Story
The story of this film takes place in 1983. Sanjay (Kay Kay Menon) is a sub-inspector of police. He comes across a strange case of a beggar beaten to death by a stone during night. Sanjay is a hot-blooded man and he is suspended for unintentionally killing a person in custody during interrogation. Intrigued by the serial killings of the stoneman, Sanjay takes up the personal mission of finding out the criminal. The rest of the story is all about how he traces the dangerous stoneman and unearths his motives.

Actors:

Kay Kay Menon brings credibility to his character as a guy who is obsessed with the task of tracing the criminal. Rukhsar is sexy as the wife of Kay Kay. There is a back nudity scene featuring her. Arbaz Khan is adequate as the jealous cop. Vikram Gokhale is good as the chief cop. Virendra Saxena is very good.

Technical departments:

Story - screenplay - direction: The story of the film is based on real incidents of serial killings occurred in Mumbai in 1983. The same pattern was repeated in Kolkota in 1987 and in Chennai in 2008. The basic concept of the film is very interesting. But the director tried to formulize the story instead of narrating in more realistic way. Mentioning of 'the greatest cover-up ever' tagline in the poster publicity took the wind off from the screenplay as audience would start guessing that killer would be a cop right from the beginning. The efforts to fix the hero as the suspect follow the beaten path. The thread of wife suspecting her husband to have an affair is also unappealing. In spite of all these screenplay and structural errors, the director could able to pull off and deliver a decent film because the storyline of the film is authentic. The initial scenes of the film gave me a feeling that director is going to take a realistic approach like that of Zodiac (English film). But he has fallen into the formula trap by the middle of the film. The scene of nabbing the criminal red-handed in the hospital reminds us of the husband nabbing scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 'Dial M for Murder (1954)' film.

Other technical departments: Cinematography is good. Dialogues are nice. Music is appropriate. Art director Satish Chipkar deserves a commendation for bringing genuinely to sets with right backgrounds (Digjam suitings advertisement in railway station, Amitab film posters in subway, lifebuoy jingle in radio etc). Editing is fine.

Analysis: The Stoneman Murders is a compact film that deals with an interesting story idea based on real incidents. Director mostly stuck to the story and leaves many clues for us to guess the killer. Except for a few screenplay flaws, this film makes an interesting watch.

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