Most of the Hindu characters, with the sole exception of Dev, are shown as greedy, promiscuous, and intolerant towards the other communities. While some of the movie buffs have accused this movie of promoting the vicious practice of love jihad, its depiction in Kalank is so amateurish that you’d find it rather hilarious than annoying. This is quite evident from the scene where a Munshi, portrayed by Deepak Qazir Kejriwal, is extremely intolerant towards Zafar and his community of blacksmiths. The Muslims are portrayed as the rebellious majority who’re oppressed by the intolerant ‘Hindu’ minority. The Hinduphobia of elite Bollywood was also at display in this movie. Also, how is involving oneself in an adulterous relationship a sign of progressiveness? If there is one thing this movie cannot be forgiven at all for, it is shamelessly glorifying adultery. For starters, why is it such a matter of prestige, that there must be a Muslim protagonist with a golden heart? Would it have cost the makers of Kalank too much had Varun Dhawan been portrayed as a respectable and devout Hindu student, or a Sikh? Despite the movie being set in British India of 1940s, there was negligible mention of Sikh characters. It is the propaganda that was infused in this movie that makes it worse. If Kalank was just bad cinema, one wouldn’t have felt so disgusted. If the producers are brave enough to pump in 80 crores for this period drama, could they not spend some money for a decent script? Despite having a plotline with some potential, the characters of Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit were extremely underutilized. The movie is so bad, that even films like ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ and ‘Zero’ would look handsome in front of this. For the VFX of the movie, the lesser said, the better. For a movie like Kalank, it was almost hilarious to see English subtitles being inserted and faded at whim. The editor of this movie needs some serious lessons in basic film editing.

The movie copied blatantly from Bahubali, Gadar, Padmaavat, DDLJ etc, failing to infuse the magic of either.

Zero originality, plagiarizing from various sources, including lifting a plot line from Munshi Premchand’s ‘Saut’ (observe the angle between Satya, Roop and Dev), and mediocre storytelling makes Kalank an unforgettable drag.

Kalank movie english subtitles