A Cop’s Life:
The show opens with a terrified young woman running in a forest, bring chased by a car. The sequence ends with her murder.
Search: The Naina Murder Case, brings another Nordic Noir show to India, an adaptation of Danish web series, Forbrydelsen. The Hindi version (on JioHotstar), written by Radhika Anand and Shreya Karunakaram has been directed by Rohan Sippy in a brisk, efficient manner, making the straightforward police procedural watchable but not particularly memorable.
ACP Sanyukta Das (Konkona Sen Sharma) is on the last day of her job in Mumbai, having taken a transfer to Ahmedabad with her husband, Bheesham (Mukul Chadda), in order to repair her crumbling marriage. It is typical of screen cops to have a nagging mother, rebellious teen daughter and disgruntled husband.
The body of the girl, Naina (Chandsi Kataria) killed in the opening scene is found in the campaign car of a political party, headed by Tushar (Shiv Panditt). As he stands in opposition to a veteran leader (Govind Namdeo), the blowback could ruin his chances of being elected, so his campaign team (Shraddha Das, Dhruv Segal) is understandably concerned.
Keeping in mind the high profile nature of the case, Sanyukta is asked by her boss to delay her departure. This does not sit well with her replacement, Jai (Surya Sharma), who proceeds to spend time either sniping at her or hogging junk food.
Affected by the grief of Naina’s parents (Iravati Mayadev, Sagar Deshmukh), Sanyukta puts her own life on hold and throws herself into the investigation. Matters get more complicated as a web of lies and betrayal have been woven around the murder.
Building a gritty thriller often depends on a strong central performance, which Konkona Sen Sharma delivers. Dressed in trousers and drab shirts, her face devoid of make-up, she moves briskly and looks like the gears of her brain are always in motion. Surya Sharma towers over her with his height, and the two present a striking visual contrast too, to their contentious approach to investigation. Sanyukta is careful, measured, Jai is hot-headed, impulsive.
By the end of six tense episodes, there are multiple suspects, which indicates a Season 2. This may not work well for a conventionally structured show, which does not really leave the audience gasping to have the mystery solved.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
