Shahid Kapoor did a copy-paste Telugu-to-Hindi remake of Jersey, and yes the Hindi version of Arjun Reddy as well. Now Rajkummar Rao falls prey to the same: Hit: The First Case is a Hindi remake of a Telugu film, with the same sensibilities (read: the same cringey attitude towards female characters).
In 2022, why do filmmakers still think that their audience won't just watch the original with subtitles?
That said, there are obvious problems with the plot: a police officer who is so obviously traumatised is considered to be the ‘best officer’. The department does not get him an official psych evaluation or therapy. A shrink who claims that she is a friend eventually reveals the patient’s information to his girlfriend, ‘tumhare bhale ke liye’ (for your own good), doctor-patient confidentiality be damned!
Perhaps the hope is that all will be forgiven as trivial snags in the big picture - that this much licence in a Telugu film, is warranted. I object! I have seen awesome Telugu films - solid action plus romance films like Athadu to psychological thrillers like Anukokunda Oka Roju - where stories are coherent, even though there are flawed characters. But these days, it looks like the hero has to be asocial to be called a Telugu film hero. According to this trend, an alcoholic man with a temper can be portrayed as the best surgeon at a hospital, a man who blames his nagging wife and drinks away his life but returns to the sports field because he wants to be hero to his son and he wins, then an obviously ticking time bomb can be police officer of the Homicide Intervention Unit, no? And why did the HIT unit and DNA lab have to be in Jaipur? Are there so many homicides in the pink city?
The chase scenes shot in Jaipur are brilliantly done and it’s easy to give ten out of ten for cinematography. But logic asks, why is the department called the Homicide ‘Intervention’ Unit? It should be called the ‘Homicide Solving Unit’, no? They would intervene in a homicide if they had help from someone whose spidey senses would tingle and their premonition would lead them to someone who may be about to commit a crime… No, wait! That was Minority Report with Tom Cruise playing the commander of a Pre Crime unit…
The best cop of the department - his boss says so - is a psych mess. Rajkummar Rao freezes when he sees anything on fire (past trauma). He is angry as heck (he gets riled up by a fellow officer who is merely sledging him as cricketers do!) and his way of policing is to tell his fellow junior officer Rohit to do this and that and then this again. No wonder Rohit grumbles, ‘I’m the one who is doing everything for you!’ (Best line of the film - that!)
The plot: two girls are missing. Their disappearance seems to be random and then it is not. But one of them is the girlfriend of our traumatised hero. Traumatised bole toh it’s a chance to show acting chops bole toh overacting. So while the overacting (swiping the lamp off the table in a loud crash, yelling his guts out in an office, getting into fisticuffs with an officer who is constantly baiting him) pleases a section of the junta, you wonder why Rajkummar Rao of Shahid fame has chosen this film.
The clues come at the audience fast and furious. DNA test results are offered by the labs faster than you can say Coronavirus RT PCR tests! What?! You are amazed. Usually the cops in the movies complain about slow lab work (but here, the heroine who is ‘in charge’ of the lab, tells the lab person, ‘Two hours is too long, get me results in one hour!’ Wow!
Having a puja at home to appease the gods is the ‘done thing’ in the South, but in Rajasthan and the North? I suppose it’s temple visits to ask for a ‘mannat’, or ‘jagratas’ that are more common. And if you must, it’s as they sang in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag: ‘Havan karenge!’
Apologies for nitpicking, but in the Telugu version too, the car is back from servicing, and yet there are papers found inside the car that belong to the suspect. Plus, no one ever mentions that ‘The car has just been serviced and is clean inside and out, so is there any point in impounding it!’
That brings us to what irks me: the attitude towards women in the ‘South’ movies. Women who are divorced must live alone, cannot be happy, and must be shunned by ‘society’. Mothers must always be shown to be preparing food and be strict with daughters, but fathers get to be indulgent. Women must be lesbians if they show affection for and become friends with another (whereas two men can dance with abandon in RRR and not be considered gay at all!). And it’s not just this film, the heroine likes it when she’s treated like property by Arjun Reddy, the heroine who tells her husband to stop watching old cricket matches on TV and help out at home by paying bills and the like is considered to be a harpy and has to live with the burden that her now dead husband did not tell her about his heart disease… Sheesh!
The film ends with a bullet that promises a second case, and I groan inside. I hope the second film will hold my attention and not have me wonder: where in Jaipur did the guy find maggots? And which Gen Z girl will forget to take her phone when she sneaks out of the house?
The Telugu original called HIT: The first case, starring Vishwak Sen, Ruhani Sharma, Naveena Reddy, Chaitanya Sagiraju, plays on Amazon Prime. The Hindi version released in theatres on July 15, and will be available in a while on Netflix.
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