Rahu Ketu Is An Insipid Film That Refuses To Quit

Rahu Ketu is the kind of film that filled me with existential dread in the first month of the year and came closest to making me regret being a writer.

Ishita+Sengupta

Jan 18, 2026

Promo poster for Rahu Ketu.

WRITING is not an easy job. There is, of course, the bit about diminishing returns, but it is also anxiety-riddled, uncertain, and a lot of it includes sitting before a blank page and hoping thoughts will form themselves without the crushing loneliness. Despite this, every self-respecting writer will admit that there is nothing else they would do. Three hours ago, I too was this person, but something inside me has broken. The one to have caused it has a name: Rahu Ketu.

Vipul Vig’s Rahu Ketu is the kind of film that one imagines in a night of intermittent sleep, and instead of forgetting, goes ahead with energy and investment. It is the kind of film that gets incredulous by the minute, forcing one to contemplate their career choices. It is the kind of film where not one joke lands, and yet the viewer is reduced to being the punchline in all scenarios. It is the kind of film that filled me with existential dread in the first month of the year and came closest to making me regret being a writer.

It is impossible to describe the intricacies of the film, but this is me trying. Rahu Ketu centres around two ephemeral beings — Varun Sharma plays Rahu, and Pulkit Samrat is Ketu — sprung to life by a writer, Churu Lal Sharma (Manu Rishi Chadda). There is also Foofaji (Piyush Mishra stuck in a jungle as the storyteller since Tamasha), an old man who somehow knows it all. The main crux here is that whatever Churu writes in a special notebook comes true, and he has created Rahu and Ketu to remove corruption in Himachal. One would think someone with so much power would want bigger things, but no.

This unambitiousness leaks into the film that plays out as a school skit put together at the last minute because a grant came through. Take, for instance, how Rahu and Ketu just appear before people who have sinned (Amit Sial, as a police officer, is one of them), and they crumble. There is no dialogue, no conversation and not even an exposition. All both men do, wrapped up in distinct colours of blue and red, is point to the concerned person and pronounce them guilty. Then there are dialogues that will make even ChatGPT self-combust. Here is an example: “Karma is a switch, join me and I will make you rich.”

A lot of Rahu Ketu is about the havoc that is wrecked as both men keep colliding with regular people. And while this remains staidly unfunny, the filmmaker adds another twist by bringing an Israeli gangster (Chunky Panday) and a girl who only wants to sell weed (Shalini Pandey). Among other self-inflicted confusion, there is a recurrent bit of the book being stolen and different people wanting to write it. Honestly, writing never felt so hopeless before.

This passing of the baton goes on till the film tires itself out. But also, it does not. It is difficult to remember the last time a Hindi film was as inert as Rahu Ketu but like most male entities (this is a film written by a man, headlined by men and with a singular proposition that stories in the book can only be taken forward if they are shouldered by men), there is confidence aplenty. The characters hint that a sequel might be in the works, which, if you ask me, is not good news.

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