Vikram Vedha Teaser Talk: Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan in a Face-Off

Could Vikram Vedha, starring Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan, turn the tide against the wave of negativity that has surrounded Bollywood of late? If the reactions that the film's first teaser has evoked may be a portent for the future, this might just be the film that turns the tide. Because Roshan and Khan — when two middle-aged men, with full beards, eye each other across a table, is it a face-off or a beard-off? — look like they're on fire in this remake of the 2017 Tamil hit by the same name.  

Khan is Vikram, a tough cop and Roshan is the dreaded gangster, Vedha. The teaser shows the two circling each other in an intense cat-and-mouse game, complete with guns, gore and violence. "Achhe aur bure main chunn na toh bada aasan hota hai, sir. Lekin ee kahaani main toh dono bure hai (It's easy to choose between good and bad, sir. But in this story, both sides are bad)," says a handcuffed Roshan to Khan. 

The original starred Vijay Sethupathi and R Madhavan and was directed by Pushkar and Gayatri, who have also directed the Hindi remake. In an interview with Film Companion, the director duo mentioned that though the plot is similar to the Tamil original, the Hindi film is very different. "It was a tough decision for us to make because all our life, we've refused to remake any of our films. Every month, we get calls asking us to remake our films in various languages. We refuse because we only want to make original content. However, in this case, we thought that there was another take on the characters. Rather than changing the story, we are now pitching the characters of Vikram and Vedha in a completely different way," Pushkar said.

The neo-noir action thriller also stars Radhika Apte, Rohit Saraf, Yogita Bihani, Sharib Hashmi and Satyadeep Misra. It is produced by Bhushan Kumar & S. Sashikanth and will hit the cinemas on September 30th.