Rani Mukerji's latest release Mardaani 3 is doing well in theatres, if the reports of the past three days are anything to go by. The police thriller, which has Mukerji playing SSP Shivani Shivaji Roy, a cop going after a child trafficking ring, has benefitted from decent word-of-mouth.
Directed by Abhiraj Minawala from a script by Aayush Gupta, the Yash Raj Films' release has reportedly earned Rs 28 crore in worldwide gross after three days of its release.
In an official YRF statement, Mukerji expressed gratitude for audiences' love. "This film belongs to every viewer who believes that cinema can do more than entertain... it can maybe speak to our conscience," she said, calling such stories "uncomfortable, urgent and necessary."
"If Mardaani 3 has moved you, disturbed you, or made you think - then it has done its job," she further added. "Discomfort is where change begins. Our girls do not need our sympathy. They need our protection. They need our courage. They need our voices right now and not tomorrow because just a film alone cannot bring change. Change begins in our homes, in our schools, in our streets. It begins when we teach our sons how to respect, when we empower our daughters with confidence and when we stand up for a girl child who cannot stand up for herself."
In its review of the film, THE WEEK wrote, "What gives Mardaani 3 its edge is how it steadily peels away the glamour from crime to expose its chilling banality. The film is least interested in shock for shock’s sake and more invested in the systems that allow brutality to masquerade as normalcy. The missing girls are not merely plot devices; they are reminders of how easily bodies disappear into bureaucratic cracks. Minawala resists melodrama, choosing instead to let silence, waiting rooms, and half-lit corridors do the heavy lifting. The dread creeps in gradually, settling like dust rather than arriving with a bang. Mukerji’s Shivani Roy, now seasoned and visibly wearier, carries the weight of experience with quiet authority. This is no longer a cop driven purely by rage; she is alert to the moral fatigue that accompanies endless battles with evil. Her restraint becomes her sharpest weapon."