Bypass Road Review: Neil Nitin Mukesh Outshines Everyone And Everything Else In The Film!

Neil Nitin Mukesh walks away with the cake in this wonderfully crafted whodunit murder mystery. Besides Neil, the film also stars Gul Panag as the scheming stepmother, Adah Sharma as the love of Neil’s life, Rajit Kapur as Neil’s father.

The film overall needs brains to put the pieces of the puzzle together but again at times, it becomes a bit too much. The writing at times is faulty but all of that can be overlooked because the earnest efforts of the cast especially the male lead comes to the fore. The film is a maiden production venture of Neil Nitin Mukesh and the actor has done a fairly decent job on that front.

He plays the role of a hotshot designer who gets together with his showstopper Shama Sikander for a night of no strings attached sexual encounter. But things go awry when the duo meets with an accident that leaves Neil’s Vikram paraplegic and kills Shama’s Sarah! However, things are not as plain as they seem. Underneath there is a mesh of a plan that involves money, property, jealousy, betrayal and many other emotions which are better left unsaid.

Now, it is the sole job of the investigating police officer to bring out the reality into the open so that the culprit can be given the rightful punishment.

The makers of the film rightly chose a non-linear narrative to unfurl the happenings and the past occurrences that force the audiences to join the dots to get the complete picture. Well, the film surely takes a lot from the murder mysteries of yore and there are some subtle references to the western old Hollywood crime thrillers as well. Honestly, the film is meant for a certain kind of audience. It is a murder mystery and there is nothing new to the genre. It has been seen in a lot of many films and the best part is that despite many films (especially western) being made on this genre, this one remains original. The plot is not a rip-off, the screenplay is intriguing and the performances as has already been said are gripping!

Neil just nails the part. He is so plausible. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that he is the best part of the film. He literally owns every scene. Every twitch of his eyebrows, the quiver of his lips and the wavering gaze is done to the T! He surely is a fabulous actor and he proves his mettle yet again with this role. Gul Panag does an okay job, she could have been much better though as the perfidious step-mother Romila. Adah Sharma’s Radhika didn’t have much on her plate. She was just emotional support for Vikram and that’s about it. She doesn’t have any significant role to play in the film. Shama Sikander is the supermodel who gets killed, she too doesn’t have much screen time in the film but she does a good job in whatever screen time she is allotted and plays her part with conviction! Rajit Kapur plays Pratap who is Vikram’s father. He is a fine actor and has been part of great roles over the years and he shines in this one too.

Coming to the writing of the film – barring a few minuscule loopholes, it is done pretty nicely. The screenplay would remind you about the western home invasion films like Scream where a masked man breaks into the house with an intention to kill. The writing could have been a little edgier but it works fine. It would have surely helped though if some of the dialogues could be re-written.

The camerawork again is an okay job done, some of the movements of the camera were pretty cool and the shots were unique. The entire set of the bungalow looked amazing. The very idea of getting locked up in a bungalow as massively huge as that is scary.

The badly placed songs in the film actually did nothing to propel the narrative. They were almost redundant. I was wondering why are they even there. The soundtrack in the film though was lovely, it kind of set the mood for every scene.