Daayra, Meghna Gulzar’s new investigative thriller starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran in their first film together, released in cinemas today, built around the investigation of a rape case and the alleged encounter killing of four accused men.
What makes the film’s structure interesting beyond its plot is its ‘cop-versus-cop’ framing: rather than pitting a clear hero against a clear villain, it sets two officers with genuinely different views of what justice requires against each other, which is a much harder story to tell well.
That structure forces the audience to hold two positions at once — the case for procedure and due process, and the case for swift, if extrajudicial, accountability — without the film simply picking a side and asking viewers to follow along.
Reviewers have credited Kareena Kapoor Khan’s restrained performance as officer Ajooni for keeping that tension believable rather than tipping into melodrama, which is often where this kind of dual-perspective story breaks down.
It’s a narrative device worth recognizing outside of film too: any genuine ethical dilemma, whether in a courtroom, a newsroom or a boardroom, tends to be more persuasive when both sides are given a real, defensible case — a lesson storytelling can offer to anyone trying to present a genuinely contested decision fairly.
The film does not shy away from the harsh realities surrounding its central crime, examining the question of justice from multiple perspectives.
Both lead actors have been praised for holding the film together through restraint, with the story avoiding easy answers about who is right in a cop-versus-cop conflict.
Meghna Gulzar’s earlier film Raazi, also a tense thriller, was a major commercial and critical success and is often cited as a reference point for her directorial style.
The film’s climax has drawn mixed reactions from some critics even as the overall reception remained largely positive.
Regal Cinema, Mumbai (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0