How movies like item are hurting Pakistani cinema

PUBLISHED January 11, 2026

KARACHI:

There are bad movies. Then there are worse movies. And then some films top the worst—an enviable category that Huma Shaikh’s Item occupies proudly. From a poster that screams cringe to a trailer that confirms it, the film eventually blossoms into a full-on cringe fest. Achieving this level of discomfort is no small feat.

Item claims to be a film about women empowerment. It also claims to highlight the plight of women who are called “objects” for daring to step outside their homes to earn a living. In fact, it does neither. Instead, it operates on two deeply flawed assumptions: that all humans are bad and the public is stupid.

Fortunately, not all men are bad, nor are the public stupid. That’s why most critics endure 142 minutes of cinematic torture—so you don’t have to.

After enduring Item, I decided to do a good deed: to explain, in five simple steps, why movies like Item deserve to stay in the box. Their release actively hurts genuine filmmakers—those who know how to draw audiences to Pakistani cinema instead of pushing them away. Our industry needs these filmmakers much more than these so-called “objects”, which do nothing for anyone’s mental health.

Kind it had to stay in the box

The movie that doesn’t know what it’s talking about claims to be “a bold and fully commercial feature film” with a “subtle message” that exposes the hypocrisy of society – where women are idolized on screen but not respected in real life. Let’s start with the basics: the film is neither daring nor commercial. It’s not even a modern mainstream feature film and it looks like something you can watch on Filmazia while changing the channel. If nothing else, it’s a cringe fest that opens with a mujra masquerading as a song. At the end of this number, an actor throws money at the dancer as his colleagues say, “Kia item hai”, and embarks on a painful journey that lasts more than two hours.

The director appears confused as to what an “object” even is. When was the last time a successful model was randomly selected to perform an item number without any basis? Sadaf Kanwal comes to mind, but she had the personality, grace and previous acting experience to justify her item number in Na Maloom Afraad 2. Amna Ilyas did something similar in Mehrunisa V Lub U and Chaudhry – The Martyr, but she was already a much more accomplished actress.

Instead, the entirety of Mahi’s (Aliya Ali) journey is conveyed through a slide that reads: Five Years Later. That’s it, from the advice to try modeling to becoming an object-five words on the screen. In my book, that’s neither feminism nor empowerment. It’s lazy to make cinematic social commentary. The public isn’t stupid, so they’ll be as confused as I am when an office-going girl from a middle-class neighborhood magically transforms into a successful model without a trace of struggle, but with a wig that doesn’t even look well made.

Laziness has never helped any industry

Aliya Ali may be a capable TV actress, but as popular TV and film actress Humaima Malick once said, “a film heroine should be someone the audience can enjoy and fantasize about.” The refreshments I consumed during the screening had more spark than the film’s set numbers, which were shot on the same stage, played like a school play and featured dances best forgotten by the time you leave the cinema. Why one of the songs randomly incorporates the James Bond theme is anyone’s guess.

In interviews and in a clip that has gone viral due to its insanity, Aliya Ali has claimed that during the shooting of the daring songs, the male crew was told to look away. Ironically, this might be the most accurate statement made during the film’s promotions because the songs look like they were shot without any supervision at all – as if the choreographer was asleep, the cameraman was out of the room, and everyone else was literally “made to look away”. If the film was really bold, it would have earned a bolder rating from the censor board, which it didn’t. Worse, the lead acting throughout is so loose and so aggressively 1960s that even the dance numbers fail to land.

Scenes like the father dying after slapping his daughter, an aunt who blames her niece’s work for her father’s death, a young couple trapped in a rest house during a weather disaster, and a girl singing in the mountains with the hero as the only spectator should have been killed on paper, as they became irrelevant in the last millennium. However, they are integral to the Object and make you want to check the calendar—only to be surprised that it’s 2025 or 2026, not a year that starts with 19, which belongs in 20^u century.

Pakistani-American actor Azad Khan (Hala, The Vineyard, Mumtaz Mahal) is the film’s only saving grace, though even he feels out of place. He would have thrived in a 1960s set-up – three-piece suits, rich men falling for prostitutes or women of “disrepute” and mama’s boys with hearts of gold. Why he chose this project remains a mystery. His unfamiliarity with modern Pakistani cinema may have helped the film, but it certainly didn’t help his career.

Behroze Sabzwari appears as the girl’s traumatized father – both physically and mentally – and is given exactly two scenes, as is his co-star Sangeeta Rizvi, who continues to voice her roles for unknown reasons. Their mockery of a young woman looking for a job in a male-dominated world might have felt relevant in the 1960s. In 2025, it looks like the script was written by someone who woke up from a 50-year slumber and decided to lecture us about empowerment.

There’s no room for a terrible soundtrack in 2025

Pakistani cinema owes a lot to composer M. Arshad, whose work in Jeeva, Chor Machaye Shor, Hawayein and Salakhain defined an era. Unfortunately, he hasn’t produced anything of note over the past two decades — and Item makes that painfully clear.

The soundtrack sounds straight out of the 1990s, with the outdated trope of recycling the same sad song with different singers. One of them is Humera Channa, the undisputed queen of ’90s film music—but nostalgia alone can’t save a weak line-up.

M. Arshad’s remake of Bijli Bhari Hai (originally composed by his father M. Ashraf) feels more personal than professional. While Maan Jao Na paid homage to the song far more effectively – only to be reprimanded by the rights holders – this version crumbles under poor choreography, cheap sets and uninspired vocals. Aima Baig’s Velo Sound Station cover from five years ago is more contemporary than this remake. Had the film been called Bijli, it might have seemed relevant, but unlike the original Bijli Mumtaz girl, this film feels like it’s running on an old generator.

Fraud movies like the item should be studied

Why call Item a scam movie? Because films like this—and there are many—deserve academic scrutiny. How did any investor agree to fund a project that doesn’t look viable to the trained eye? What convinced seasoned actors like Ismat Zaidi and Mariam Mirza to sign on? Why did the filmmakers ignore distributors who surely warned them that releasing the film alongside Avatar: Fire and Ash would be commercial suicide?

Every filmmaker thinks he’s doing something new—at least in his own head. Huma Shaikh seems to be inspired by Bollywood films like Fashion and Heroine, which critiqued the entertainment industry with depth and skill. What he didn’t realize is that replicating that level of filmmaking here can take decades. A smaller, simpler film—perhaps a rom-com—could have helped her test the waters. Instead, he set his sights on Titanic without realizing that even James Cameron had to struggle before he got to a point where he could make the award-winning classic. No race leads to scam movies like Item.

Bashir Noman was the real ‘Item’

Watch the trailer closely and you’ll notice a TV presenter – clearly inspired by Shahzeb Khanzada or Kamran Khan – interviewing Miss Mahi. Honestly, if the director had made a film just for this man, it might have been a hit. Earlier, he appears as a fashion photographer who is slapped by a newbie Mahi and vows revenge for this slap.

How this vengeful photographer transforms into a prime-time anchor with massive ratings is the most compelling arc in the film—sadly unexplored. Perhaps Element 2 will be his story: a journey from nobody to somebody, hopefully told with more substance than a lonely Five Years Later slide.

In the end, the film ends with a brain-deadening moment: women must study martial arts if they want to survive in a male-dominated world. It might be one of many things they could do, but presenting it as the only solution exposes the mindset behind the Item.

All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author

Omair Alavi is a freelance contributor who writes about film, television and popular culture