Operation Romeo: Cops harass a couple on a dark, deserted road

Some films stay with you long , long after the curtains come down. Some fail to punch the memory button, and the minute you walk out of a theatre, the movie becomes a blur. Some others become inspirations – sometimes of the wrong kind. Operation Romeo falls into the third slot, and is now on Netflix. The other day, a news report in the print media caught my attention.

It read: “A police constable has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a woman who was with her boyfriend in a car near Besant Nagar beach (Chennai) on April 29. The constable has b e en charged also with threatening them and extorting money from them. Joseph, a constable attached to the Chennai High Court Complex police station, approached the couple, who are third-year students of a private engineering college, around 8.10pm.

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According to the complaint, he flashed a torchlight into the car, entered the vehicle through an unlocked door and showed an identity card saying he was from the Shastri Nagar police station. He threatened to register a case against them. Fearing action, the students pleaded with him. The police said the accused had demanded money from the couple. The woman transferred 3,000 online to an account linked to him. He then drove the car to an ATM on Besant Nagar 3rd Main Road from where he took more money from the couple”. The cop was later arrested after a compliant was registered.

This is not very common, because courting couples meet secretly and are afraid to walk into a police station. It is well known and documented how cinema and television influence people to step into the wrong lane. This is what Operation Romeo, directed by Shashant Shah, is all about. Aditya Sharma (Sidhant Gupta) and Neha Kasliwal (Ve dika Pinto) are lovers. The two take a long drive in his new car to celebrate her birthday, and he is all set to pop the question, when trouble strikes. Driving on long, lonely roads, Aditya asks Neha for a kiss, but she feels that they should not be doing it in the middle of a road. So he steers his car to a side alley and parks.

As they are about to kiss, two cops knock on the car’s window pane and accuse them of public indecency. The plot then begins to pitch and roll after this with the policemen threatening to expose the young pair unless they pay up. Neatly written and realistically portrayed, Operation Romeo pushes us to a great climax – where surprises await us. One is when we are introduced to the wife of one cop. She is very pretty pretty but sadly saddled with a rogue husband. The movie tells us how such a devastating incident could ruin a couple’s happiness, leading to pain and suffering. But the silver lining: The Chennai policeman has been sent to remand.

(THE AUTHOR IS A MOVIE CRITIC WHO HAS PENNED A BIOGRAPHY OF ADOOR GOPALKRISHNAN)