Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders starts off with a balanced dimension, but halfway through it turns tormenting—an entire slum that stands illegal, housing thousands of human souls—its people get trashed, renamed as dirt and filth, strouting them as the pigs, gets branded as the ‘jealous class’, only to put up a mirror in front of you with smeared with cold blood—and then ask you—what do you see?
Directed by Honey Trehan, Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders is the sequel to Raat Akeli Hai (2020) and features an ensemble cast of Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Revathi, Radhika Apte, Chitrangada Singh, Rajat Kapoor, and others.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Jatil Yadav fears no one. While the entire system hurries to close an open-and-shut case, Jatil senses a deeper rot beneath the Bansals’ legacy. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s dense screen presence keeps the narrative taut, making Jatil the lone ruler of the investigation, who is unafraid to stand against the consensus. However, Jatil’s greatest battle is not with the case but with the perception that he has created of himself. Among his colleagues, he inspires fear more than respect. He becomes an object of ridicule fo his obsession with finding out the truth that no one else is willing to acknowledge. Jatil here becomes aware that his integrity has made him a professional outsider. In this hostility, he finds solace in Radha, played by Radhika Apte. Radha becomes his emotional support. Radha’s firm belief in him gives his isolation meaning, transforming his doubt into confidence and reassurance. That’s that: Jatil becomes an empathetic seeker of justice, and he sees beyond privilege and power. By the end, we see how, through Jatil, justice is served to the underprivileged, who are victims buried beneath the polished facade of the Bansals.
Revathi, as Dr Panicker, asserts herself into the character, like right on the grounds. Dr Panicker is a forensic expert. Crime bends around her intellect. Evidence obeys her eyes. She reconstructs murders with zero fear. She turns the brutal murders into sequences. For her murder is no mystery; it’s all a method. She catalogues everything. Her mind works like an autopsy table, sentiment doesn’t survive, nor anything that is unnecessary. She rejects honorifics because she doesn’t need them. “Madam” dilutes the precision of who se is. “Dr Panicker” is just perfect and sufficient—feels earned and accurate. It’s all about competence for Dr Panicker. That being said, Dr Panicker and Jatil recognise each other instantly. We see it in the end, when Dr Panicker tells Jatil, “…late…but never wrong.” The two see each other as equals. They make an alliance that is formed on their obsession with crackinga case. While Jatil moves with instinct, Dr Panicker brings structure to that instinct—every time Jatil suspects, Dr Panicker knows what’s in there beyond. The two work as parallel blades, seeking the same truth.
Chitrangada Singh’s Meera Bansal is a mother gripped by a dilemma. Her distress over losing her child nourishes our empathy, but her concealed poise shadows something dirtier. Meera carries elegance, resistance and strength, becoming the family’s pillar—her poise masking the burdens she shoulders to preserve her family’s legacy.
Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders lays bare the sharp and uncomfortable realities of class divisions. Often, the most monumental crimes are rooted in these invisible lines of discrimination—lines that the world ignores, even if they summon injustice. For the common people, grand legacies are meaningless. In a societal machinery so skewed, the privileged always find a way to the top, while the marginalised are left unheard and unseen. By the film’s end, we are confronted with a sobering truth: the world now rewards the ‘survival of the richest,’ not the ‘fittest.’
Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders is currently streaming on Netflix.
IWMBuzz rates it 4/5 stars.
