Critics Review:
Some crimes erupt suddenly. Others simmer for months before they explode. Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders, directed by Honey Trehan, belongs firmly to the latter. Streaming on Netflix, this second film in the Raat Akeli Hai series does not chase shock for spectacle. Instead, it excavates silence, repression, and the quiet cruelty that festers inside families, institutions, and social hierarchies until violence feels inevitable.
At the centre of this moral excavation stands Inspector Jatil Yadav, once again portrayed by Nawazuddin Siddiqui with unsettling restraint. Jatil is not a heroic cop in the conventional sense. He is weary, observant, emotionally guarded, and shaped by his own unresolved wounds. While this second part shares continuity only through Jatil’s personal life, it stands entirely on its own as a narrative. That said, watching the first Raat Akeli Hai offers a deeper understanding of the man behind the uniform, the silences he carries, and the emotional distance that defines him.
A Crime Scene Built on Months of Silence
The Bansal household, much like the crime at its core, is not merely a setting. It is a metaphor. Beneath wealth, respectability, and carefully curated public images lies a history of domination, emotional violence, and power imbalance. The film makes it painfully clear that the real crime did not begin on the night of the murder. It began much earlier, in moments of humiliation that went unchallenged, the pain & suffering that went unacknowledged, and in voices that were never allowed to rise.
Honey Trehan constructs a narrative where oppression is not incidental, but systemic. The oppressor thrives as long as the oppressed remain silent. The moment that silence fractures, the system reacts with shock and outrage, as if the violence emerged from nowhere.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Jatil Yadav: A Witness More Than a Judge
Nawazuddin Siddiqui brings a familiar fatigue to Jatil Yadav, making him feel like a man who has seen too much and trusts too little. His interrogation style is patient, almost passive, but never careless. He listens more than he speaks, allowing truths to surface on their own terms.
Jatil is not chasing justice with idealism. He is assembling fragments, contradictions, and emotional residues. His own personal life, glimpsed through brief but telling moments, mirrors the emotional isolation he observes in others. This parallel lends the character a quiet credibility. He does not stand above the story. He stands within it.
A Formidable Ensemble That Holds the Darkness Together
The film is elevated by a powerful supporting cast. Chitrangada Singh, Deepti Naval, Revathi, Rajat Kapoor, and Sanjay Kapoor inhabit their roles with controlled intensity. No character feels ornamental. Each performance adds texture to the moral decay that defines the Bansal family.
These characters are not designed to earn sympathy easily. They are flawed, complicit, wounded, and defensive. The film refuses to flatten them into victims or villains. Instead, it allows the audience to sit with discomfort, recognising how power, fear, and survival often blur ethical boundaries.
Journalism and the Performance of Morality
One of the film’s sharper critiques is reserved for journalism, or rather, the performance of it. The narrative exposes how media narratives are often manipulated to protect the powerful and cast out the powerless. Truth becomes negotiable. Suffering becomes content. Justice becomes secondary to optics.
This commentary feels disturbingly familiar, reinforcing the film’s central argument. Systems protect themselves. Accountability arrives only when the oppressed retaliate loudly enough to disrupt the facade.
Violence as a Language of Suppression
Certain scenes in Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders are undeniably gory. But they are not gratuitous. The violence here feels earned, emerging from years of emotional strangulation
rather than momentary rage. The film treats brutality not as entertainment, but as consequence.
What makes these moments unsettling is their recognisability. The suppressed emotions on screen are not alien. They echo everyday compromises, endured humiliations, and inherited silences that many viewers understand too well.
Crime and Punishment in a Moral Vacuum
At its thematic core, the film aligns closely with the idea of crime and punishment, or perhaps more accurately, an eye for an eye. It asks an uncomfortable question. When justice repeatedly fails the oppressed, is retaliation a crime or a consequence?
The film does not answer this directly. It leaves the audience suspended in moral ambiguity, where every act of violence feels both condemnable and tragically comprehensible.
A Taut, Relentless Narrative
From its opening moments, Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders maintains a fast-paced rhythm. There are no indulgent detours. Every revelation tightens the narrative grip. Every scene carries weight. The film never allows complacency, mirroring the emotional claustrophobia of its characters.
Final Word
Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders is a gripping, uncomfortable, and deeply thought-provoking crime thriller. It examines oppression not as a singular act, but as a slow poison that eventually erupts into irreversible violence. With strong performances, sharp direction, and a narrative that refuses easy answers, the film leaves a lasting impact.
It is a compelling watch for crime-thriller enthusiasts, but more importantly, it is a reminder that silence is never neutral.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5
Because in this world, justice rarely arrives quietly, and when it does, it often comes too late.
By: Anushka Singhal
