2.5 Stars (out of 4)
An influencer loses control of his life when he loses his phone in the tech thriller Logout.
Babil Khan plays Pratyush, better known as “Pratman” to his 9.9 million social media followers. Hitting 10 million subscribers is more than just a milestone for his comedy and lifestyle channel. It would open him up to seriously lucrative advertising contracts, which is saying something, since he already appears on billboards shilling a vegan food brand.
His slavish devotion to his phone is taking a toll on his real-life relationships, ruining his ability to focus on those in front of him as he tends to his online persona. He’s also outsourced many of the mundane duties of life to his phone, whether it’s the smart devices that control his lights, the food delivery apps through which his orders food, or the contact list where he stores phone numbers so he doesn’t have to remember them.
After a drunken night out, he wakes up and can’t find his phone. A woman contacts him using a messaging app on his computer, saying that she met a cab driver who has his phone. Pratyush foolishly gives her his phone’s password to facilitate wiring the cab driver money to return it. Only there is no cab driver. The woman — who we eventually learn is named Sakshi (Nimisha Nair) — is a super-fan of Pratman, and now she has his phone, with access to all of his accounts and private information.
Most of the film is Khan acting alone in Pratyush’s apartment, with the influencer tethered to his messenger app as Sakshi threatens to destroy his carefully curated brand and harm his family members. This is Khan’s most confident performance in his young career, and he displays great range. Nair does an equally fine job in a role that is almost exclusively voice-acted. She finds a creepy balance between sweet and menacing.
The story setup is very similar to Vikramaditya Motwane’s 2024 Netflix Original film CTRL, which saw Ananya Pandey acting mostly solo while playing an influencer who gives control of her computer to a malicious AI program. CTRL leaned more heavily into telling its story visually via screens and apps than Logout does. Logout also features a more traditional villain — one bad person taking advantage of another — whereas Pandey’s character in CTRL is victimized by a faceless corporation.
Those differences in scope and presentation give the edge to CTRL, if one had to chose between two similar films. But one does not, and Logout is an effective cautionary tale in its own right. If nothing else, it’s a reminder to put your phone down every once in a while and focus on the people most important to you. And memorize their phone numbers.
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