Directed by : Sailesh Kolanu

Tujhse sach kabhi chup hi nahi sakta.. 

Rajkummar Rao, Akhil Iyer and Shilpa Shukla in a still from 'Hit : The First Case'

Spoilers ahead..


Vikram JaiSingh (Rajkummar Rao) who is suffering from PTSD, on advice from doctor and his girlfriend Neha Mehta (Sanya Malhotra) goes on a few months break from his police duty. Some weeks later he's informed about Neha gone missing and soon Vikram realizes that the case is connected with another girl Preeti Mathur (Rose Khan) who was kidnapped few months earlier. 

A fast, real fast pacy whodunnit crime drama is always great to watch. There are very few distractions, the romantic angle is actually under-done while the songs never feel un-necessary plus used in small portions only. There's Rajkummar Rao as the lead who plays this character with a past we are never fully told about making him be a cop that is all the time risking his mental health trying to solve cases. And he does a great job in each and every frame of it.

Its the small choices that the writing team makes that spoils the movie and I am not yet talking about the big reveal in the end. For instance, why would a neighbour divorcee Sheela (Shilpa Shukla) who's been friendly with Preeti, suddenly decides to get attention by sending a handwritten note about the body.. are some people so out of order that they would risk the police torture just to get some limelight? 

Then, there was that un-necessary death of Ibrahim (Milind Gunaji) who's been one of main suspect all the while which I felt is brilliantly done in the screenplay (even the trailer cut suggests that he maybe involved), yet in that night rain scene we see him for no reason go missing only to come and get hit by a bullet. If that wasn't enough, we see this other cop who has always been boring you with the rivalry out of nowhere appears to save life of Vikram. 

Coming to the climax, I felt the reason for murder and the murderer both were good ones, and even the motive was understandable. For me she didn't appear silly, people are obsessive, and in love that obsession can lead to anywhere, even she kills her accidentally only. Where it misfires is that the character in question is seen so less in the narrative which is like cheating. Most of the best whodunnits are where the character who does it is always or atleast 70% of screentime present right in the frame and you couldn't guess it right. 

Sanya Malhotra gets very less screen-time too, and her character is mostly used to try to confuse the narrative than do anything else. Dalip Tahil and Akhil Iyer are good in supporting roles.

Overall, Hit- The First Case is decent because of its pace and strong lead acting of Rajkummar Rao, but the writing issues are all over the narrative especially the 2nd act with the final reveal only making it worse. 

My Rating : 5.5/10