A well-executed whodunit is like a tiered chocolate cake, each layer adding a delicious new twist. But Bollywood just can’t seem to get it right. Its latest offerings, Anu Menon’s Neeyat—which draws heavily from Netflix’s Knives Out—and Sonam Kapoor’s comeback vehicle Blind, released on Jio Cinema the same week, are both damp squibs. Their failure to entice and entertain the audience reflects Bollywood’s inability to deliver compelling whodunits at a time when true crime is the flavour of the season on OTT.
Neeyat brings Vidya Balan back to the big screen after Mission Mangal (2019). But it fails to set off fireworks like Kahaani (2012), a film that got Balan a National Film Award. Like Knives Out (2019), a gallery of characters has been invited to a castle in Scotland for the birthday bash of a Vijay Mallya-esque fugitive AK or Ashish Kapoor. Menon’s ‘borrowings’ from the hit series lack originality in most parts. Neither Balan’s performance as CBI officer Mira Rao, the desi version of Benoit Blanc, nor a brilliant ensemble cast could recreate the magic.
Sonam Kapoor’s Blind is based on the 2011 Korean film of the same name. Kapoor plays Gia, a Sikh woman in Glasgow who loses her job, eyesight, and younger brother in a car accident, and stumbles upon a serial killer who kills women.
It bears a striking resemblance to Sara Ali Khan’s Gaslight (2023), the third big whodunit of the year released in March. Khan plays a paraplegic woman named Meesha, who is trying to uncover the truth of her father’s absence in a castle in Rajasthan. Both Gia and Meesha struggle with a disability while trying to unmask a killer, but neither of them evokes the kind of edgy and tense suspense that the films clearly intended.
None of the two films offers the satisfaction of decoding mystery. And that is the problem with most Bollywood whodunits released in the past few years. They look promising at first but fail to execute the plot with authenticity.
Lazy writing drowns Neeyat, Blind and Gaslight. There are no goosebumps, nerve-wracking and brain-scratching moments. All three opt for a female character who is forgettable at best. Balan, who played Vidya Bagchi in Kahaani, could help the film only so much. The backstory to her character fails to deliver the kind of sucker punch Bagchi did.
A compelling whodunit relies either on an idiocentric genius investigator, or the ingenuity of the killer to keep the audience at the edge of their seats. Originality has never been Bollywood’s strong suit, but none of the three recent films hit the bull’s eye. Neeyat still has Balan’s performance as a saving grace but Gaslight and Blind are rudderless ships.
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OTT and true crime
Bollywood whodunits have failed to evolve despite low box office sales and OTT stepping in with a slew of offerings from Indian Predator and House of Horrors: The Burari Deaths, and Mumbai Mafia: Police Vs The Underworld. Spanning several episodes, true crime documentaries have more time to delve into the layers of crime and murder.
Out of the top 15 shows on OTT platforms released in 2022, five were of true crime and thrillers genres, concluded an Ormax report. The list was topped by Ajay Devgn-starrer Rudra: The Edge of Darkness, a copy of Idris Alba’s famous British show Luther (2010). Another was Criminal Justice: Adhura Sach, again a copy of the original UK show Criminal Justice (2008).
Many Hindi offerings on OTT have been inspired from hit shows and movies from the UK or the US, but unlike Bollywood, they pull it off with good scripts and layered storytelling.
From serial killers and conspiracies to political scandals, most of these OTT shows have not pulled any punches when it comes to feeding into the audience’s need for criminal voyeurism. While shows like Delhi Crime (2019) managed to show rather than titillate in its two seasons, others like Indian Predator: The Butcher of Delhi (2022) gave in to excesses of violence and gore. Despite that, both were hits.
One of the key ingredients is ‘based on true events’. Hansal Mehta cracked the code with two of his shows–Sony Liv’s Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020) and Netflix’s Scoop (2023) Both are based on real events and take from extensive books written about them. Debashis Basu’s 1992 book The Scam: Who Won, who Lost, who Got Away inspired Scam 1992 while Scoop drew its narrative from Jigna Vora’s Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison.
Netflix has come out with a volume of true crime shows—across languages—since the 2020 pandemic. One of its most-watched films in 2020 was Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte’s thriller Raat Akeli Hai, a whodunit set in Uttar Pradesh. The slow burn might not have been the best of its genre, but the setting and its cast managed to make it impactful.
There is an element of authenticity in true crime shows based on ‘real life’ that the audience is clearly lapping up. In such a viewing atmosphere, half-baked copies and lazy writing doesn’t make the cut, especially when they are fictional.
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Evolved audience
Whodunits have never been the most popular genre in Bollywood. Those that have worked at the box office like Samay (2003) and Kahaani (2012) are either borrowed, copied or remade versions—frame-by-frame—of South Indian films. If nothing, Blind, Neeyat, and Gaslight could have taken a leaf out of the Bollywood remakes of the Malayalam Drishyam, parts 1 and 2. The Hindi versions, starring Ajay Devgn and Tabu, are also frame-by-frame remakes of the original films but the riveting plot kept the audience on tenterhooks.
In the 1990s, Bollywood films coupled with good music, big stars and shock value such as 100 Days (1991), Khiladi (1992) and Gupt: The Hidden Truth (1997) still raked in commercial success. Last of this lot was the experimental and dark Kaun? (1999), directed by Ram Gopal Verma. But much like the director himself, that very brand of movies slowly eclipsed.
In the 2000s, the mood shifted and so did the shoot locations. Glamour was replaced by experiments, and small towns or cities like Kolkata took centre space (as seen in Kahaani). But it was still a one-off success. With the introduction of streaming platforms and the proliferation of true crime and gritty small-town crime shows, the viewing pattern changed. People either look for authenticity or larger-than-life dramas. Films like Neeyat, Blind and Gaslight have managed to offer neither.
With Kahaani as the last gold standard, it comes as no surprise that the recent churning of whodunits fails to make an impact. Scenic locations or spooky castles and even serial killers cannot make audiences sit through unimaginative storytelling. They would rather flip through OTT platforms and find a better movie in the comfort of their homes.
Views are personal.
This article is part of a series called Beyond the Reel. You can read all the articles here.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)