The Mumbai Police inspector who spearheaded the manhunt that led to the high-profile arrest of the notoriously infamous serial killer Charles Sobhraj in the 1980s deserved better. Interpol’s most-wanted criminals’ real-life nabbing from Goa’s O Coqueiro restaurant is the stuff of legend, and yet, writer-director Chinmay D Mandlekar somehow manages to turn a story so riveting into a dull, dreary 112-minute slog.On paper, the casting is perfect. Manoj Bajpayee taps into his ‘A Family Man’ persona to create a delightful Madhukar B Zende, a righteous, earthy cop who lives in a Mumbai chawl and is devoted to his wife and uniform. Jim Sarbh plays the mixed-race, sly, glamorous bikini killer known for murdering tourists on the Asian hippie trail. It’s a match made in heaven. But Mandlekar spectacularly fails to create any chemistry, tension, or thrill between the dreaded snake and the mongoose, as Zende refers to himself at least twice in the film.Two creative blunders are responsible for this. First—in the name of world building, Mandlekar and team inhabit the snail’s pace that was prevalent 40 years ago. Everything moves ever so slowly—the plot, the jokes, the schemes, the scenes—making the film feel thrice as long and sucking any possibility of excitement or joy. A true-life police procedural should be nimble, incisive, and gritty. Inspector Zende is none of it.
The second is the film’s self-aware, tragicomic tone. Mandlekar leans hard on it and falls flat face-first. The tone is just off. It belittles the severity of the matter, reducing both Sobhraj and Zende to ridiculous caricatures for laughs as if the two of them and the investigation were something trivial, frivolous, and not the most controversial, celebrated arrest of the decade. I wonder what Sriram Raghavan would have done with a story this juicy.
However, nestled at the heart of an unbearably tedious police probe is a tender love story. Bajpayee’s scenes with Girija Oak (who plays his wife) are inarguably the film’s best.When the two of them are together, Inspector Zende truly rises above all the clunkiness and soars. It is never a good sign when a sub-plot has greater pull than the rest of the film put together.Among the many loopholes, the most glaring is the fake naming of Charles Sobhraj. For a movie that’s been heavily publicised as a true-life dramatisation of the travails of an esteemed Mumbai super-cop with all the names (including that of the eponymous hero) retained as is, the turning of Charles Sobhraj into Carl Bhojraj is inexplicably bizarre.Inspector Zende isn’t the first or the last film to feature Sobhraj, so enduring is his infamy and charisma. Of the many iterations over the years, Main Aur Charles (2015) starring Randeep Hooda and Vikramaditya Motwane’s Netflix series Black Warrant that released earlier this year stand out. Inspector Zende flips the story around and focuses its lens on the less-talked-about, not-as-glamorous other end, so much so that it leaves Jim Sarbh with nothing to do. His wig and sunglasses get to do a lot more than he’s ever allowed to.Towards the end of the film, there’s a scene in which Zende yawns a big fat yawn, tired as he is of waiting for Carl to appear at O Coqueiro. It was eerie to watch, for I’d never felt more seen.Also Read: US Commerce Secretary Lutnick says India will ‘say sorry,’ resume trade talks within months
