It has the usual bunch of cliches but it also starts off with much going for it.
Sharp cop Vikram (Rajkummar Rao) from the Homicide Investigation Team (HIT) comes with his share of demons. The sight of fire stuns him, the visual of dead young girls freezes him.
In slices of flashbacks, his trauma is revealed.
A psychiatrist assessing him for PTDS declares him not yet ready for police work but strangely, her unfit-for-duty report is never seriously filed.
And so Vikram goes on the trail of a missing young girl whose parents are the Commissioner’s close friends.
In the dock is Ibrahim (Milind Gunaji), a cop on the beat who interacted with the missing girl.
Meanwhile, Vikram’s girlfriend Neha (Sanya Malhotra) from the forensics department goes missing too.
Red herrings are scattered all over the place, the mystery taking unexpected turns that go into an orphanage and adoption and a neighbour’s house and attention-seeking devices. The finger of suspicion points at different people at different points.
However, writer-director Dr Sailesh Kolanu’s ability to intrigue loses to his penchant for the tiresomely familiar.
A back story where fire paralyses the main lead is as old as the TV show The Black List.
The tiresome and much-used element of two efficient cops bristling at the sight of each other until they join forces to bring down the culprit, is put in for no apparent reason other than high testosterone and fragile egos.
While all this would have been eventually inconsequential if the ending had been satisfying, the murder mystery is solved so illogically that it’s like a cake rising only to fall inedibly flat. Instead of a sense of fulfilment that a murder and a mystery have reached a sensible conclusion, the viewer is left wondering why any husband would behave in the manner that the culprit does.
Rajkummar Rao is an efficient actor but is not charismatic enough to hold the audience for a little over two hours. Especially when there’s nothing extraordinary in the material he’s given to play with. Rajkummar also needs to be asked by his directors to slow down his dialogue delivery by a few seconds as his bullet speed tends to make some of his lines inaudible.
The title Hit The First Case is classic ground preparation for another case in the form of a sequel. But Kolanu should truly attempt to veer away from the usual and wind up with a more believable and credible explanation the next time around.
Until then, in spite of showing promise initially, a few well picturised action scenes and the vacant space in theatres for a true blue whodunnit, HIT will be far from being a box-office hit.
Hit: The First Case Trailer
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