The film does more than just document a “genre” story of a serial killer being pursued by a determined cop. The rich-poor divide is what gives this story its sick soul.
Wikipedia says that Sector 36 – written by Bodhayan Roychaudhury and directed by Aditya Nimbalkar – is “loosely based on [the] 2006 Noida serial murders also known as Nithari Killings”. But even with those true-life incidents as backdrop, the film does more than just document what happened. It goes beyond the genre of a serial killer being pursued by a determined cop. (These characters are played, respectively, by Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal). Take the fact that the serial killer likes to watch a Kaun Banega Creorepati-like game show. It could just be a time-marker: the 2000s, after all, is when the show kicked off and gripped the imagination of a nation. But there is also the sense of a dream: the dream that you could be the poorest of the poor, but by answering a few questions, “chand sawaal” as the film puts it, you can become a millionaire.
The twisted logic behind the serial killer’s actions is that the poor are born so that the rich can live better. (It’s a little deeper than that, but I am trying to avoid a minor spoiler.) After all, what, really, are the chances that someone from the lower rungs of society can do a KBC and turn their life around? Most of them are destined to live miserable lives and die miserable deaths. It is a crushing thought – as crushing as a forceful boot stamping out the life of a cockroach. This thought becomes one of the many flavourful lines of dialogue in the movie: “Cockroach jitna bhi body bana le, jeet hamesha joote ki hoti hai”. Do we care about the poor any more than we care about a cockroach? This becomes the stunning centrepiece of the film, a sort of debate almost, which lasts some 17-18 minutes.
Vikrant plays the killer, named Prem. Deepak Dobriyal plays the cop, Pandey. Both actors are fantastic: Vikrant is expressive and energetic, while Deepak is still and stoic. This stretch is one of the best acting showcases of the year, and also one of the best writing showcases of the year – because it transforms a genre film into something of a social commentary. As difficult as it is to talk of an interval-free OTT film in terms of “halves”, the first half of Sector 36 is bloody brilliant. The director has a great eye for staging, and he transforms familiar material into something disturbing and addictive, like an itch you cannot stop scratching. Yes, we do get the typical genre thrills, like a beautifully mounted chase, superbly edited by Sreekar Prasad, or the homage to Psycho, with the visual of a drain hole match-cutting to an open eye. But there’s always something more. The rich-poor divide is what really gives this movie its sick soul.
This layer is so convincing that there was no real need for Prem to have had a troubled past, which may forever change the way you listen to the song Man kyon behka from Utsav. That flashback may provide the method, but social inequality is what provides the madness. Both Prem and Pandey are victims of this vast reality of a story set against the backdrop of a crowded migrant colony. In the case of Prem, the effect is psychological. In the case of Pandey, the effect is visible in very practical terms, in how he is unable to do his job because some higher-up is always asking him to do something else, like search for a missing rich kid instead of trying to solve the serial-murder case.
It’s chilling how – up to a point – both Prem and Pandey have a similar view of the poor, who will never become doctors or engineers, and who will just have unrealised dreams and die one day. There’s a Ram Lila play where we see Sita being kidnapped by Ravana. It’s a little too obvious a parallel to the abductions we see in this movie, but the way I saw it, it’s also a reminder that the powerful have always preyed on the powerless, even in our epics. And behind the scenes of this play, we get a stunning reminder of how we get so used to crime that we open our eyes only when it happens to us. There’s even a point about how casually judgemental we are. If a sex worker disappears, is she not worth searching for? Is the “disgusting” aspect of her profession a reason to disregard her life?
I know I am probably making a thriller sound like a Social Studies lesson – but that’s what’s so special about Sector 36, that it combines crime with commentary. And in a wholly cinematic way. Yes, some of the touches are obvious, like the fact that a rich man is immediately able to call an influential police officer and get an investigating cop off his back. You may wish that some of these scenes had been written with the same kind of nuance as the rest of the film. But there’s lots to like, whether it is Pandey’s tendency to brag about his family or his bringing up Newton’s Third Law of Motion. When Prem casually runs a finger over the photo of a woman he is talking to on the phone, you really wonder what’s going through his mind. Later, you realise it’s probably… love.
The second half of the film doesn’t work as well because… well, there are spoilers ahead till the end of the review, so be warned. Around the one-hour mark, Prem becomes a suspect. You think he will try and escape, but instead – in a writing touch I never saw coming – he confesses. He becomes a pawn and says it all. This leads to that fabulous scene between Prem and Pandey, but after it ends, there’s nowhere for the film to go. The case has been cracked, and now it’s just a question of whether justice will prevail. And in the cynical world that has been presented to us, there is no doubt how things will turn out. (The closing scenes, though, are strangely optimistic.) The emotions should have landed harder. The death of a major character, especially, is painfully predictable. But all things considered, and given the excellence of the two lead actors, Sector 36 is a reminder that whatever OTT is doing to the economy of cinema, it’s certainly contributing to quality.
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