Daayra Sets Up A Moral Showdown It Never Delivers

Daayra hit screens on September 18, and the pitch is a good one on paper. A gruesome rape sets off public fury, the police gun down the four accused during what's officially called a crime-scene reconstruction, and DCP Raman Kumar, played by Prithviraj Sukumaran, spins it as self-defence. Enter DCP Ajooni Kohli, played by Kareena Kapoor Khan, brought in to head a Special Investigation Team after the Human Rights Department starts asking questions. Two cops, two ideas of what justice looks like. That's the whole engine of the film.

And for a while, it runs well. 123telugu's review, out ahead of the release, rated the film 2.5 out of 5 but praised the first half for its atmosphere and its restraint, calling the manhunt sequences realistic and singling out Kshitee Jog's scene tearing into the police for their carelessness as a genuine high point. Prithviraj, per the review, is in strong form again as a cop convinced of his own righteousness.

The trouble, according to that review, starts once the ideological battle is actually supposed to begin. Daayra spends its first half building toward a confrontation between Raman's instant justice and Ajooni's faith in due process, and then barely stages it. 123telugu notes just one brief exchange between the two leads across the entire film, and it lands right at the end, calling the payoff weak given everything set up before it. Kareena's character, the review adds, gets thin screen time for someone meant to be the film's moral counterweight, which blunts her impact just when the story needs her most. The second half, in the review's words, wanders and loses steam instead of building to the face-off the setup demands.