The title for Nachiket Samant’s film is at first perplexing. But then, once I saw what they were trying to do, I smirked. An English transliteration of the protagonist’s name, Baby Karmarkar — how amused one might be by the pun might dictate how much they end up enjoying Samant’s film – because it’s full of dour, made-in-Mumbai humour. Baby (Huma Qureshi, also producer with brother/actor Saqib Saleem) is a deaf/mute female assassin, whose umbrella doubles up as a sneaky pistol. Exploiting Mumbai’s crowded spaces, Baby slips in, kills her target, and slips out. Thanks to the blinders that Mumbai residents have put on, it takes a while for most people to realise there’s a corpse next to them. It’s a smooth, nifty way to get the job done. In the film’s first scene, the makers introduce Baby’s modus operandi inside a Mumbai local. Samant’s film belongs to the tiny sub-genre of crime-comedies set in Mumbai, which have found their own stamp to discover the ordinary. Chinmay Mandlekar’s Inspector Zende (2025), Vijay Maurya’s Mast Mein Rehneka! (2023), Vasan Bala’s Monica! O My Darling (2024) and Rajesh Krishnan’s Lootcase (2020) are some predecessors to Samant’s film, which found an underdog in an ordinary Marathi manoos. In Baby Do Die Do, the protagonist is a woman, who flips her handicap into her strength. It’s a terrific cover story, if she’s found in a place she’s not supposed to be in. Her sign language makes her an automatic “pity case” in the eyes of most people.The duo behind Darlings (2023) – Jasmeet K Reen and Parveez Sheikh – are credited for the original story, while the screenplay and dialogues are written by Samant and Gaurav Sharma.The film begins in sparkling fashion; it all kicked into gear for me during a pristine dream-pop ballad, ‘Kaun Hai Woh’ (music: Arjun Iyer, sung by Mohit Chauhan), perfect for a newborn romance under Mumbai’s overcast, grey skies during the monsoons. Siddhu (Rachit Singh), an aspiring singer in a brand-new city, falls in love with Baby when she pays for his bus ticket, after he’s been pickpocketed. The punchline for the joke comes in the next scene, when Siddhu (after learning about Baby’s handicap) tries to repay the kindness, by offering her a seat on the bus – reserved for the differently-abled. Farthest thing from being a victim of her circumstances, Baby gives a half-smile at his earnestness, and sits in an adjacent seat. A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Baby Do Die Do’.Iyer’s music adds a whole lot of texture to the film. In fact, it’s the jukebox that conveys the overall gaze of the film, which sees Mumbai as a melting pot of tens of millions of dreams, all hustling for their moment in the sun. The songs carry the anxiety of a film about to lose its audience. And therefore, Iyer’s album serves up colourful imagery of the city in a song called Myuchal Fund (starting with the line “Sachin ne bola tha, Myuchal Fund achhe hai”). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve realised I’m a huge fan of films platforming the everyday Marathi manoos observational humour of Mumbai. Baby’s boss, PM Jain (Chunky Pandey), a father-figure, whom she calls ‘Pappa’, operates a realtor’s office as a front, to carry out the contract killings. Most victims are related to Mumbai’s real-estate business. A gangster called Zeeshan Katkar (Sikandar Kher), who goes by the name ZK, has built a structure called Lucky Towers, in the middle of shanties. The highrise is named after his brother, Lucky (Arun Kushwah), born with dwarfism. The first scene sees a builder make unintentionally rude comments about Lucky’s height — which he understandably takes offence to. Zeeshan and Lucky are dealing with bred-with-a-silver-spoon scions of real estate families, torn between sucking up to them and intimidating them — which I thought was a subplot the film could have spent more time on. The first half is stacked with repartee between characters, as Baby is contracted to kill builder Mukesh Murjhani (Himanshu Malik), who has ghosted ZK. It leads them to a club, where Saqib Saleem (in a lovely cameo in a song called Alpha Q), allows himself to be objectified (a la the Magic Mike films) in a weekly gathering for gay men. It’s a subversive choice echoing Bhavesh Joshi Superhero (2018) – where director Vikramaditya Motwane similarly chose Sharib Hashmi for an ‘item song’ inside a dance bar, without making it problematic. A screengrab from the trailer of ‘Baby Do Die Do’.I particularly enjoyed Seema Pahwa as Mumbai police cop, Anjum Khan, who uses her straight delivery to deliver chuckles. For example, when she knocks on Siddhu’s door, looking for Baby (they are married by now), he asks her “Aap kaun?” (Who are you?) Anjum points to the constable standing in uniform behind her, and says “Hum police hai, beta!” (We’re cops, son!)The ensemble keeps the plot working, however, things get significantly less tight in the second half. As Baby realises she wants to get out of the contract-killing business, Pappa tells her — “there’s only incoming in our business, no outgoing.” As the plot gets serious, and bloodier, Samant and Sharma’s screenplay leans on genre cliches. Like a childhood trauma — a climactic reveal about said trauma (which reminded me of the 90s), without doing anything unexpected with it. I realised my interest was waning also because, I didn’t fully buy Huma Qureshi as an action hero. As much as I’d like to believe in her promise as an actor, I never believed in my bones that she would inflict damage on anyone without the help of a stunt coordinator, or a screenwriter’s contrivance. It’s a shame, because it is Qureshi who has gone out on a limb, and brought this film to life. As Samant’s film runs out of jokes, it also runs out of steam in the end, though only after safely bringing the train to its intended destination. As much as it teases with its graphic novel design and Arjun Iyer’s songs filled with clever rhymes, Baby Do Die Do never leaves the slow track.*Baby Do Die Do is playing in theatres