RIFLE RANGE BOY: Bajpai

Silence 1: Can You Hear It?

Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout

Written & Directed: Aban Bharucha Deohans

It is not easy to catch many whodunnit mystery dramas in Indian cinema. Most stories are too convoluted to follow or too outlandish to believe. Sometimes, the investigative officers are given superhuman capabilities and have to single-handedly swashbuckler or chase the villains to the conclusion. That is history.

With more exposure to police procedural TV shows and Hollywood offerings, audiences can no longer be fooled by this dated production. They are demanding more. With the advent of OTT platforms, it seems that newer, bolder, and more realistic scripts, sticking to real investigative police work, are on the menu these days. Many real-life crime dramas are shown as docuseries and movies. These two films with the same cast are fine examples.

In Silence #1, a young lady is found dead with a gaping wound on her head by hikers at a popular hiking site. Novice sleuths or even crime drama addicts can sniff out the perpetrator at the word go. The storytellers decided to go somewhat meandering to trap this suspect. Of course, when this lead turned out to be a red herring, we knew it must be and turned out to be the second on the list anyway. Manoj Bajpai, who assumes the role of a disillusioned police investigator, keeps the plot together. There is a backstory to his frustration, which adds glitz to the whole affair.

As the first outing in Silence #2, Bajpai’s service in the particular unit, Special Crime Unit (SCU), is requested explicitly by VVIP. An important political figure is gunned down in a bar, and Bajpai is told to get to the bottom of it. Slowly, investigations take a tangent. It spins into a yarn of child prostitution and call-girl racket. The ending, however, turns out to be a whimper as the wrongdoer, after an elaborate execution of her whole crime, just admits to her heinous crimes so readily.

Still, it is an engaging one or two.