is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language thriller film about the death of former Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri; written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri.
The film stars Shweta Basu Prasad, Naseeruddin Shah, Mithun Chakraborty, Pankaj Tripathi, Pallavi Joshi, Prakash Belawadi and Mandira Bedi.
[23] Saibal Chatterjee, writing for NDTV rated the film with half star out of five — the research that went into the production was equivalent of a Google search film-making and overall, it was "junk.
Noting Agnihotri to neither have the finesse nor the potency to sketch a conspiracy thriller, the reviewer deemed it to be a cheap trick, that was high on hysteria but lacked logic amidst a focus-less frenzied storytelling that did not venture beyond the realms of Google.
[30] A review in The Indian Express deemed it to be the ideal politically-motivated fiction for the 'post-truth, fake news era' — a series of eye-roll moments with unintentionally hilarious dialogues.
[33] Anusha Iyengar, reviewing for Times Now, gave two out of five stars, praising the story but taking issues with over-the-top dramatization that reeked of amateurish storytelling.
[35] Stutee Ghosh of The Quint found it to be a prejudiced, amateurish and cringe-worthy film with an uninspiring storytelling that banked on crowd-sourced research; she rated one star out of five.
: The Tashkent Files is a non-fiction book by director Vivek Agnihotri about his research for the film and outlines various theories about the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri.