 "Hit- The Second Case: A gripping triumph for Adivi Sesh")
How to do an engrossing suspense thriller without planting too many red herrings in a plot? In _Hit: The Second Case_ , sophomore writer-director Sailesh Kolanu shows us how. In Telugu, the shudder-providing serial-killer thriller goes easy on the possibilities and focuses on the actual evidence in the case. This is rare in Indian whodunits which tend to display an array of suspects, the more the merrier.
There is a serial killer on the prowl in Visakhapatnam. He likes to disembody women and mix ‘n’ match their body parts. He could just as well spend his spare time doing jigsaw puzzles. But no. This guy is our on a prowl, and never mind Max’s growl. Max is our hero KD’s Alsatian, whose bark is worse than his bite.
Rex is one of the several interesting characters that shows up in the taut plot not as diversionary gimmicks but organically written people who make a difference, no matter how marginal, to the ongoing investigation.
There is also a love story—how can there not be?!—with KD, played with athletic appeal by Adivi Sesh. KD’s girl Aarya (Meenakshi Chowdhary) moves in bag and baggage and gets impregnated. Aarya’s unsmiling mother wonders how this miracle happened when they didn’t sleep in the same room.
The lighter moments sit easily on the dark story of a police investigation which goes horribly wrong halfway. The wrong suspect is nabbed and made a fall guy in the celebrated crime. This is where the splendidly paced second-half with not a slack moment in view, kicks in.
It would be criminal to give away more information on the serial-killer. Suffice it to say that the clues for the killer’s identity are given in the prologue itself. This is a whodunit refreshingly denuded of diversions and bogus suspects. The idea is to get to the killer’s identity with the cop hero and his HIT(Homicide Intervention Team) team without fuss or deadened deviations.
While the editing (Grry BH) and cinematography (S Manikandan) seek the unexpected in the familiar and come up trumps most of the time, it is Adivi Sesh in the lead who anchors the suspense, leading us with his unostentatious agility into the fragility of the gruesome crime.
By the time we reach the gruesome climax involving lots of sharp instruments piercing human flesh , the dramatic tension multiplies manifold. Although we know where it is coming from, the killer’s identity is still a shock as is his brutal background.
The Second Case in the HIT universe is indeed far more involving than the first. Adivi Sesh’s cop KD has many shades which he is not eager to flaunt into our face. To take an example, KD is initially shown to share tea with his subordinates. It’s a minor detail that says a lot about his grounded nature.
Then there is KD’s hostility towards a team member Varsha (Komalee Prasad) whom he keeps a distance from. Such plot detailing is rare in Indian cinema. This suspense thriller opens up the genre with muted fanfare and amplified credibility. I can’t wait for the third film in the series.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. Read all the Latest News , Trending News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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