Silence 2: Manoj Bajpayee Can't Save This Jaded Whodunnit

Lesbians of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose except your Zee5 subscriptions. The portrayal of a lesbian character in this clunky oafish whodunnit is so objectionable, it matches up to the political incorrectness of Mohanlal’s malevolent Malayalam movie Monster.

Here it is much worse. The brutal insensitivity with which the lesbian character has been portrayed as embittered, unmoored and unhinged, makes you feel sorry for the writer Sunny Sharma and the director Aban Bharucha Deohans.

Do they even know what they are getting into?

There is an unintentionally funny sequence where a sex escort named Asma (spelt ‘Azma’ in her murder profile, yes she gets murdered) thanks a man for helping her by offering him sex. This one thick-skinned rendition of a poignant human condition is sufficient evidence of the quality of minds which have gone into the making this fruitcake of a whodunnit.

What were they thinking? What are we supposed to be thinking while watching this wobbly whodunnit where Manoj Bajpayee, in a drastic qualitative climbdown, is caught in a web of deceit.

And I don’t mean the laughable plot. The deception here is much deeper. An actor who has lately evolved into a quality-conscious individual is coerced to get down on his knees by a script that screams amateurishness.

Bajpayee return as ACP Avinash Varma. He is a starchy no-nonsense praise-vardi officer who speaks only when necessary. "Maine appko kabhi khate huey dekha nahin," Avinash’s colleague (Sahil Vaid) observes chattily while digging into a sandwich. Bajpayee’s Avinash gives the nosy guy a freezing stare. A script like this can put any good actor into a foul mood. Not that anyone cares whether Avinash eats or drinks. Or just chats on the phone with his daughter who, we gather from the conversation, is leaving the country to study abroad. Attempts to instil a life beyond the uniform just don’t work. No Family Man this time, Manoj plays the stoic cop like Zanjeer on freeze.

There is little room for anyone to feel human, not even an actor of Bajpayee’s calibre. He walks around looking like a man looking to know why he is where he is. No, we don’t need to feel sorry for our hero. His hands are full with a case that is all over the place. My concern is not Avinash Varma, but the actor playing the stoic Avinash, Manoj Bajpayee.

How was he persuaded to part of this bristling balderdash about, hold your breath, human trafficking, prostitution, mental illness, business scams, paedophilia, rape and of course, lesbianism?

Sadly the makers of this tasteless melange of murder and nemesis have no idea how to furnish even a semblance of coherence to the proceedings. The screenplay moves with the determined randomness of a jukebox, hopping and skipping from one episode to another until there are more slain bodies than murder suspects.

And it is so sad to see Prachi Desai as Manoj’s muted assistant. It is not that she has no footage. She just hangs around with little to contribute.

Having sat through the whole film I am still stumped by the raison d’etre of this film. The question is not whodunnit. The question is, whydunnit?