‘Sector 36’ Movie Review: Vikrant Massey, Deepak Dobriyal star in rancid thriller

Vikrant Massey as Prem in ‘Sector 36’ Photo credit: Netflix

It’s been a sad week for Hindi cinema. The quality of the individual films may vary, but their content is uniformly dark. The cinema is out The Buckingham MurdersAbout the disappearance of a young boy in a UK town. Close to home, in Sector 36Vikrant Massey is Prem, a strange name for the psychopathic butcher he plays. Outside of the daily onslaught of these two headlines and dire news, your only oasis of hope BerlinA moody, claustrophobic spy thriller set in the 90s. Car chases and explosions are few and far between, but at least no minor, as far as I can tell, is tragically killed in Atul Sabharwal’s film.

Although it is not clarified, Sector 36Directed by debutant Aditya Nimbalkar and written by Bodhayan Roychowdhury, takes inspiration from the 2006 Noida serial killings, known as the Nithari massacre. Highly sensational at the time, the case was rife with allegations of organ trafficking, cannibalism and necrophilia. The two accused – a wealthy businessman and his maid – were sentenced to death for the rape and murder, but, in 2023, the Allahabad High Court acquitted them, citing lack of sufficient evidence and slated investigative agencies for a minimal probe.

It’s probably the controversial nature of the story that prompted Netflix to lend it a fictional slant. Several children and young women have gone missing from Rajiv Colony, a sprawling, densely populated migrant slum in Delhi. Since the victims come from poor backgrounds, the cops are used to turning a blind eye, including Ram Charan Pandey (Deepak Dobriyal), a Newton-worshiping sub-inspector who bows to “the system”. However, when his own daughter, Bedu, is nearly kidnapped by Prem (in a Ravana guise), Rama springs into action. His change of heart feels sudden and convenient – this, though, may be the point, underlining the Indian attitude to take command when the disaster stops.

At once ambiguous, violent and exploitative, Sector 36 offers no convincing analysis of the murder. The creators, it seems, analyzed every strand of an incredibly muddled investigation, then agreed to keep all possibilities open. Their reading of urban inequality and the plight of destitute children is largely a shrug, ‘nobody cares’. Fatal for a crime thriller, this is a non-specific film. Scenes showing Love alone in a big house are an assortment of serial killer clichés. His sleazy employer, Basi, played by Akash Khurana, is a deranged transport baron who walks around in a monogrammed housecoat. The weak still dig into Delhi’s corrupt police machinery: IPS, a character joke, now stands for ‘in the service of politicians’.

Saurabh Goswami was the co-cinematographer underworld (2021), which explains the glamorous dark look and mythology-fueled image. ‘Man Kyun Behka’ sounds like old cassette players, a better sonic choice than the plink and plunk of the background score. Mid-2000s Mildly Confused: A version of Kaun Banega is a millionaire Thrills the nation, and, in one shot, we see a Nokia 6600, a precursor to an iPhone for most Indians back then.

Massey’s performance has a jolt of camp – he peers through the grill of a giant gate, taunting and taunting his enemy – which is undercut by Nimbalkar’s overly earnest speaking. In a crucial scene, Prem records her confession before Ram, in excruciating detail, yet in return Nawazuddin Siddiqui lacks the unsettling mischievousness of playing with Vicky Kaushal. Raman Raghav 2.0. A disturbing Deepak Dobriyal performance is a rarity, so in one sense, and one sense only, Sector 36 an incident It’s a bit of true-crime, and a lot of false notes.

Sector 36 is currently streaming on Netflix