The director Anurag Kashyap and the actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui are leading figures in India’s burgeoning independent film scene. This boisterous, bloodthirsty serial killer flick follows in the vein of their previous collaborations – notably the gang epic Gangs of Wasseypur – Indian-set genre pictures that provide a young local audience with a hip alternative to the more mainstream offerings of the Bollywood industry. Raman Raghav (Psycho Raman) was a real-life serial killer in the 1960s; however, this picture is about a copycat killer Ramanna (Siddiqui), and Raghavan (Vicky Kaushal), the Bad Lieutenant-style Mumbai cop who hunts him.
This is no Manhunter: the wits of the killer and his morally bankrupt pursuer are about as sharp as the blunt weapon that Ramanna favours to dispatch his victims. And the film doesn’t add much to the serial killer genre apart from the Mumbai underworld setting. However, thanks to Siddiqui’s feral menace – his eyes are lightened so they have a tawny predator’s glint; his smile is a cruel grimace – this is a chillingly effective watch.
