Prithviraj Sukumaran has a theory about what makes Meghna Gulzar's Daayra work, and it has nothing to do with plot twists.

The actor plays DCP Raman Kumar, a cop whose methods are, let's say, questioned. Kareena Kapoor Khan plays DCP Ajooni Kohli, standing on the other side of that argument. The crime thriller pits the two against each other, and according to Prithviraj, the film's real achievement is that it won't tell you who's right.

"Daayra is not a film that is going to tell you this is right or wrong," he told Zoom in a recent interview. "It's going to ask you questions from both sides of the perspectives. Then it's for you to decide." If it's done its job, he added, you'll walk out still arguing with yourself.

That's a big ask for a director. Prithviraj spent a chunk of the interview unpacking exactly how hard it is to pull off. He said Meghna's real challenge was staying close enough to both characters to understand them completely while never letting her own instincts as a filmmaker nudge the story toward one side.

"It's very tempting as a filmmaker that at some point, you become slightly partial," he said. "It might not be explicit, it might be very implicit. But at some point, you veer." His verdict on Meghna: he can't point to a single scene where that happened. High praise, coming from someone who's been on the other side of the camera himself.

He went further, saying the director was conscious that even her own stylistic choices, the kind an audience might not consciously register, could tip the balance toward one cop's version of justice over the other's. Keeping that in check across an entire narrative, he said, is something she's managed masterfully.

Daayra comes from Junglee Pictures and Dr Jayantilal Gada's Pen Studios, with Pen Marudhar handling distribution. It's Meghna Gulzar's first outing since her run of films built on real-world moral grey zones, and pairing two DCPs on opposite sides of a case fits that pattern.

The film opens in theatres on September 18. With the release four days out and the cast doing rounds of promotional interviews, the pitch is clear: this isn't a whodunit, it's a whose-side-are-you-on. Whether audiences actually stay undecided the way Prithviraj promises, or pick a favourite cop within the first act anyway, we'll find out this Friday.