Dwitiyo Purush

Story: Police inspector Abhijit Pakrashi (Parambrata Chatterjee) gets a serial killer’s case in hand. How will he solve the case? What all will get dug up alongside the mystery?

Review: A sequel to Baishe Srabon, Dwitiyo Purush tries hard to live up to the first film’s climax but fails. But the name, Dwitiyo Purush, fits the bill because there’s one or the other such a second man involved in the cop and killer chase from the very first scene. Considering the fact that making original thrillers are getting tougher each day, the film approaches the end with a shocking twist. But it’s not the shock value of the ending that draws you any bit to the film. Rather, it’s the sense of a looming tricky ending that keeps you wanting to know what happens next.

The film begins with some gory killings. A young goon called Khoka (Rwitobroto Mukherjee) invents a style for what seems to be his sudden spurt in wanting to be a serial killer. The scene is set in 1993 Chinatown. Throughout the film and even when he is released from jail some 25 years later, the police keep talking about his three murders in 1993 and three more after he returns in 2019. He springs a surprise murder for the first time in 93 in front of his gang while taking drugs and follows up with two more. His arrest as a 15-year-old notorious Khoka calls for a debate between two police officers, one of them played by Babul Supriyo, about capital punishment. The 1993 conversations between the two mirror a lot of 2019 arguments on capital punishment. Juvenile delinquency is also negated by Babul’s character as he is shown trying Khoka as an adult for his heinous crime. The scene tries to invite more debate on the matter but is not as impactful.

From there the film builds up well to the climax with a haunted-by-his-past-failure police officer (Parambrata Chatterjee) struggling to prove his mettle to himself. His personal life problems also seem to arise from this insecurity. The screenplay does well to include scenes of husband and wife (played by Raima Sen) tiffs and also the presence of a third person (Abir Chatterjee) in the story.

At one point in the film, these three characters — Abhijit, Amrita and Surjo — and the scenes between them, as little as they are, are the only ones you would want to see more on screen. And all the while the grown-up Khoka (Anirban Bhattacharya) is seen now and then planning murders. The film runs two parallel tracks quite engagingly but falls flat in the climax.

The casting and character sketches, along with costumes, are apt. From a suave Gaurav Chakraborty and Parambrata Chatterjee as inspectors to a more sinister-looking Anirban Bhattacharya and Rwitobroto Mukherjee as the goons, they all did their parts well. Though Raima Sen and Abir Chatterjee appeared in blink-and-you-miss-it roles, their scene together was the actual breather in the film.

Though the film has an uneven pace finding clues of 93 murders from TV news channel of that era seems clever. But planting the same person (a gang member) as a clue at every news channel interrogation looks a little forced.