By Team INVC | INVC NEWS
MUMBAI, India | September 18, 2026 —
The best scene in VIBE does not need a sophisticated spy gadget, an elaborate action set-piece or a spectacular revelation.
It simply needs Hardik and Bugs to realise that they are in far more trouble than they can handle.
That is the secret of Kunal Kemmu’s new comedy.
Whenever VIBE remembers that it is essentially about two hopelessly unprepared friends being dragged into a dangerous espionage operation, it is loose, funny and enormously watchable.
Whenever it becomes more fascinated by the espionage operation than those two men, the film begins losing some of that effortless charm.
This makes VIBE an interesting second directorial outing for Kemmu after Madgaon Express. It confirms his instinct for comedy, his ear for ridiculous conversations and his ability to create characters audiences enjoy spending time with.
It also reveals the next thing he needs to master:
Knowing when enough is enough.
INVC NEWS Rating: ★★★☆☆ — 3/5
The Real Mission Is Keeping Hardik Alive
Hardik is attempting to rebuild his life after rehab.
Normality would already be an achievement.
Then there is Bugs.
More practical, technically sharper and considerably more aware of consequences, Bugs seems like the kind of friend Hardik desperately needs.
Together, they make sense.
Then their lives stop making sense altogether.
A date involving Kareena pulls them towards events neither man remotely understands. Before long, intelligence agents, dangerous adversaries and a national-security threat have replaced the everyday problems they were struggling to solve.
Madam H, played by Preity Zinta, enters the equation as somebody who actually understands the world Hardik and Bugs have accidentally stumbled into.
The contrast is immediate.
It is also very funny.
Kunal Kemmu Does Not Play Hardik for Sympathy
Kemmu’s smartest performance choice is refusing to ask viewers to feel sorry for Hardik.
He lets him be foolish.
He lets him make poor decisions.
He allows confidence to arrive several minutes before competence.
Hardik’s humour comes from sincerity. He rarely seems aware of how absurd he appears.
That makes him considerably funnier than a character constantly trying to deliver punchlines.
Kemmu understands the value of reactions particularly well.
Sometimes Hardik’s expression after hearing terrible news gets a bigger laugh than the dialogue preceding it.
Elsewhere, his misplaced certainty turns an ordinary exchange into comedy.
It is physical without becoming cartoonish and foolish without reducing Hardik to an empty joke.
That balance is difficult.
Kemmu gets it right surprisingly often.
Sparsh Shrivastava Makes the Partnership Work
Sparsh Shrivastava may be the reason the central pairing works as well as it does.
Bugs is not merely Hardik’s quieter companion.
He is the audience’s reference point.
When Hardik says something inexplicable, Bugs reacts approximately the way we would.
When the danger becomes real, Bugs understands it before Hardik does.
When their situation begins falling apart, Bugs still believes there might be a logical solution.
Usually, there isn’t.
Shrivastava never fights Kemmu for attention.
Instead, he creates the rhythm Kemmu needs.
The two performers develop the loose, irritated affection of men who have probably survived many bad decisions together.
You believe the friendship.
Once that happens, VIBE can place them inside almost any absurd situation and still remain engaging.
Preity Zinta Understands That Madam H Should Not Join the Joke
The most effective thing Preity Zinta does is remain comparatively serious.
Madam H belongs in the spy operation.
Hardik and Bugs clearly do not.
If Zinta had played her character with the same exaggerated comic energy surrounding the two men, the contrast would disappear.
Instead, her composure creates humour.
She walks into scenes as though national security is genuinely at stake.
Hardik often behaves as though somebody forgot to explain the instructions.
That collision works.
The role also allows Zinta to occupy a more action-oriented space, giving the film another point of interest beyond its central friendship.
VIBE’s First Half Has a Wonderful Lack of Discipline — In the Right Way
The early portions feel as if anything could happen.
Not because the screenplay is incoherent.
Because the characters are unpredictable.
One bad choice creates another.
A misunderstanding grows.
A seemingly manageable problem becomes impossible.
The comedy develops through escalation rather than constant punchlines.
This is precisely where Kemmu looks most comfortable as a filmmaker.
He lets scenes breathe long enough for personalities to create humour.
Dialogue arrives quickly, but the film does not initially feel desperate to prove how funny it is.
That confidence matters.
The first half moves because Hardik and Bugs are driving it.
After the interval, the plot increasingly takes the wheel.
Then the Spy Story Starts Demanding Attention
A spy comedy obviously requires a spy story.
The issue is not its existence.
The issue is proportion.
The second half begins adding more layers to the mission. New explanations arrive. Action becomes more prominent. The scale increases and the screenplay becomes increasingly occupied with its own mechanics.
The movie remains energetic.
But energy is not the same thing as comic momentum.
Hardik and Bugs are funniest when they are reacting to an overwhelming world.
The more VIBE tries to make them functional pieces of a large espionage narrative, the less unusual they become.
The film starts behaving like the genre it was initially mocking.
That is where some of its freshness disappears.
A Comedy Can Have Too Many Good Ideas
Kemmu clearly has comic ideas to spare.
That sounds like an advantage.
Sometimes it is.
At other moments, the film demonstrates why editing is not simply about removing weak material.
It is also about removing material that is perfectly enjoyable but unnecessary.
One joke lands.
Another extends it.
A third sometimes arrives after the scene has already achieved what it needed.
Similarly, an action sequence can be entertaining while still making the movie longer than necessary.
With a running time of roughly two hours and 25 minutes, VIBE eventually begins to feel its own weight.
The sharper version of this movie probably exists inside the released version.
It simply requires subtraction.
The Film Is Better When It Trusts Its People
Vanshika Dhir’s Kareena adds another useful dimension to Hardik’s journey without turning the film into a conventional romance.
Yashpal Sharma and Dinesh Lal Yadav contribute effectively to the heightened espionage world around the leads.
Still, supporting characters and spy mechanics are never the primary reason to watch VIBE.
The people are.
Hardik attempting to look competent.
Bugs realising Hardik is about to make another mistake.
Madam H wondering how these two became part of her operation.
Those dynamics contain the film’s personality.
No explosion can replace them.
The Madgaon Express Comparison Is Both Fair and Misleading
Kunal Kemmu inevitably arrives at VIBE carrying the success of Madgaon Express.
The comparison makes sense because both films depend heavily on male friendship, escalation and comic disorder.
But VIBE is attempting a different scale.
It wants comedy and action.
Friendship and espionage.
Romance and conspiracy.
A larger world potentially capable of continuing beyond one movie.
Ambition is not the problem.
Control is.
Madgaon Express often appeared to discover its humour while moving.
VIBE occasionally appears determined to build something bigger around its humour.
The former approach feels freer.
Still, there is enough here to demonstrate that Kemmu’s first film was not an isolated success.
He understands funny people.
That may be more valuable than understanding funny situations.
What Stays With You After VIBE?
Not the conspiracy.
Not the details of the mission.
Not necessarily the twists.
Hardik and Bugs stay with you.
That tells us exactly what kind of film VIBE should always have trusted itself to be.
Its larger spy framework provides scale.
The friendship provides life.
Kunal Kemmu is consistently entertaining, while Sparsh Shrivastava proves an excellent comic partner because he knows precisely when to push and when to react.
Preity Zinta offers a welcome contrast.
The film’s problem is simply that its ambitions eventually begin competing with its strengths.
VIBE Movie Review: Final Verdict
VIBE is an entertaining buddy comedy hiding inside an overextended spy adventure.
Its first half has speed, personality and an infectious sense of disorder. The second half becomes more complicated without becoming proportionately more rewarding.
Kunal Kemmu remains the film’s biggest asset both as performer and comic storyteller.
Sparsh Shrivastava is equally important to its success.
Together, they turn an improbable national-security mission into something much simpler and much more enjoyable:
Two friends trying desperately not to make everything worse.
They frequently fail.
Fortunately, watching them fail is the fun part.
INVC NEWS Rating: ★★★☆☆ — 3/5
Bottom Line: VIBE proves Kunal Kemmu’s comic voice is real. A tighter screenplay could have turned an enjoyable spy comedy into a terrific one.
