Udaipur Files: Kanhaiya Lal Tailor Murder is a 2025 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller film co-directed by Bharat S. Shrinate and Jayant Sinha, co-written by Amit Jani, Bharat Singh, and Jayant Sinha, and distributed by Reliance Entertainment. The film stars Vijay Raaz, Rajneesh Duggal and Preeti Jhangiani and is inspired by the events surrounding the murder of Kanhaiya Lal on 28 June 2022.
Initially titled Gyanvapi Files: A Tailor's Murder Story, the film was released on 8 August 2025 to mixed reviews from critics and audiences, eventually bombing at the box office.
Synopsis
The film is based on the murder of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur. Ishwar Singh, an intelligence officer, is assigned to investigate. As he digs deeper, he finds links to Islamic terrorism and radical groups. The story portrays that the murder was not random, but a planned act with deep connections to extremism and hidden networks.
Cast
- Vijay Raaz as Kanhaiya Lal Sahu
- Rajneesh Duggal as Ishwar Singh, Intelligence Bureau officer
- Preeti Jhangiani as Anjana Singh, journalist, wife of Ishwar Singh
- Kamlesh Sawant
- Kanchi Singh
- Puneet Vashist as Nizam
- Jayshree Mahto as Jasoda Sahu, wife of Kanhaiya Lal
- Mohit Mahawar as Tarun Sahu, younger son of Kanhaiya Lal
- Aditya Raghav as Yash Sahu, elder son of Kanhaiya Lal
- Mushtaq Khan as Virendra Kumar Meena
- Ahsan Khan as Veer Pratap Singh
- Gagandeep Singh as Abhaypal Singh, Intelligence Bureau officer
Release
The film's release was originally scheduled for 11 July 2025 but was stayed by the Delhi High Court on July 10, 2025, pending a Central Government review of its certification due to concerns about communal disharmony and prejudice to an ongoing trial. After multiple modifications, it was eventually released on 8 August 2025, opening on 4,500 screens across India.
Reception
Amit Bhatia of ABP News gave the film 3 stars out of 5, remarking that while it didn't quite do justice to the gravity of its subject, Raaz's performance and the weight of the real-life tragedy made it worth a watch. The Free Press Journal gave the film 2 stars out of 5, calling it a well-intentioned film, while also remarking that it faltered due to the weak screenplay and narration, and criticizing the music and background score.
Rishabh Suri of Hindustan Times gave the film 1.5 stars out of 5, finding it unfocused, dabbling in religion, politics, and romance, repeatedly starting subplots only to abandon them, and the production values visibly low. Subhash K Jha of News 24 gave the film 0.5 stars out of 5, labelling it as a one-sided, inflammatory, and highly provocative story, and feeling that the tone and pitch of the storytelling suggested that the entire community was responsible for the crime.
Box office
The film was commercially unsuccessful, earning only ₹0.63 crore as of 16 August.
