This thriller is extremely dragged and only engages in bits and part as the whodunit whydunit element is extremely weak. The makers focus a lot on social commentary and delivering a message than entertain. The marks are just for acing the setting, milieu and performances.

Dahaad, starring Sonakshi Sinha, Gulshan Deviah in the lead and Vijay Verma as the antagonist, is based on true events and tells the story of a serial-killer who abducted and killed multiple girls and women enticing them with a promise of marriage.

Unlike regular whodunit thrillers, in this one, from the very first scene, the viewers know who the murderer is. In this case, it is harder to keep the audience engaged. This is where the writers trip. They have written a super lengthy screenplay which spans to 8 episodes of roughly an hour each. It makes the series very mundane and repetitive with not much happening in various episodes. The characters have been explored through layers but you don’t emotionally connect to them. The reason why the killer has done this also doesn’t hit you hard. The only good writing is of the dialogues. The socio-cultural milieu is aptly captured with well written raw and organic dialogues.

Reema Kagti as well as Zoya Akhtar, the show-runners of this series are known to make films with an underlying feminist tone with an agenda of shedding light on patriarchy and the ills of the society. In this one too, their focus goes too much into exploring the issues and makes the narrative try to hard to deliver a message repetitively. This could have been done more subtly while also managing the entertainment factor that a thriller should have.

Coming to the performances, Sonakshi Sinha delivers a pretty average act. She doesn’t shine out for sure. Literally anybody else could have replaced her in this role and for better. The real performances come from the others in the ensemble including Gulshan Deviah, Vijay Verma and the lesser-known actors in the supporting cast.

What actually deserves praise in this series is the exceptionally setting and tone. The makers very well capture the nuances of a rural village of India. Not only do they create the atmosphere very accurately, but also capture the human elements surprisingly well.

On the whole, Dahaad is going to be a long watch without much thrill. It might entertain you in bits but it sure failed to keep me hooked. I was skipping scenes constantly to just reach to the point. If you enjoy slow-burn series, you might like this. 

You can watch the trailer here: