The Stoneman Murders Hindi film review

Year 1983.A series of killings occur in the mega city of Bombay.The victims happen to be pavement dwellers with their heads smashed with stones and the killings occur at night when the victims are asleep.Police is mystified and in spite of increasing night patrol,there is no stopping of the carnage.Mean while inspector Sanjay is suspended for a custodial death.He wants to get back into the force,so with the help of his superior Satam,he unofficially carries out the investigation to nab the serial killer who is known as the Stoneman killer by now.The film looks at the cat and mouse game between the officer and the psychopath where Sanjay is so overwhelmed in this quest where by cracks begin to appear in his family life.The film is an edge of the seat taut thriller where a surprise conclusion awaits at the end when the serial killer's identity is unmasked.

Director Manish Gupta has to be applauded for telling this story in a realistic manner,rather than taking the approach of the manipulative ways of Hindi commercial cinema.He has been able to extract good performances from lead actors.The investigative aspect is structured in a way with which one can identify and seems authentic and natural.The inner skirmishes among the police department is portrayed without any exaggeration.In fact loved the portrayal of Sanjay who also has some dirty secrets in his cupboard who is not the straightforward one as one assumes. Even though there is no wide pool of suspects,still the way suspicion shifts from person to person hooking the viewer to the proceedings has to be applauded,thereby passing the litmus test of what a good suspense movie requires.

The reasoning behind the serial killer's objective seems plausible,but the film's minor flaw sees to be the fact that the ease in which the killer is able to pursue Sanjay,do raise doubt about killer's identity at early stage.May be the screenplay should have taken care to have a wider pool of suspects so that film would have been more interesting.

Kay Kay Menon has given an excellent performance.He has been able to bring forth the inner turmoils,emotional outbursts of a cop outwitted by a wily,cunning psychopath convincingly.Arbaaz khan unfortunately has not been able to nail the character.He looks wooden in many scenes.The rest of the cast is adequate.Background music is excellent.It has been able to bring alive that eerie and haunting atmosphere of the film.The songs are also well tuned.

My Rating: ABOVE AVERAGE