Raat Akeli Hai as a franchise? Stranger things have happened.
Honey Trehan’s sequel to his 2020 movie brings back the delightfully named police inspector Jatil Yadav for a new case that exposes the rot in society. Since Jatil – meaning complicated, knotted, intricate – is played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders is a welcome prospect, at least on the outset.
The Netflix release revolves around a wealthy family in Lucknow that is in thrall to the leader of a religious cult. Although Guru Maa (Deepti Naval) is supposed to have helped the Bansals deal with their problems – lingering grief over the death of a child, a family member’s addiction – the woman in white with the tonsured pate and tendency towards gnomic pronouncements doesn’t inspire confidence.
The slaughter of nearly all the Bansals in their sleep results in an orgy of evidence that nails the supposed killer, the addict Aarav (Delzad Hiwale), and supports the main survivor, Meera (Chitrangda Singh). But Jatil has his doubts about Meera, even as his boss Sameer (Rajat Kapoor) piles on the pressure to go easy on her.
Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders (2025).Courtesy RSVP/MacGuffin Pictures/Netflix.
Smita Singh returns as the film’s writer. The revenants include Ila Arun as Jatil’s mother Sarita and Radhika Apte as Radha, whom Jatil had rescued from a murder rap in the previous movie. Apte is billed as a special appearance and that’s exactly what it is – a sub-plot that goes nowhere but gives fans of this oddball pairing the satisfaction that Jatil isn’t doomed to spend the rest of his life with his interfering mother.
Priyanka Setia plays the lawyer Nisha, who provides Jatil with vital clues into solving the mystery. Revathi is Panicker, a no-nonsense forensic expert.
Like the film itself, the obstacles faced by Jatil feel manufactured, created merely to add scenes and keep the characters gainfully employed. The new movie doesn’t have the potency of its predecessor, or the atmospheric visuals that suggested perverse deeds unfolding in dark corners.
The notion of righteous crime diminishes the horror of the butchery at the Bansal abode. The treatment of so many bodies wallowing in blood and guts is matched in its mildness with Meera’s reactions to the tragedy that has fallen over her clan.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui – his Jatil irritable and impatient but also sharp as a new knife, is always watchable. Jatil is forever on the move, leaping from one clue to the next. The 136-minute film hurries along too, delivering a serviceable but also uninvolving and blunt-edged police procedural.
Revathi and Priyanka Setia have a few good moments to themselves. In an entertaining sequence, Revathi’s Panicker recreates the killings at the Bansal mansion, her clinical air lifting to reveal a ken for carnage.
Raat Akeli Hai – The Bansal Murders (2025).
