Probably the most challenging subgenre to pull off is the whodunnit. You can end up embarrassing yourself if you cannot keep the audiences hooked and have the story unravel at a quick and consistent pace. Neil Nitin Mukesh’s foray into writing and production in Bypass Road seems to have checked nearly all of the wrong boxes as far as the whodunnit subgenre is concerned. We take a look at the Naman Nitin Mukesh’s directorial debut in our Bypass Road film review.
Never mind the clichéd premise, to begin with, Bypass Road does not seem like it is going anywhere for a significant part of its runtime. A fashion magnate, Vikram (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is severely injured in a car accident and is bound to a wheelchair. Vikram’s dad, played by Rajit Kapur, and his caretaker, fondly called kaka by him, take care of Vikram in his sprawling bungalow amidst the coconut groves in Alibaug.
As one would expect, not everything is hunky-dory, and pretty soon, all hell brakes lose. The same night Vikram met with the accident, a model working for him with whom he was having an affair was shot dead. Was that a mere coincidence, or is there more to it than meets the eye? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
Neil Nitin Mukesh is carrying the weight of the leading role at the same time grappling with his mediocre and tedious script, and that reflects in his performance, which lacks the consistency shown in his previous films. The supporting cast that includes Taher Shabbir, Adah Sharma, Gul Panag, Sudhanshu Pandey, among others, do not disappoint entirely, although, given a tighter script to work with, they might have done much better.
The inconsistent pacing of the narrative is probably the main undoing of Bypass Road. The first half of the movie takes forever and does not keep you sufficiently invested. By the time we get to the last quarter-hour, or so of the film, we are so fatigued with the laborious narrative until then, that there is not much interest left in soaking in the climactic twist in the plot. The last act feels rushed and does not feel a natural progression of events preceding it.
There are also the songs that keep coming, especially early on in the movie that serve no real purpose other than making an already tiresome experience of watching a sluggish narrative unfold even more jaded. Considering that it is a murder mystery, Bypass Road should have been tauter and not so convoluted as to take the viewer out of it as often and as early as it accomplishes.
If you like mystery films, this one is not going to score highly and will leave you unsatisfied. Aside from the climactic twist and some vibrant Alibaug vistas, there is little to look forward to from Bypass Road.
Bypass Road film review rates Bypass Road 
(2 / 5)
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