A head constable facing the heat at work and at home lets his body do the talking in Debashish Makhija’s superficial but good-looking short film Taandav, which weaves in visual nods to movies as diverse as Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face and Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya.

Packed with atmosphere and featuring a spot-on, mostly silent, performance by Manoj Bajpayee, the only thing Taandav is missing is a better plot. The short pours its energies into replicating the rambunctious street dances that are a part of the annual Ganesh festival in Mumbai, and this it does most successfully indeed.