Gajab Raat Movie Review: We have been craving a Neeraj Pandey-esque thriller for quite some time, the kind that hooks you with a deceptively simple premise and then keeps tightening the screws with every new revelation. That is precisely the experience Ritesh Shah’s latest directorial Gajab Raat, formerly titled Ghooskhor Pandat, manages to serve. Produced by Neeraj Pandey himself, the film is a deliciously slippery mystery thriller that unfolds over the course of a single night, as a crooked police officer finds himself trapped in a bureaucratic tug-of-war set in motion after an unidentified young woman is dumped on the roads of Delhi, bloodied and grievously injured. Shouldered by Manoj Bajpayee, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Meghna Agarwal, Divya Dutta, Akshay Oberoi and others, the film is brisk, crafty, sporadically funny and consistently entertaining.
The story takes place almost entirely over the course of one night. It begins with a hotel raid in the heart of Delhi’s Connaught Place, spearheaded by Ajay Nirvit, played by Manoj Bajpayee, a notorious and corrupt cop whom the Delhi Police refers to as “Chameleon.” His career has been a chequered catalogue of suspensions, demotions and questionable conduct. And yes, he is also allegedly a womaniser.The night takes a darker turn when the film cuts to a sedated woman lying in the backseat of a car with a man sitting beside her. As the vehicle glides furtively through the near-empty roads of Delhi in the middle of the night, the woman briefly regains consciousness, opens the door and tumbles out of the moving car.
Before the man and the other occupants can retrieve her, a swarm of people suddenly pours out from a nearby movie screening. Seeing the woman soaked in blood and barely clinging to life, the crowd gathers around her. Phones come out almost instinctively. Pictures are clicked, videos are recorded and within minutes the footage begins circulating across social media. The incident goes viral across the country, forcing the Delhi Police into immediate damage-control mode.
Nirvit, having just stepped out of the hotel raid, receives a call from his equally corrupt superior and long-time partner in crime back at the police station. He asks Ajay to head to the spot where the woman fell from the car and casually points out that this case might be the opportunity Nirvit needs to finally earn enough money to buy the house he has been coveting in Surajkund.
