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.

There's an inevitable comparison sitting right next to Daayra. Prithviraj's own Jana Gana Mana tackled similar ground, drawing on the Hyderabad Disha case, and 123telugu points out that film went further in exploring both sides of a staged encounter than Daayra manages here.

On the technical side, the reception is warmer. Saurabh Goswami's camerawork gets a nod for its visuals, Ketan Sodha's background score is called serviceable, and the production values hold up. Amit Trivedi handles the music. But direction from Gulzar, a filmmaker with Raazi and Talvar on her résumé, is flagged as below her usual standard, with the review calling the film mediocre against her track record.

Daayra is playing in cinemas now. Whether audiences are as unforgiving of the flat second half as the early reviews suggests will show up in how the film's numbers hold through the weekend.