A suspended police officer returns to her hometown to find her childhood friend murdered. The Sudip Sharma (Paatal Lok, Kohrra) voice is instantly recognisable in Prime Video’s latest original film, Babita Singh Reporting. Sharma serves as producer on the film, directed by Ambeicka Pandit (Black Warrant) and written by Amita Vyas. The world, atmosphere, and ‘vibe’ are immediately familiar, and not just because this is yet another moody crime drama—the staple genre of the streaming age. Sharma’s worlds are meditative, bleak, and thematically rich in their fixation on the monsters among us and the conditions that birth them.Officer Babita Singh AKA Baby (a terrific Nimisha Sajayan) is, in spirit, the rookie cousin of Paatal Lok’s Hathiram Chaudhary. Like him, she’s an underestimated, overlooked cop who’s determined and recklessly brave. Self-destructive as it may be, she isn’t capable of looking the other way or, as Hathiram would say, putting naukri over duty. But unlike the tired, jaded Hathiram, Babita is the wet-behind-the-ears junior officer at the very start of her career. This film is the origin story of her becoming.When Baby is pushed to take the fall for a senior officer (a solid Rakesh Kumar), she accepts the two-week suspension. It’s the only way she’s able to get leave to visit her hometown of Rewa in Madhya Pradesh with her husband Sharad (Anshuman Pushkar can do no wrong). There, her childhood friend Bansi (a gentle Barun Sobti) says he urgently needs to speak to her. Before he gets the chance, the next day, he turns up dead.'Kohrra' Director Randeep Jha & Showrunner Sudip Sharma Decode 5 ScenesA Solid Coming-of-Rage StoryBabita Singh Reporting works better as a coming-of-rage origin story than as a thoughtful crime drama. Adept as he is at them, crime and investigation narratives have always been secondary in Sharma’s worlds, merely a kind of narrative tax to get at something more primal about the dark heart of society. But here, the “crime half” of writer Amita Vyas’ script feels at times clunky and convenient. The more you interrogate the beats of the murder mystery, the less they hold up.Instead, Babita Singh Reporting is powered by its endearing central character and an excellent Nimisha. She’s simply undeniable as one of the most “invisible” actors around. You can only ever see the character.Not to mention director Ambeicka Pandit’s sophisticated, affecting aesthetic. Together with the DOP’s sumptuous frames and production designer Mukund Gupta’s keen detailing, public markets, seedy bylanes and cluttered homes are rendered cinematic.It is curious, however, that visual flair aside, the setting doesn’t quite bleed into the narrative. The finest crime dramas ensure the place is inseparable from the plot. But this story feels like it could’ve taken place in any small town.Nimisha Sajayan in a still from 'Babita Singh Reporting'.Female cop characters on streaming are routinely awarded domestic-vs-duty arcs, struggling to balance personal and professional lives while dealing with nagging mothers (Dahaad) or insensitive husbands (Delhi Crime). Baby is forced to contend with both. She’s fat-shamed by her family. Her job, the fact that she hasn’t conceived yet and even her dead friend are treated as inconveniences by her in-laws. Not to mention her quietly manipulative husband. Anshuman Pushkar does well in a tricky balancing act as a man who knows how to perform “wokeness” and empathy while making his patriarchal demands of his wife known.A Spiritual Sequel To 'The Great Indian Kitchen'It’s why Babita Singh Reporting is a spiritual successor of sorts to The Great Indian Kitchen—Nimisha's breakout role in one of the most rightfully celebrated Indian films of the last decade. In that film, her newly married nameless character is treated like a robot, a slave, a piece of meat. Here, she plays a cop who’s constantly reminded she’s a woman first, belittled as a wife and daughter-in-law who must find her courage and embrace her rage and rebellion.The weaving of her domestic duties and scrappy, DIY investigation works well. Baby keeps coming up with new errands and tasks to do for her in-laws to allow her the time and freedom to solve her friend’s murder. I also liked how the narrative balances her fear and determination. She routinely risks her life in finding the truth, at one point being chased out of a house by her friend’s abusive husband and his dogs. Watch what Nimisha does in an excellent “fake it till you make it” sequence where she’s being mugged by a group of drug addicts she’s trying to question. She quickly snaps from scared victim to performed bravado, threatening them as they retreat in fear.'Toxic' Review: This Fairytale Is a Trojan Horse for Toxic MasculinityThe problem is the design of the investigation itself, which relies on a few too many conveniences and coincidences.Baby discovers Bansi is dead because his apparent killers are arrested right in front of her while she’s out shopping. After she attends the funeral and examines the body, her explanation to her husband that the police may have the wrong killer goes beyond organic and risks feeling overexplained. Many of the folks she has to interrogate who knew Bansi happen to be people she comes across. A key suspect happens to be related to her in-laws, and so on. There’s also the matter of the final revelation of why and how Bansi was killed, which risks feeling like a cop-out (pun not intended).Barun Sobti in a still from 'Babita Singh Reporting'.Still, Babita Singh Reporting remains one of the better Hindi films of the year as a result of its craft and central character more than its narrative.The internal journey here shines far brighter than the external plotting. While the film doesn’t quite join the ranks of the Hindi streaming crime drama hall of fame, its protagonist certainly does. If the algorithm permits, I for one would look forward to seeing more adventures of ASI Babita Singh.Babita Singh Reporting releases on Prime Video on 28 August.(Suchin Mehrotra is a critic and film journalist who covers Indian cinema for a range of publications. He's also the host of The Streaming Show podcast on his own YouTube channel. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. 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