Raat Akeli Hai The Bansal Murders movie review: More gore, less grip in Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s second coming as small-town cop

Jatil’s doughty refusal to be intimidated by the fancy farmhouse where quiet money and roiling anger co-exist, is at odds with how his second-in-command Narendra aka Nandu (Shreedhar Dubey) feels. And while the two of them, with the help of a seasoned colleague find an early lead, Jatil’s feeling of unease leads him back to the house. One guard (Nehpal Gautam) is slumped in the corner of the guardroom, the second (Rahaao Bali) is not to be seen, and the sudden appearance of the shell-shocked Meera Bansal (Chitrangada Singh), her robe flecked with blood, leads Jatil to discover the trail of butchered bodies.

Raat Akeli Hai The Bansal Murders movie trailer:

The cavalry includes not just the friend-of-the-family DGP, a disgruntled zila thana in-charge (Akhilendra Mishra) and an irascible forensic expert Dr Rosie Panicker (Revathy) who is worried about a trampled-upon crime scene. The investigation leads to a string of potential suspects: could it be the drug-addled young Bansal scion Aarav (Delzad Hiwale), or, gasp, Meera herself, whose actions are suspected by Aarav’s sister (Arushi Bajaj)? Look for the killer inside the house, thunders an estranged family member (Sanjay Kapoor), not outside.

It is left to Jatil to swim through the murky goings-on, even as he is beset by his own troubles, as pointed out by the Bansal clan’s aphorism-spouting Guru Maa (Deepti Naval). Among the most affecting parts of the film, like last time, involve Jatin and his love-hate-love relationship with his mother (Ila Arun) and his spiky romance with Radha (Radhika Apte, reprising her role from the first film).

Another character who leaves a mark despite the brevity of her role is the local lawyer (Priyanka Setia) who champions the cause of the weaker section of society, a couple of whose representatives crop up as early red herrings. The plot’s sudden swerve into smelly slums and inhabitants who live under the fear of the bulldozer (it’s a story set in UP, duh) and in the vicinity of ‘avaidh’ factories spewing dangerous gases, becomes a crucial key to Jatil’s quest to find the killer.

I’d enjoyed director Honey Trehan’s deft telling of writer Smita Singh’s twisted tale in the first film, so I was really looking forward to this follow-up. And while this one, also by the same duo, does have several engaging parts, it didn’t hold me as much as the first. For one, I couldn’t get past Chitrangada’s persistent blankness: what’s going on underneath? Plus, keeping track of so many characters was distracting. In the first half hour itself, we hear variations of the same sentiment: aasaar kuchh theek nahin lag rahe, yahaan kuchh vichitra hai, humko kuchh theek nahin lag raha. Why the repetition?

The best written character remains Nawaz’s Jatil, still moving his mouth in the way he did in the first film, as the moral centre of the film. He has grown: when Radha talks of going to college, he says, ‘tum ko jo achcha lage karo’. He is still a small town man, but he’s no longer a prisoner of small-town mentality (in the first film, he was shocked at a girl wearing ‘chote kapde’): he is looking outward and upward. Here’s hoping there’s a third-go-round of Jatil cracking yet another jatil case.

Raat Akeli Hai The Bansal Murders movie cast: Nawzuddin Siddiqui, Chitrangada Singh, Rajat Kapoor, Shreedhar Dubey, Sanjay Kapoor, Deepti Naval, Revathy, Rajiv Gupta, Delzad Hiwale, Ila Arun, Priyanka Setia, Akhilendra Mishra, Rahaao Bali, Nehpal Gautam
Raat Akeli Hai The Bansal Murders movie director: Honey Trehan
Raat Akeli Hai The Bansal Murders movie rating: 2.5 stars