Crakk, released on February 23, 2024, struts onto the screen with the swagger of a film that thinks it’s India’s answer to extreme sports cinema, but it quickly reveals itself as a hollow, incoherent mess, undone by a script so shoddy it’s almost laughable. Billed as a high-octane actioner about Siddhu (Vidyut Jammwal), a Mumbai stunt junkie chasing glory in a deadly underground competition called Maidaan, it promises adrenaline and intrigue. Instead, it delivers a 154-minute endurance test that exposes Bollywood’s obsession with style over substance—and nowhere is this more glaring than in its abysmal screenplay.

The script, credited to Datt, Rehan Khan, Sarim Momin, and Mohinder Pratab Singh, is a disaster from the jump. It opens with Siddhu leaping across moving trains—a visually striking moment that’s the film’s lone high point—before plunging into a narrative so disjointed it feels like a first draft scribbled on a napkin. The story lurches from one half-baked idea to the next: Siddhu’s brother died in Maidaan years ago, so he’s out to… win the tournament? Uncover the truth? Avenge him? It’s never clear, because the script can’t decide what it wants to be—an action flick, a revenge drama, or a dystopian thriller. Instead, it’s all of them and none of them, a Frankenstein’s monster of cliches stitched together with no coherence or heart.

Take the central conceit: Maidaan, a Squid Game-lite deathmatch run by the villainous Dev (Arjun Rampal), who’s also smuggling plutonium to buy a country “between Egypt and Africa” (a line so dumb it defies geography). The script doesn’t just lack logic—it actively insults it. Why does a televised bloodsport need a plutonium subplot? Why do cops shrug at a 97% fatality rate until nuclear deals are mentioned? Why does Siddhu, a supposed everyman, speak in a forced tapori accent that grates more than it endears? The writing doesn’t answer these questions—it piles on more nonsense, like a romance with influencer Alia (Nora Fatehi) that’s as tacked-on as her role, or a Polish-Indian cop (Amy Jackson) whose dubbed Hindi is a crime against sound.

The dialogue is a special kind of torture. Lines like “Here’s your chip, open my zip” or “Bomb unke upar hai, par fatt meri rahi hai” aren’t quirky—they’re cringe-inducing, the kind of rhyming drivel that makes you wonder who greenlit this. Emotional beats—like Siddhu’s grief over his brother—are DOA, flattened by wooden exchanges that Jammwal can’t salvage, despite his physical prowess. The script gives him no depth to play with, reducing a potentially compelling underdog to a stunt machine spouting gibberish. Rampal’s Dev fares no better; he’s a snarling cartoon with no menace, his grand plan too ridiculous to take seriously.

The supporting cast is equally betrayed by the writing. Nora Fatehi’s Alia is a glorified prop with zero agency, her scenes a waste of screen time. Amy Jackson’s Patricia is a walking plot device, her investigation subplot so flimsy it collapses under scrutiny. Even the action—Jammwal’s bread and butter—feels secondary to the script’s need to overexplain its convoluted mess, leaving gaps between set pieces that sap momentum. When the stunts do arrive, they’re undercut by patchy CGI and editing that’s more disorienting than thrilling.

At its core, Crakk is a film that doesn’t know what it’s about, and its script is the culprit. It’s a juvenile, bloated slog that squanders a decent concept on predictable tropes and laughable twists—like Dev’s daddy issues or a final face-off that’s more tedious than tense. The visuals are slick, and Jammwal’s acrobatics deserve a nod, but no amount of polish can save this trainwreck of a story. I’d give it 2 out of 5 stars—a generous score for a film that’s only intermittently watchable, thanks to its lead’s athleticism. Crakk isn’t just a misfire; it’s a glaring reminder that a poor script can sink even the most ambitious action flick. Skip it, unless you enjoy cracking your head against bad writing.