 22 April 2022. BH Harsh of gave the film a rating of three and a half stars out of five and wrote “Its ability to charter the uncomfortable lanes is its biggest strength which lies in the themes of justice and morality”. Rohit Bhatnagar of gave the film a rating of three and a half stars and wrote “New kids on the block, Sidhant and Vedika, are the film’s highlight.Sharad Kelkar as a ruthless cop in disguise, delivers an earnest performance”. Rachana Dubey of gave it two and a half stars out of five and found that “a thriller-love story have been built well but the film eventually takes a completely different turn and it doesn’t stitch well at the end.” Deepa Gahlot of gave the film two and a half stars out of five and observed, “the film is scarily effective in a ‘but for the grace of God’s way’,” but criticized the performances as disappointing “because it did have something significant to say and chickened out”.</p>