When people complain about India’s broadcasting industry relying too much on violence and gore, they’re probably talking about things like Sector 36 – a new crime drama on Netflix that reduces a real-life horror story to a cat-and-mouse chase. between two small letters on either side of the law. The reluctant policeman is played by Deepak Dobriyalwhile Vikrant Massey you get a top-billed serial killer trying to escape his capture. They are put on a collision course with a movie that often favors trickery over intelligence, a sign of beauty over sentimentality.
In the film’s central interrogation scene, modeled perhaps on the one featuring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat, Massey’s character repeatedly talks about necrophilia, child abuse, and cannibalism. But this is not the problem. Sector 36 is, after all, a film about Nithari’s infamous case from a few decades ago. But it it becomes it’s really a problem because the movie has no idea how to approach the story with nuance. It chooses, instead, to take the tone of late-night television news, drawing large circles around the most scandalous aspects of a heinous crime while ignoring the very real human tragedy at its center. It’s in the same interrogation scene, for example, that Sector 36 makes its most impressive design decision, which perfectly captures its twisted perspective and subtle grip on character. But let’s build on it, shall we?
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Deepak Dobriyal as Ram Charan Pandey in Sector 36.
The first sign of trouble comes when the film decides to present its protagonist, police officer Ram Charan Pandey, as a suitably spoiled man with no interest in doing his job. Corner because it’s because of his laziness that a murderer like Prem has been allowed to roam free for years. The problem is not that Pandey is spoiled; Police can be corrupt in cinema, just as they can be humane. The problem is that the film is selective Pandeyof all people, as a vessel to express their frustration about how overworked the police are in our country. His excuse for not registering a single Fire, as the girls disappear under his nose, is that there are only three police officers in an area with a population of 1.5 lakh. That’s 50,000 people per police officer, he tells the grieving father, who was with him earlier. bribed not registering a formal complaint about the loss of her child.
This would have made sense if Pandey had been on the job, negotiating the dozen or so cases he was willing to solve. But the film had already established him as a shirker; a person who tends to bury leads, blames others, and shirks responsibility. The only reason he started investigating the case at all – this after the killer has already revealed himself to him, by the way – it’s because his daughter was made a victim of an attempted kidnapping. This incident with the rabbit happened after 60 seconds when father Pandey inadvertently told him, “Khud ki beti jayegi toh pata chalega (You will understand what I am going through only if you lose your daughter).” Lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened.
Another perfect coincidence leads her to blame Prem, by the way. Pandey is not a great detective; in fact, in another movie, he would be fired for being too poor at his job. It is only when the evidence – a red mobile phone – falls into his lap that he appears on the doorstep of the dreaded businessman Bassi, where Prem secretly commits his crime. Sector 36 efforts to make statements about class-divide by showing us how Bassi and Prem are treated differently after the bodies are found in a ditch near their house. It also has the courage to blow the horn in an episode about the kidnapping of a wealthy businessman’s son, who was safely rescued within 48 hours of his disappearance. It only takes this deviation to make space.
But what really takes the cake is the questionable one interrogation. It’s not just that Prem transforms into a completely different person as he sits across from Pandey in shock and confesses his crimes. That’s him he says. After explaining in detail what he did to all those lost children, he goes on to justify his actions by suggesting that he was doing them a favor; to give their useless lives some purpose. Prem talks about how society ignores the poor, who he says are destined to die an undignified death after spending their whole lives doing menial jobs. And all you, as a viewer, can ask yourself at a time like this is: “Does this movie really want me to nod my head in agreement with the monster?”
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Sector 36. Vikrant Massey as Prem in sector 36.
Couldn’t Nimbalkar have chosen a better orator to use these logical points? Is he be to give this speech to a rapist who kills many people? Unlike, say, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, who was also socially proud, and therefore spoke up for people like him, Prem is not at the bottom of the food chain. He works hard, lives in a big house, has a loving wife and a caring manager. He certainly does not consider himself a member of the class of people who have invaded; he you believe you are high. But the movie doesn’t seem interested in releasing these nuances. It goes by way of shock and awe, aided as it is by Massey’s performance-with-a-capital-P.
Does Sector 36 want to be a drama that focuses on connecting with people in the line of Section 15or conflict real crime rates are popular? Does it really want to shed light on class inequality, or is it more interested in participation of another kind? The answer is found in that interrogation scene. But if you’re not convinced, there’s another proof of its exploitation, where, after completely ignoring the parents of the murdered children, it chooses to end with a random side character who just gets promoted Joseph Gordon-Levitt in The Dark Knight Rises. What are his motives now? Does he even care about bringing justice to grieving parents, or is he just pissed off at being overlooked for a promotion? This is not a note the movie about Nithari should have ended.
Post Credits Scene is a column where we break down the latest releases each week, with a particular focus on context, art, and characters. Because there is always something to fix when the dust settles.
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