Raat Akeli Hai (The Night is Lonely) is a riveting, intense Bollywood crime thriller and whodunit directed by Honey Trehan, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte. The plot follows the intense investigation of a rich man’s murder, which unearths long-buried secrets within his family.

The movie opens with a car on a highway being forced off the road by a large truck. A man and a woman crawl out of the capsized vehicle, but an assailant steps out of the truck and brutally murders them.

The plot then shifts to five years later, where Jatil Yadav (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is attending a colleague’s wedding. His mother tries to play matchmaker, attempting to set him up with a girl at the wedding, much to his annoyance.

Later that night, after returning home with his mother, Jatil is called to the scene of a homicide, which happens to be at another wedding. A wealthy socialite, Raghuveer Singh, whose family holds significant political power in the area, has been found dead in his nuptial bed, shot in the face. The killer, apparently in a violent rage, has disfigured Raghuveer’s corpse with the barrel of the gun after delivering the fatal shot.

Everyone in the family is a suspect. There’s Ramesh (Swanand Kirkire), the brother of Raghuveer’s first, now-deceased wife Karuna (Shweta Tripathi); Raghuveer’s daughter; his drug-addicted son, Karan; Ramesh’s wife Pramila (Padmavati Rao); Ramesh’s children Vasudha (Shivani Raghuvanshi) and Vikram (Nishant Dahiya); and Karuna’s husband, Ravi (Gyanendra Tripathi). Jatil soon discovers that the family harbored no love for Raghuveer—almost all of them despised him. As an autocratic patriarch, Raghuveer ruled over his family with a firm, ruthless hand, inflicting pain and terror on those around him.

Jatil takes a special interest in Radha (Radhika Apte), Raghuveer’s young widow. Now ostracized by the family, Radha seems to have been the victim of Raghuveer’s lust. It is revealed that Jatil had met her on a previous occasion, and that Radha’s father had “sold” her to Raghuveer, who first made her his concubine and later his wife.

Jatil develops mixed feelings for Radha. While she has been subjected to Raghuveer’s cruelty, she is not as innocent as he initially thought. It is soon revealed that she was carrying on an affair with Vikram right under Raghuveer’s nose, raising the possibility that she was involved in his murder.

As Jatil digs deeper, he faces challenges on multiple fronts. First, the family is reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. Second, Munna Raja, Vikram’s soon-to-be father-in-law and a powerful local figure, pressures Jatil’s boss, SP Lalji Shukla, to end the investigation. Finally, the case turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, as Munna Raja’s goons attempt to eliminate both Jatil and Radha.

Can Jatil save himself and Radha and solve the case? Can he identify the murderer? What is the connection between Raghuveer’s murder and the two people killed in the opening scene? Can Jatil bring the guilty to justice when the odds are clearly stacked against him? The rest of the movie answers these questions as the investigation uncovers dark family secrets that could destroy the family’s reputation forever.

Except for a few humorous interludes involving Jatil and his mother, Raat Akeli Hai is an edge-of-your-seat thriller. While the entire cast delivers fine performances, it is Nawazuddin Siddiqui who steals the show as the persistent, tough cop Jatil Yadav. Unlike the typical larger-than-life Bollywood hero, Jatil is human. He is determined to seek the truth and expose the culprits, even if that includes Radha, with whom he starts to fall in love. He is the protagonist of the story but not the “star” of the movie.

Radhika Apte also delivers a superb performance as the vulnerable yet enigmatic Radha. Raat Akeli Hai is a top-class thriller and a must-watch for fans of investigative or crime dramas.

The title of the film, Raat Akeli Hai, roughly translates to “Lonely is the Night.” Indeed, the night is not only lonely but also dark, hiding disturbing family secrets and the identity of a killer.