Citadel: Honey Bunny is a catchy title. In fact, you can almost hear it. “Honey Bunny” instantly evokes the viral Idea Cellular ad jingle from 2012: you’re my pumpkin pumpkin/hello honey bunny. But there’s more to the earworm than a Pulp Fiction tribute or a term of endearment. The commercial itself showed a traveler infecting different parts of the country with a tune; the cutesy lyrics, too, felt like the collective sound of couples staying connected across regions. It’s not a stretch to suggest that Citadel: Honey Bunny — whose pan-world premise features a pan-Indian adventure of a couple named Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) and Bunny (Varun Dhawan) — is a long-form descendent of the jingle. It’s totally on brand for director duo Raj & DK, who thrive on affectionate pop-cultural nods, cinephilia and retro references.

A man, holding a gun, chases a woman through the nooks and crannies of Belgrade. Finding himself in a cul-de-sac of sorts, he sees her pointing a gun back at him. “Put your gun down,” she barks at him. He, a seasoned special agent, lets go of his gun and promptly gets shot. The law of probability points to the fact that if he had held on to the gun, there would be a 50 per cent chance of him being shot and a 50 per cent chance of him being able to shoot the woman in front of him. When he drops the gun, for no explainable reason, he makes that probability convert to a 100 per cent chance against him.