Review: The Great Indian Murder (2022)
Pratik Gandhi stars as a CBI officer and Richa Chadda as an investigating officer in this nine episode crime political saga.
The Great Indian Murder, based on the book Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup (whose previous book Q&A became the hit-film Slumdog Millionaire) and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia seems to traverse political and criminal corridors in a gritty way, but does not live up to the ‘Tigmanshu mark’ as seen before in Criminal Justice or Paan Singh Tomar.
It follows the murder investigation of Vicky Rai, an industrialist with a casanova lifestyle, who is killed at his own party to celebrate his acquittal in the rape and murder of two young girls. He is the son of a powerful politician, played by Ashutosh Rana, who demands a CBI inquiry in the supposed murder of his son.
The book undercovers the story of 6 suspects. However, two of them (an American, and a Bollywood actress) are yet to be uncovered in the show. Season 1 ends with not a clue about the killer.
The show delves into nothing new. It has the same trope as most murder mysteries – a top politician, a henchman, a former bureaucrat, a lover, a crooked small thief, and someone who comes from outside the city. Every time an episode reveals the person murdering Vicky in cold blood, the following one reveals that the bullet missed, and it was in fact someone else who eventually killed him.
It is also difficult to decipher and tell the perspectives of those being interrogated from the perspective of the actual series, as there is no single narrator. Flashbacks are also told in a frame-wise sequence, leaving it up to us to decipher the exact information. In one scene, we see Ekati, the tribal man who narrates to the officer his story in which he’s narrating to another officer his story: a flashback within a flashback. Additionally, what also didn’t make sense to me is Ekati – who can barely speak a language – elaborates on his life to the Hindi-speaking officers.
In one scene, there is an earthquake in Delhi amidst the investigation. The shaky-camera natural calamity scene serves zero purpose but it’s there.
We are also shown the diversity of India as the series travels the breadth of the country. Kolkata is marked by a montage of all its famous landmarks (including Howrah bridge), Chennai by a Tamil film song shoot, Andaman by tribal dance and, Jaisalmer by a Rajasthani folk ballad that disappears before its second stanza. Dhulia has made wise use of old Hindi songs throughout the show, which tell us a lot about the character and the scene.
Every scene exists solely to move the story forward, to impart more information. Dhulia tries to entangle the narrative with a lot of complexities (including Naxalite undertones), which merely adds to the runtime without adding any value to the core conflict.
There is almost no standout performance in the show, despite its stellar cast. Pratik Gandhi as a CBI officer does not bring to the table the stature that goes along with the role. I really expected him to have a stronger performance, after his OTT debut with Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story. Richa Chadha, who plays the investigating officer delivers up to a certain mark. Along with them, the show stars Sharib Hashmi, Raghubir Yadav, and Shashank Arora.
The Great Indian Murder has been written by Dhulia, co-written by Vijay Maurya, and Puneet Sharma, and produced by Priti Vinay Sinha and Ajay Devgn’s Reel Life Entertainment. You can watch this crime saga on Disney + Hotstar.
