The poster is out, and it doesn't waste time setting the mood. Amit Sadh stands front and centre, firearm in hand, decked out as ACP Pratap, an encounter specialist whose entire world is about to flip on him.

That's the hook here. Pratap, based on a true story according to Filmfare, follows a cop who spent his career on one side of the law and finds himself handcuffed by the very system he upheld. It's a premise Bollywood has visited before, but the specific promise of this one, a real encounter specialist turned accused, gives it some teeth.

Sadh isn't carrying this alone. The poster lines him up alongside Esha Deol, Jigmanshu Dhulia, Milind Gunaji and Seema Biswas, a cast that reads like it's built for a film that leans on faces rather than spectacle. Deol was last seen in the similarly cop-and-crime-flavoured Tumko Meri Kasam in 2025, so this isn't new territory for her.

Sadh, for his part, is having a busy year. He showed up in Aakhri Sawal earlier in 2026 under Abhijeet Warang, and he's got The Saga of Rashtriya Rifles lined up for an October 1 release, just weeks before Pratap hits screens. Two uniforms, two very different registers, back to back.

A first-time director with the right résumé

Sachin Saraf is stepping into the director's chair for the first time with Pratap, and he's also written the script. He's not new to sets, though. Saraf worked as an assistant director on Veer and Apne, and he was part of the writing team on Shootout at Lokhandwala, a film that knows a thing or two about cops with complicated loyalties. That background tracks with what Pratap seems to be going for: a thriller that sits somewhere between an action vehicle and a character study of a man abandoned by the institution he served.

Pradeep Rangwani is producing under the UV Films banner, and the studio has locked November 20, 2026, as the release date. That puts Pratap into the thick of a crowded late-year slate, though nothing in the current lineup is chasing the same encounter-cop territory.

What's still missing is the trailer, and with it, a sense of tone. Is this a slow-burn procedural or something pitched closer to mass action? The poster leans hard into grit and firearms, but a story about a man being handcuffed by his own department suggests there's more restraint at play than the visual lets on. That's the gap the next drop of promotional material will need to close, and with two months to go before release, UV Films has time to decide how loud it wants to go.