Costao is not a glitzy film, nor does it attempt to be. Rather, it crafts an emotionally strong tale out of a father’s pain, a husband’s silence, and an officer’s conscience.
There are movies that wow with scale, others that bank on twists, and then there are the occasional masterpieces like Costao, running on ZEE5 Global — a movie that plays out with subtle strength, personal emotion, and unwavering honesty. Written by Bhavesh Mandalia and Meghna Srivastava, this courtroom drama smothered in a richly personal character study is taken to a whole new plane by the awesome Nawazuddin Siddiqui. In Costao, he doesn’t perform an act — he melts into it, becoming an individual caught between responsibility, guilt, and love.
The movie doesn’t mess around with long backstories or redundant build-up. It puts us right into the life of Navy man Costao Fernandes — and the story requires us to catch up. It’s a narrative decision that trusts its audience’s intelligence and faith in its lead actor.
The script by Mandalia and Srivastava is incisive, weaving Costao’s inner conflict with the cold discipline of a murder trial. The screenplay is straightforward, but each scene throbs with emotional richness and narrative significance. Costao isn’t portrayed as a heroic martyr or a tragic victim — he’s a man driven to the edge, struggling with love, loss, and the suffocating machinery of institutional force.
It is a rare achievement that the dialogues themselves turn into living, breathing characters. One such highlight — where Costao’s wife accuses him of never telling her he loved her — is an emotional tightrope. What might have been a melodramatic truism becomes a rich metaphor: “Just like I utter Vande Mataram twice a year, I utter I love you twice — on your birthday and our wedding anniversary.” It’s these moments that ground the film in reality and raise it to poetry.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s performance as Costao is such a fully realized performance that you lose sight of the actor and get into the character within five minutes. Broken, controlled, but seething with guilt and repressed fury, Nawaz brings to life the psychological subtlety of a man who has committed the unspeakable — and is now going to have to live with it. His monologue, in which he admits to the crime, is an acting masterclass of the highest order. The supporting cast is worth mentioning too. Every character, be it a good one or a morally ambiguous one, is well written.
Director Sejal Shah is to be commended for never allowing the film to veer into sentimentality or preachiness. The camera lingers over silences, half-smiles, and unspoken moments with a delicacy that matches Nawazuddin’s performance. Shah makes sure that Costao’s emotional landscape — his children, his wife, his loneliness — is developed through visual hints instead of exposition.
The music, understated and perfectly placed, doesn’t overwhelm but enhances. It knows when to recede and allow the silence to speak, and when to softly underscore emotion peaks. Costume and production design remain firmly within the confines of realism, keeping the film grounded in its world.
Themes & Social Commentary: A Subtle Mirror
What Costao does best is capture the textured richness of Indian bureaucracy and the sacrifices honest officers are asked to make. The camaraderie among naval officers is reassuring — not idealistic, but passionately loyal. The courtroom scenes, though simplified a bit, continue to suggest the infuriating obfuscation of power structures.
All that being said, the movie stumbles a bit when it addresses the legal thriller. The story never goes too far into systemic corruption or the reasons behind the villains. It brushes against the surface but pulls back before things get complicated — maybe a lost chance, but also a conscious artistic choice. After all, as the movie quietly contends, the Indian common man hardly ever gets to untangle the machinery — he just manages to survive it.
Verdict
Costao is not a glitzy film, nor does it attempt to be. Rather, it crafts an emotionally strong tale out of a father’s pain, a husband’s silence, and an officer’s conscience.
Most importantly, it’s a reminder of what cinematic greatness is all about: not spectacle, but sincerity. Nawazuddin Siddiqui doesn’t play a hero in this film — he plays a man. And by doing so, he returns what Bollywood has been lacking for some time now: heart, honesty, and humanity.
This review is contributed by Mubeen Farooqi – Chief Business Manager – Spicetree Digital Agency, a leading creative design agency in Mumbai, with an office in Dubai. Mubeen Farooqi has written the dialogue for India’s biggest 3D Animation-Live Action film “Toonpur Ka Superrhero”, featuring Ajay Devgn and Kajol, and the scripts for the social media plotagraph promos of the landmark folk horror film “Tumbbad”. He has also written the scripts of brand and social cause films. He is a self-confessed film and music buff and writes regularly on all aspects of entertainment
