Rating : 4.1/5
Genre : Mystery
Year : 2020
Running time : 2 hour 29 minutes
Director : Honey Trehan
Cast : Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Ila Arun, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Nishant Dahiya, Aditya Shrivastav, Tigmanshu Dhulia
Kid rating : PG
Podcast Review : Apple Podcasts, Spotify
Inspector Jatil Yadav (Siddiqui) of Kanpur is investigating the murder of Raghubeer Singh – a rich old man with political aspirations. On the night of his wedding to his mistress (Apte), Singh, still dressed in wedding finery, is found shot and bludgeoned to death in his own bed. As Yadav peels back the layers, he discovers that the Singh was not a much-loved man. Raghubeer Singh had a large family – siblings, nieces and nephews, but no one seems to be too upset at his death. Yadav’s search for the truth gets more difficult when he runs into powerful political roadblocks, with his own boss SSP Shukla (Dhulia) advocating caution; this is a connected family with secrets to keep.
Raat Akeli Hai comes across as true-blue murder mystery – almost like Agatha Christie’s works. Everyone’s a suspect. There are motivations galore, slumbering jealousies and distrust. The film keeps things interesting by introducing us to various personalities – it is a large household and each of the household members has had a different relationship with the dead man.
Inspector Yadav, like Poirot, has his quirks. He is a bachelor and his mother (played by the magnificent Ila Arun) is frantic to get him married – she goes around showing his photograph to random, pretty women at weddings, and thinks he looks no less than Ajay Devgan with his sunglasses on 🙂 . Yadav , meanwhile realizes he has an affinity towards Radha, Singh’s mistress-turned-newly-minted widow.
Raat Akeli Hai has an excellent star cast. There is Nawazuddin Siddiqui of course playing Jatil Yadav with such grace and ease that you can’t help feeling for the poor sod. Radhika Apte plays Radha beautifully – she is a suspect in the murder but see-saws convincingly between exuding innocence and street-smarts. Then there is Ila Arun, his nosy, pushy mom who means well. There is Shivani Raghuvanshi (we saw her in the fabulous series Made In Heaven) and Nishant Dahiya (he was one of the leads in the cute teenie-bopper romance Mujhse Fraandship Karoge). The lovely Shweta Tripathi has a smaller role as Raghubeer Singh’s daughter – you might remember her as earnest Dr. Shreya from Season 2 of Laakhon Mein Ek.
The film is an engrossing, well-paced mystery, with an engaging lead and suitably mysterious characters. I liked that the film explores the characters just enough – not too little detail, not too much, just enough to keep things interesting. Some great acting rounds off this well-done film. Director Trehan makes an excellent debut as a full-fledged director in his own right – I will look out for more of his work. Mysteries are hard to create anyway, and given that we have a drought of them in Hindi cinema (the last well-done whodunit I remember was Manorama 6 feet under) makes Raat Akeli Hai an invaluable addition.
Highly recommended.
Kidwise: Some violence, partial nudity.
