A.S.I Babita Singh Reporting!

Babita Singh Reporting Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Nimisha Sajayan, Barun Sobti, Anshuman Pushkar

Director: Ambiecka Pandit

What’s Good: Nimisha Sajayan delivers a good act, and Anshuman Pushkar shines in a film that does not put much effort into building their characters!

What’s Bad: The screenplay can’t decide whether it’s a crime thriller or a social drama, and ends up doing justice to neither!

Loo Break: Anytime you want, you might even take a nap if you want!

Watch or Not?: Might skip this one!

Language: Hindi

Available On: Prime Video

Runtime: 2 hours and 11 minutes

User Rating:

Suspense and social drama are two genres that are very tricky to blend, and very rarely is there a film that combines the best of both worlds! In one of the scenes of Babita Singh Reporting, you see Baby’s husband crying and blaming himself for being a bad husband! ‘Kya sochenge log, kaisa behave karta hai apni wife ke saath?’ he cries profusely, and while his wife, our protagonist Baby, is trying to calm him down, he hits harder and reminds her how her inefficiencies lead to the society taunting him for not having a child! ‘Thyroid tumhe hai, lekin bacche ke liye sunna mujhe padta hai!”

On paper, Amita Vyas and Ambiecka Pandit’s script sets out with a deeply empathetic objective: stripping away the glamorous, heroic avatar of a cop to showcase a sub-inspector who is treated like any regular girl in this country. She fights for respect – both at the police station and inside her own home. But on screen, the compassion and empathy this script tries to generate fall short, and the film looks half-baked in the first half itself!

Babita Singh Reporting Movie Review: Script Analysis

The story is a bit tricky! ASI Baby is tricked by her senior to accept a two-week suspension, taking blame for a mistake she did not make! She accepts the suspension, as she wants a long holiday for a trip to her in-laws’ place to perform the god-bharai function of her sister-in-law! However, this trip to her hometown in Rewa turns into an unofficial, obsessive probe into the mysterious death of her childhood friend Bansi (Barun Sobti), and the film attempts to mirror her internal awakening with an external investigation.

Does she find a voice and purpose to her life and profession while solving this case? Does this internal journey of a woman being suppressed in her family and her workspace find its way to a new awakening? All is answered by the film in 2 hours and 11 minutes!

Babita Singh Reporting Movie Review: Star Performance

Nimisha Sajayan is the absolute spine of this film. After watching her deal with the generational disrespect in The Great Indian Kitchen, you know how brilliant this woman can be when it comes to fighting misogyny and patriarchy! But she never lets you trace the self-doubt, humiliation, and quiet defiance in her character! Probably, because she herself struggles to find it! Nimisha is a very strong yet subtle, grounded performer, but she deserved a much sharper film to elevate her skills!

Barun Sobti brings just the right amount of intrigue and ambiguity to his limited role as Bansi, ensuring that his presence lingers over the narrative. However, even his presence is not used properly to sharpen the screenplay!

Anshumaan Pushkar plays the emotionally unavailable, yet the dicey husband, brilliantly! He has an alarmingly convincing precision in this crooked screenplay, and while the rest of the cast tries to find their space to shine in the script, Pushkar does it effortlessly!