It’s been a minute since Hindi cinema served up a cool film.I can’t think of a more apt word for Nachiket Samant’s Baby Do Die Do, a female hitman (hitwoman?) story beaming with colour, character and personality.Samant’s film is a slick, playful thriller that knows how to have a good time, in the vein of the worlds of Sriram Raghavan or Vasan Bala.Meet deaf and mute sharpshooter Baby Karmarkar (Huma Qureshi, who also serves as producer, is in fine form). Alongside her “colleague” Manu (a sincere Marudhar Shekhawat), she’s a contract killer who works for a man known as Papa (It’s always good to see Chunky Panday taken seriously as an actor and not forced to squeak his way through some inane comedy). Papa, in turn, works for the nefarious builder Zafar Bhai (Sikander Kher is never not a joy to watch), who has Papa and his team take out any business rivals or minor obstacles to his shady dealings.Baby’s contract-killing career is her attempt to find the man who murdered her twin sister decades earlier.When a hit goes wrong, it attracts the attention of crooked cop Anjum Khan (a playful Seema Pahwa), who’s hot on Baby’s trail. The walls start closing in. Bodies start piling up. Samant, alongside his DOP Tojo Xavier, mounts a moody, stylistic thriller full of flair and attitude. There's a constant sense of visual dynamism to keep things playful and alive between cutaways, pop-ups, split screens, and black-and-white sequences. I particularly liked Tojo Xavier’s striking top shots as his camera glides through the maximum city.'I Don’t Have Access to Certain Rooms or Films': Huma Qureshi on GatekeepingSikander Kher in a still from Baby Do Die Do.A Delightful ‘Bombay’ MovieIt’s among the reasons Baby Do Die Do is a delightful ‘Bombay movie’. The soul of the city is baked into the DNA of the narrative. Baby lives in a bustling chawl with her loud-mouthed mother. Her twin sister was murdered when the pair were children roaming through Mumbai’s infamous abandoned Centaur Hotel. Baby's MO involves killing people discreetly in plain sight on local trains and in crowded public spaces where she can disappear into a sea of faces unnoticed. Her tool of choice is every Mumbaikar's weapon of choice—an umbrella, here modified to double as a gun. shiny towers are built on the foundation of hundreds of uprooted lives.The film is even based in the murky world of the property mafia and redevelopment. The first half of the narrative, written by Samant and Rachit Singh, does a solid job of introducing this darkly comic world and its colourful characters brought to life by a crackling cast. The buildup works beautifully. There’s rarely a dull moment. Style and substance collide effortlessly as we’re flung into Baby’s world of carefully controlled killing, until things go sideways and she’s forced to go up against the hand that feeds her. Co-producer Saqib Saleem also stops by to get his Magic Mike on in one of the most memorable “item songs” in recent memory.Chunky Panday in a still from Baby Do Die Do.A Killer WorldBut Baby Do Die Do doesn’t quite manage to sustain its delectable energy and hold on us. Post-interval, the narrative plateaus.For one, the central, colourful “antagonists” in Inspector Anjum Khan and Zafar Bhai get sidelined in favour of a lengthy subplot involving a blackmailing court clerk who finds out about Papa’s operation. It’s here that the film risks becoming too busy, juggling one too many characters. Not to mention a small armada of narrative coincidences (a few too many characters happen to be in the wrong place at the right time), which the film tries to get away with under the guise of a “shit happens” chaotic black comedy. It’s also in the more uneven second half that the film risks descending into a "vibes-heavy" narrative that relies too heavily on moody montages and stylistic atmosphere, rather than deeply felt character development and plotting. I also wish it were able to pull off a more exciting, thunderous climax (though a number of gloriously cheeky, well-conceived twists certainly help). I could’ve also done without the customary reliance on a voiceover that guides us through the story.Steven Spielberg's 'Disclosure Day' Trips Over its Own Conspiracy TheoriesStill, these are rough edges and missteps that don’t derail the charms of this world and this character. The soul of Baby Do Die Do is a surprisingly affecting love story between Baby and her music teacher neighbour Siddhu (a gentle, lovable Rachit Singh). Baby is yet another single-minded action protagonist for whom revenge is her being. But she’s not an entirely self-serious, joyless figure. Huma imbues her with a childlike playfulness and innocence that makes her instantly endearing. Murder may be her mission, but she can’t help but couple-watch and be enamoured by what people see in romance. That is, until she experiences it herself and starts to put others before herself. Undercooked as it is (I wish we had more time with it), the whimsically plotted love story lands. In the eyes of a lovably besotted music teacher, the rebel with a cause finds a new one. Baby Do Die Do is a delightful time at the movies. Come for the killer style, stay for love.Baby Do Die Do releases in theatres on 3 July.(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. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)