The Great Indian Murder Review: Strong Performance and Murder Mystery Chock-Full Of Political Conspiracies And Tricks
Cast: Richa Chadha, Pratik Gandhi, Ashutosh Rana, Jatin Goswami, Raghuvir Yadav, Sharib Hashmi, Shashank Arora, Amey Wagh, Mani and Ensemble
Director: Tigmanshu Dhulia
Streaming Platform: Disney+ Hotstar (click to watch)
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The kind of cinema Tigmanshu Dhulia creates, his stories often go hand in hand with the characters’ undercurrents of commentary on contemporary politics. So, Tigmanshu gets the pitch to play freely when it comes to a story woven around a high-profile murder like Six Suspects, which is chock-full of political conspiracies and gimmicks. After directing Criminal Justice for Disney Plus Hotstar, Tigmanshu brings to the platform Vikas Swarup’s novel Six Suspectus this time in the form of 9-episode web series The Great Indian Murder. Ajay Devgan and Preeti Vinay Sinha are the producers of this series.
The Great Indian Murder Review: The Story
Six Suspects Novel was published in 2016 and one can feel the presence of many such political incidents, whose noise has often been heard in debates on social media. Espionage of politicians, allegations of misuse of CBI for political gains and losses, devious son of a power-drunk leader, a leader who conspires to any extent to fulfill his political ambition, fake religious leader, Naxalism, etc… and the CBI investigation into the murder of Vicky Rai culminating all these in one thread. The Great Indian Murder Series also takes a tour of India, as the story expands to Delhi, Raipur, Jaisalmer, Chennai, Kolkata and the Andaman Islands.
At the heart of the story of The Great Indian Murder is the murder of Vicky Rai, the son of Jagannath Rai, the stalwart leader of Chhattisgarh. Vicky is caught in the rape and murder case of two girls. After being convicted by the High Court, Vicky leaves the Supreme Court. In the joy of being acquitted, he throws a big party at his farm house in Delhi, where he is shot dead among all the guests. The biggest suspense is who fired the bullet?
Jagannath, in consultation with his political master sitting in Delhi, hands over the investigation of the son’s murder to the CBI using political pressure, for which he has a bigger motive. The case is entrusted to CBI officer Suraj Yadav, who gets clear instructions from Jagannath’s political master as to which political rival to shoot Vicky Rai. The way Suraj Yadav investigates, knowingly ignores the facts and prepares a different narration in order to follow this instruction and implicate a political opponent, the following story is based on this.
Suraj is investigating this case in collaboration with Delhi Police officer Sudha Bharadwaj. There are three primary suspects in the murder – Munna, a professional thief, a eketi of Andaman’s tribal race and Mohan Kumar, a former diplomat. All three were present in Vicky Rai’s party for different reasons. On a search after the murder, Munna and Eketi find the pistol, while Mohan Kumar’s pistol is later recovered from under a table. Suraj and Sudha interrogate all three. The story expands with the interrogation of Munna and Eketi and several important revelations. Munna, who lives in a slum in Delhi, is a professional thief and also the lover of Ritu Rai, the half-sister of Vicky Rai.
Eketi of Andaman’s tribal race, who has set out to bring back the stolen idol of his deity Ingetai. The tribal clan is convinced that the cause of the epidemic that has spread in their tribe is because of the disappearance of the idol of Ingetai. Eketi is helped in this quest by Ashok Rajput of Jaisalmair, who is a welfare officer there. His strings also later connect with the murder of Vicky Rai. Her enmity with Vicky has a different track. The story of the series actually originates on the tour of India through the statue of Ingetai.
The third suspect is retired diplomat Mohan Kumar, who is a victim of personality disorder. Generally, Mohan Kumar, who is fond of vanity and alcohol, whenever someone is shocked, starts considering himself as Mahatma Gandhi and acts like him. The transformation of Mohan Kumar into these two different personalities is also an important end of Vicky Rai’s murder. Another suspect is Ashok Rajput, but he doesn’t fit in with CBI officer Sooraj’s narration, so he is not on his list. Seeing the innocent Eketi trapped in Sooraj’s narration, Sudha gets Ashok Rajput investigated and then Ashok’s story opens. Since there are six suspects in the novel. So the story is expected to move forward with the remaining three suspects in the second season.
The Great Indian Murder Review and Analysis
The way Tigmanshu Dhulia and his writing team have divided the series into episodes on the basis of characters, it is interesting and despite so many characters and sub-plot, it is not difficult to understand the story. The nine episodes are divided according to the main characters and each episode draws a blueprint for that character. Simultaneously, the series progresses by connecting the past of these characters with the happenings in the present. This gives an answer to every ‘why’ that arises regarding the characters. However, the side effect of this is that the pace of the middle episodes slows down and the main plot of the story seems to be missing.
The biggest strength of The Great Indian Murder is the performance of the actors. Prateek Gandhi’s performance in the role of corrupt CBI officer Suraj Yadav is strong, but seeing him does not feel like a CBI officer. Richa Chadha is a natural in the role of Delhi Police’s DCP Sudha Bhardwaj. Ashutosh Rana has done a great job in the character of an ambitious and a leader who conspires to any extent to achieve his political objective. There are many layers to this character, which Ashutosh has successfully carved.
The two actors who impress the most in the series are Jatin Goswami as Vicky Rai and Raghubir Yadav as Mohan Kumar. Jatin’s screen presence as Vicky Rai, the son of a stalwart, autocrat and evil eye on his own half-sister, is strong and at times scary. However, his acting and dialogue delivery is sometimes a glimpse of Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Raghubir Yadav is overwhelming everyone in Mohan Kumar’s unusual character.
He has lived the transformation between Mohan Kumar and Mahatma Gandhi with great ease. There’s a layer of humor hidden in it, which keeps the interest going. Shashank Arora as Munna, Mani PR as Eketi, Sharib Hashmi as Ashok Rajput, Amey Wagh as Journalist and Vigilante Arun Deshmukh i.e. citizen, Rucha Inamdar as Munna’s girlfriend Ritu Rai made their presence felt. Is. All these characters are related to the main plot and support it in some way or the other. The dialogues are according to the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. The bigger the circle, the smaller the circle, as do the lines that make an impact.
The Great Indian Murder Review: The Last Words
Technically too, The Great Indian Murder impresses. The story revolves around multiple cities, so for the sake of credibility, it has been shot in real locations. Scenes in different cities are locally linked through cinematography, which enlarges the canvas of the story.
