The name’s Jatil, not Jatin. A name meaning complicated suits this cop; the name is eccentric mother gave him but one he wears with a defiant pride. The cop, Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is devoted to his job, and has stuck to his bachelorhood. There is a woman (Radhika Apte) he loves, from the first Raat Akeli Hai film, but their horoscopes don’t match.
Life is about to get tougher for him, in Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders, also directed by Honey Trehan, when he is first summoned to the lavish mansion of the Bansal Family, because of an ominous mass killing of crows in their backyard, and the placing of a pig’s head on a newspaper the family runs.
The finger of suspicion points at a brother and media rival (Sanjay Kapoor), who is pally with Jatil’s boss (Rajat Kapoor), and so his privilege and cronyism protect him.
However, what happens next is beyond belief—five members of the Bansal clan are brutally stabbed to death, and the alleged killer, a junkie nephew, found floating in the pool. Only Meera Bansal (Chitrangada Singh), and two youngsters survive the carnage. It looks like an open-and-shut, but Jatil is not convinced. Despite his superiors’ warnings to let go, he pulls and pulls at a thread that unravels a whole conspiracy of silence, that involves a slum, its filth, neglect and buried tragedy.
The Bansal’s spiritual guru (a chilling Deepti Naval) has a vice-like grip on the family, particularly Meera, who’s mourning the loss of her young son. Everybody is hiding something, though and once an activist lawyer (Priyanka Setia), points him towards a clue, Jatil cannot but help seek the truth, even at the cost of his career. The only one who stands by him is the no-nonsense Malayali forensics chief (Revathi), whose opinion of north Indian cops is expressed to a colleague in their own language.
Darkly atmospheric with a sinister thread of suspense running through it, the film (reminiscent of the infamous Burari murders) has much more depth than the average police procedural taking up OTT space, aided by terrific performances by Siddiqui, Naval and small roles, Setia and Ila Arun as Jatil’s sarcastic mother.
Written by Smita Singh, the film has complex layers of how class and power work, and how the rich close ranks against outsiders, like the persistent cop. For people like the Bansals, it is easy to buy or threaten their way out of anything. The case may be solved, but doubts remain.
Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders
Directed by Honey Trehan
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Chitrangada Singh, Rajat Kapoor, Deepti Naval and others.
On Netflix
