’Tis the season (of the south). Films from the down under of the country are being dubbed, mounted as pan-India biggies or adapted/remade for the Hindi film audience. HIT — The First Case falls into the last category, with even the title of the film being retained from the original. So is its director who does a fairly faithful copy-paste job, with minor tweaks here and there. With results both good and bad.
Released in end-February of 2020, just a few days before the word ‘pandemic’ crept into our vocabulary and permanently found a place in it, HIT — The First Case, the Telugu original directed by debutant Sailesh Kolanu and starring Vishwak Sen in the lead, earned decent reviews, staying true to the beats of a slow-burn thriller and throwing in a surprise or two once in a while.
When it made its way to streaming a few months later, the lockdown ensured a sizeable captive audience for this whodunit, with the appreciation coming its way sealing the deal for a franchise. HIT — The Second Case, starring Adivi Sesh, who is currently riding high on the praise for Major, is scheduled to make its way into theatres soon.
But before that, we have the Hindi remake of the first film. Rajkummar Rao steps into the part of angsty and anxious cop Vikram Jaisingh. Overturning the concept of a macho law enforcer, Vikram is vulnerable, even scared and permanently on the edge, his condition being aggravated by a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by an incident in his past that we are shown in partial flashbacks. The fallout of that makes Vikram flinch from fire, severely disabling his capacity to carry on with his high-pressure job.
But Vikram is constantly referred to as the ‘best officer’ at HIT — short for ‘Homicide Intervention Team’ — because he is able to pick up details and zero in on clues that his colleagues can’t. Which means that when a young girl goes missing mysteriously on the highway — followed by another kidnapping that hits the man too close to home — Vikram plunges in with both grit and gusto.
Transposing the action from Telangana to Rajasthan doesn’t really bring about a major change in the remake because the action in HIT could be set just about anywhere. Unlike Kahaani, where Calcutta became both character and setting, vastly contributing to the film on both counts, the forts and palaces of Jaipur only function as a backdrop for a romantic song clumsily forced into the narrative. Like Ruhani Sharma in the original, Sanya Malhotra has precious little to do, making one wonder why a talented actor like her would agree to such a miniscule part.
Largely a police procedural, HIT hits the ground running, and then slowly but surely goes on to inexplicably sacrifice the slow-burn DNA of its original and hurtle from one red herring to another. Suspects are lined up out of the blue, dismissed after a few scenes that seemingly declare them innocent, brought back again after a few scenes, subjected to more or less the same interrogation and then let go again. It’s a loop that seems to be going nowhere, and if Kolanu’s objective is to throw off the viewer, it clearly does so, but not in a good way.
Almost every scene in HIT involves Rajkummar, and the actor, true to form and reputation, rises above a convoluted script to keep us (partially) invested in both him and the film. HIT does well in showing Vikram as a flesh-and-blood character and not a superhero cop. But Kolanu’s predilection to make his protagonist espouse on everything from child labour to moral policing doesn’t always fit in well. Not to mention the departure from the original in the end, where the motive for the crime is too far-fetched to make an impact, leaving the film scampering to make sense of both cause and chronology. The revelation is not only underwhelming but veers into ludicrous territory.
Like the Telugu original, the Hindi film ends with the promise of a follow-up. And while it leaves a lot of questions unanswered — which we hope the sequel will course correct — the burning one surely is: how does a pyrophobe like Vikram continue lighting one cigarette after another? No smoke without fire, as they say.
HIT — The First Case (U/A)
Director: Sailesh Kolanu
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Sanya Malhotra, Dalip Tahil, Milind Gunaji, Shilpa Shukla
Running time: 136 minutes
