Living in the West, it’s fairly easy to forget that there’s a rich and deep history of filmmaking in India, as so much of what we see here is simply Bollywood romance or more recently grand epic fantasies and action movies out of Tollywood. It’s helpful then that modern streaming channels dip into world cinema a little more, and with fare like Netflix’s Sector 36, shining a light on another staple of Indian cinema, the crime thriller.

Based on a heavily fictionalised version of the Noida murders in 2006, the film follows a game of cat and mouse between the creepy murderer, Prem Singh (Vikrant Massey) and cynical police inspector Ram Charan Pandey (Deepak Dobriyal), as a series of children’s body parts in and around a municipal water tank inside the titular city sector. As the Inspector delves ever deeper into the crime, he repeatedly hits walls of bureaucracy, corruption and class issues. Meanwhile Prem continues to hunt for victims, through his network of allies and associates, pointing towards his acts of savagery having deeper motives and repercussions than simply the acts of a lone madman.

While Sector 36 isn’t by any means a classic in its field, it’s still an interesting, if slightly flawed, thriller. The highpoint of the film is inarguably the main confrontation between Prem and Ram Charan, as the 17-minute long interrogation scene ramps up the tension marvellously. It also lets Massey really go to town, playing against type as the charismatic but deeply unhinged serial killer. It’s a great performance, and the film is far more electric when he’s onscreen, wallowing in his affably offhand savagery.

Dobriyal has a harder task, playing a role that starts out by making him broadly unlikable; literally turning away or fobbing off the distraught parents of missing children with a handful of notes, rather than filling in the paperwork reports. It’s only when his own daughter is almost snatched, that he becomes invested in the plight, and finds himself caught in a web of corruption and lies.

While the film is more than a little simple, and clumsy in its telling of the investigation. Dobriyal stumbling straight onto the right track is a script choice that feels lazy rather than serendipitous; yet it’s a choice that lets the story focus more on its themes of wealth and corruption. The audience is never in doubt that Prem and his employer Bassi (Akash Khurana) are clearly behind the crimes, but the question becomes how deep the rot lies, and who can really be trusted. There’s clearly a lot being pointed at here, particularly at the huge societal imbalances in Indian society, and the vast chasms between the poor and the rich or the wealthy native districts and the immigrant slums.

It’s ultimately a compelling enough, if middle of the road, police thriller; all shot in the typical inhouse Netflix style and look that means it never becomes visually uninteresting. The counter being that it never becomes hugely inventive or arresting either. But if you want a passable enough thriller, and an insight into an aspect of Indian society that isn’t so prevalent in Western media, Sector 36 is certainly not a waste of your time.

Available on Netflix now