Vasanthan Ramakrishnan

Another example of a failed mystery thriller movie. A movie that enjoys some great scenery and excellent location fails to deliver any essence in the actual story with excessively emotional story writing that’s not logical in any world. The story begins with an expecting mother who is in a 6-year long search for her child who was reported missing/kidnapped and the basic plot shows if she gets her child back or not but only to find more convulsions and back stories. The movie shows the exact opposite of what an expecting mother should be doing - relentlessly wandering the wilderness alone, constantly doing things that put her baby’s and her life at risk and continuously failing to think from a logical standpoint. I mean, 90% of the screen time you can bet the woman is attempting something that can potentially kill her, she refuses to take help or let anybody know about what she’s doing. For some reason, the cops, her husband or anybody she knows isn’t involved or have any screen time at all. It’s one of those “mommy is a superhero” and motherhood can defeat any evil kind of movie and you start seeing the lack of any logic throughout the film. This is far from what I’d want to see in a thriller movie. The director’s previous movie “V1 Murder case” was rather enjoyable and it brought home a strong social message. This one didn’t go along with my expectations!

NO SPOILERS! A child is shown to be taken to a hospital for falling down a flight of stairs and the head nurse on duty suspects a possible child abuse situation and intimates the police. A strong female higher official is shown to take the case and despite her shift getting over, she along with an SI heads to the hospital in disguise to investigate the case. What starts as a tactical investigation gets bogged down by twists and turns that are overly detailed (time stamps do not make sense!) and burdens the viewer. Initially, the police’s methodical detail-oriented approach to solving the case helps bring out the lies and misinformation but it slowly fades down to a gut based approach. You learn that everyone is lying and somehow involved and that they are just trying to save themselves by committing several further acts of felony. Some of the scenes are emotionally unsettling but are justified as desperate acts done by the characters to cover their tails. What’s worse, the movie desperately tries to justify everyone’s acts citing emotional drivers that in my opinion seem unjust and biased. The movie struggles to pick a side, a viewer can tell that the director is juggling between two important issues but chooses neither. Towards the end, the movie fails to deliver what it would seem to be struggling for, the movie ends with a failed message focusing on the wrong side of the issue. Emotional values tend to take precedence over logical thoughts resulting in a 100-minute mess you wish you didn’t watch.