Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Suspect X’ on Netflix, An Indian Thriller About A Woman Trying To Cover Up Her Husband’s Murder

The new Netflix movie Suspect X (released in India as Jaane Jaan) is a murder-thriller where an intriguing investigation leads to a major reveal in the film’s final moments. The movie is not a whodunnit as much as a “how are they going to get away with it?” and though there are certainly a couple of unexplained plot choices that keep this from being a truly great film, it’s definitely a thrill ride that’s worth your time.

SUSPECT X: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The film opens on a man in business attire sitting in an office looking upset. A moment later, he puts his head through a noose hanging from the ceiling. Startled by a knock at the door, the chair beneath him falls and we hear the crack of his neck. A moment after that, with the brightness dialed up a bit to acknowledge that what we just watched was a dream, the same man wakes up, having just imagined his own death.

The Gist: Kareena Kapoor Khan plays Maya D’Souza, a woman who fled from her violent husband Ajit with their shared savings. Maya lives in the remote Indian town of Kalimpong with her teenage daughter Tara, and has successfully avoided having Ajit find her for 14 years until one day he locates them. Ajit is a crooked cop who moonlights by skimming money from the profits of a strip club, and he tells Maya that he wants to take young Tara away so she can work at his club. A scuffle ensues when a disgusted Maya refuses, and, with Tara’s help, Maya kills Ajit in self defense, strangling him with an electrical cord.

The man in the first scene, Naren (Jaideep Ahlawat), who everyone calls Teacher because of his job as the math teacher at the local school, is Maya’s neighbor in their apartment complex. Naren is a brilliant mathematician who keeps to himself, but it seems that everyone in town knows that he fancies Maya from a distance. The night that Ajit is killed, Naren astutely surmises that something is off with Maya, and he offers to help her move Ajit’s body. Naren, it turns out, is former police, and so with that insider knowledge, he helps her craft an alibi so she won’t be considered a suspect.

Meanwhile, a Mumbai police inspector named Karan Anand (Vijay Varma) has been tasked with investigating Ajit’s illegal financial activities, and his search for Ajit leads him to Kalimpong. Though Karan wasn’t in town to conduct a murder investigation, eventually when he discovers Ajit’s burned remains, that’s what his job turns into.

To really ramp up the drama, Karan and Naren were classmates at the police academy, and immediately recognize one another, so while Karan looks into Maya’s past and alibi, Naren continues to try to outwit Karan by helping Maya in an attempt to keep her from getting arrested. Both men basically fall in love with Maya, which complicates the investigation, but it isn’t until the final ten minutes of the film that the game everyone is playing at is revealed (and we also finally get an explanation for the film’s opening suicide dream).

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? There’s no shortage of movies with great plot twists and reveals, and Suspect X is right up there with Primal Fear, The Usual Suspects, Presumed Innocent, and Shutter Island where you ultimately learn that one of the main characters is not really who you think they are.

Our Take: Suspect X, which is based on the Japanese novel The Devotion Of Suspect X, is a well-crafted, well-acted mystery in which you can never truly trust the nature of the relationships between any of the characters. While Maya and Naren seem to be in cahoots with one another the whole time, it’s unclear is Naren is trying to help Maya because he’s in love with her, or if he has ulterior motives. Likewise, Karan and Maya both seem to be playing one another in a cat and mouse game. (Fortunately, though Karan seems to have a crush on Maya, they don’t ever truly become romantic, but the fact that he takes her out on a date becomes a pivotal plot point for the film.)

The film uses flashbacks, very deliberate language, and Naren’s love of math (the film is very math heavy) to create a climax that you know is coming, but you don’t know exactly how it will play out. Will The police get outwitted? Will the real killer be brought to justice? While the final moments reveal all, there are certainly some details that feel a little strange and unsettling, such as a [SPOILER ALERT] homeless man casually being killed so his body can be used to trick the police, overall, the intended effect of the film’s big surprise twist is well played.

Sex and Skin: Almost none, save for a couple shots of scantily clad women dancing on stripper poles.

Parting Shot: [SPOILER ALERT AGAIN!] Naren stands in a prison cell with his wall covered in mathematical equations. “Is this mathematics or logic?” he hear Karan say, repeating a line of dialogue from earlier in the film, to which Naren responds, “Math is logic.”

Memorable Dialogue: “Just do what I’ve told you,” Naren repeatedly tells Maya in an effort to clear her name. What Maya doesn’t realize is that, though those instructions are very simple, he has orchestrated an entire, elaborate plot to save her.

Performance Worth Watching: Naren, who is played by Jaideep Ahlawat, appears to be a vulnerable, sad man, consumed by his passion for math. But deep down, he contains multitudes, and he flips between sad sack and Liam Neeson’s particular set of skills throughout the film.

Our Call: STREAM IT! If you love thrillers with surprising, completely unexpected reveals, Suspect X is a great new entry in the genre.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.