New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- In Tehran, director Arun Gopalan adapts the high-stakes geopolitics of 2012 into a tense espionage drama. The film's premise is rooted in a real incident: the February 2012 bomb attack near the Israeli Embassy in Delhi, part of a coordinated series of assaults on Israeli diplomats in Georgia, Thailand, and India. Based on a story written by Bindi Karia, with screenplay and dialogues by Karia and Ritesh Shah, the film uses that flashpoint as the launchpad for a fictional covert mission that spans continents and moral boundaries.

At the heart of the narrative is ACP Rajiv Kumar, known as RK (John Abraham), a Delhi police officer described as obsessive by nature and a loose cannon. At the start of the film, RK is focus...