There’s a quote that Silence 2: The Night Owl Shootout begins with, but I won’t tell you what it is. While it is poignant and deep as you expect sayings to be – the significance of that is as perplexing as this film’s twist and turns. It’s fascinating to think how actor Manoj Bajpayee has become that man on OTT, who becomes everyone’s first choice – no matter what the character is. It is no joke that Silence: Can You Hear It? was successful and the fact that they greenlit a sequel with Bajpayee returning furthermore solidifies its presence. So, you can’t deny its appeal.
Whodunits are perhaps categorised into two extremes – taut, crisp, engaging and genuinely mind-bending; and on the other hand they can be preposterous, whimsical, questionable and predictable. Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout finds a middle-way between these extremes and holds on to the ledge just like a gymnast would while walking on it with a stick in hand.
There’s plenty in Silence 2 to enjoy and majority of it is at the expense of being campy, commercial and over-the-top dramatisation. There is subtlety with which investigation jargons are thrown around to make it sound intellectual but instead they add to the complexities further. However, there is a sweet spot that the film finds – looking like a case which might seem incredibly simple and routine to look at – is cooked with a recipe that is deliciously tricky and challenging.
The core team, led by Bajpayee, reprise their roles from Part 1 (disclosure: I haven’t seen Part 1) and they seem to share a good camaraderie, mainly being supremely efficient cops. There are flickers of fun and banter between them but they are few and far between. I wonder what led Prachi Desai to do a character that is so linear and has no satisfying arc to play around with. Don’t get me wrong. She’s good, as she always has been with a natural screen presence and charm. But I kept waiting for her to have some notable development, and instead she just ends up being another member of the team – which could have been played by literally anyone.
To the film’s credit, the edge-of-the-seat drama, twists and turns (though too much of them), the finale switcharound, and some engaging sequences keep your suspense-loving mind attentive and intrigued till the end. You cannot belittle Silence 2 for being a bore – nope.
But as mentioned above. The ledge is too thin and while it balances well, the occasional tumbles and umpteen gaps in the film cannot be discounted. The twists and turns, at times, reach the levels of being an Abbas-Mustan thriller but not from the Ajnabee, Humraaz, and Race days; but from the Players and Race 3 playbook – which has you laughing unintentionally at a few instances.
The biggest gap that the film faces is having no emotional hook to hold on to. A child-trafficking case is a concept that is done-to-death in a plethora of presentations over the years, so that’s not going to be the tying thread. Good backstories or a more personal dive into these supercops’ lives would have been just the apt distraction and break you need from the procedural drama that is relentless. However, apart from one phone call between Bajpayee’s ACP Verma and his daughter (who we never see) and some quirks that Verma has – apparently never eating food – we have nothing much to look for that makes you care about them, after a certain extent.
Also, the actor who plays Arjun Chauhan might just be one most poorly written and bizarrely acted performances I have ever seen.
Silence 2: The Night Owl Shootout mainly and understandably relies on the man in the centre, who just proves yet again how effortless he can be even with a mediocre subject and inadequate writing. It’s a bittersweet feeling to see that substandard projects, on OTT, now also rely on face value to bring some credibility to them.t
It’s sweet to see an actor like Manoj Bajpayee reach that stage and stature which we usually associate the ‘biggies’ with when it comes to the big screen.