HIT: The First Case

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Sanya Malhotra, Shanu Kumar

Writer:  Sailesh Kolanu

Director: Sailesh Kolanu

Producer/s: Bhushan Kumar, Dil Raju, Krishan Kumar, Kuldeep Rathore

Plot:

HIT Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Sanya Malhotra, Milind Gunaji, Shilpa Shukla, and ensemble.

Director: Dr. Sailesh Kolanu

What’s Good: Rajkummar Rao makes you believe in his world and that even the slight melo-drama is justified because of him is good. Also, half the plot is pretty amazing.

What’s Bad: The reward that we get after investing so much. It could have been more edged and layered.

Loo Break: The movie does get into the basic Whodunnit clichés, that is your time.

Watch or Not?: If you have seen the original, I have been told this is almost the same. If you haven’t, you can give it a chance or wait for its OTT release.

Language: Hindi.

Available On: In Theatres Near You.

Runtime: 135 Minutes.

User Rating:

A man named Vikram (Rajkummar) is suffering from PTSD due to past traumas and that is slowly killing him. When he takes a break from his police job, his girlfriend and a stranger girl disappear. The cop is back on duty and begins the movie.

HIT Movie Review: Script Analysis

How do you talk about a suspense thriller whose first frame in itself is a suspense without giving spoilers? I am going to try. Well, the main job of a whodunnit is to kind of turn its audience into pseudo-Sherlock Holmes and get on the journey with the film while holding them till the very end. The last film that managed to do it with full marks and a glorious reward was Sriram Raghavan’s Andhadhun and it’s already remade in all possible languages.

Hit: The First Case isn’t at par with Andhadhun, but isn’t very weak either. The premise of the movie is pretty strong and what adds the right flavour is Sailesh Kolanu’s screenplay. He is in no rush to tell you things because in his mind he is creating a franchise and he has a lot of time to tell his desires narrative. Now, I haven’t seen the original Telugu version, so I don’t know if the approach is same as the filmmaker is.

Sailesh’s writing is influenced by the Whodunnit that revolves around a case with no clues. But his style is highly influenced by the television form of drama and he kind of even brings that to his product. Like even the opening shot, and what follows. But he even somehow managed to make it all work and that is what is important. I won’t be able to explain further without spoilers.

Of course he resorts to clichéd plot lines and refuges at many points. He even goes on to point out many things around him. The fear of safety in women, the societal gaze and judgement over their choice of clothes and so on. But forgets to take those point to conclusion. What he also forgets is that when remaking, you can also rectifying or enhance your own product. Isn’t it kind of a second chance or boon? The climax and everything involved in it seems very lazy and half baked. Nothing out of it makes sense after a point.

There is a woman who does something just to seek attention like she has no idea law is a thing, police officers conducting lie detector test and narco test on the same day. If that isn’t enough, there is sudden change of heart between people who were legit fighting to kill each other 2 minutes ago. Also, every only keeps forgetting their accent and switching to normal Hindi all the time.

HIT Movie Review: Star Performance

Rajkummar Rao understands his assignment and does what his director wants from him. The actor by now has made a record of being the best part about mediocre films and maybe that has taught him to adapt to any ecosystem. Here he is amazing when he has to throw mean punchlines and also when real punches. But he forgets his accent a lot of times too.

Sanya Malhotra exists only to be kidnapped and found. It’s a cameo with no back story, just a conflict creator.