‘Detective Sherdil’ movie review: Diljit Dosanjh is all talk in middling murder mystery-OxBig News Network

Detective Sherdil begins with a rap number talking up its quick-witted protagonist, ending with a declarative “Sherlock and Bakshi could never compare!” A tall claim, but also true in a sense. Neither Holmes nor Byomkesh hung around at crime scenes making reels. This, however, is what Sherdil (Diljit Dosanjh) does in the film’s opening scene, calling it a highlight of his job. The camera circles him in an arc. We are being introduced to a genius investigator. Instead, Diljit looks like he’s ready to drop his latest single.

Having busted the biggest kidnapping ring in Budapest — oddly, no one, not even the White characters, speak a line of Hungarian — Sherdil is starting on a vacay. Promptly and unceremoniously, he’s dragged back to investigate the murder of telecom magnate Pankaj Bhatti (Boman Irani). On a highway, Bhatti’s car was waylaid and blown up by a bike-borne assassin. While the killer was caught, who were his paymasters? 

The obvious thing to do will be to interrogate the assassin first. Instead, Sherdil rolls up at the Bhatti mansion and places everyone in house arrest. It transpires that Pankaj, like any self-respecting victim with a large fortune in a murder mystery, had altered his will before his death. His family—wife Rajeshwari (Ratna Pathak Shah), kids Angad (Sumit Vyas) and Shanti (Banita Sandhu), plus a missing sala (Chunky Pandey)—comes under suspicion. Also missing is Bhatti’s driver, Jaipal (a shifty-looking Mukesh Bhhatt), and Shanti’s boyfriend and entrenched outsider Purvak (Arjun Tanwar). Things are looking particularly grim for Purvak, whom Pankaj had bequeathed the lion’s share of his wealth. 

The film name-checks everything from CID to Karamchand to Pink Panther. In treatment and tone, however, it has but one franchise in mind. The pop-cultural impact of Rian Johnson’s wildly successful Knives Out films has been so huge that it, across the globe, several imitations have cropped. Detective Sherdil is not the first Hindi title to adopt the template. From the spiral staircase and antic accoutrements in Bhatti’s study to a shot of Sherdil lounging in the tub, not to mention the ambitious use of flashbacks, the visual language is very Knives Out. The characters, too, are assorted hanger-ons and unreliable kinfolk. Where director Ravi Chahabariya invents is the darting, breakneck plot, which keeps stealing away from the mansion and bounding across town.

The second half gets too convoluted for words. The film, also edited by Chahabariya, has a frisky music video aesthetic, evident in flashy transitions and intertitles. Though he never breaks the fourth wall, Sherdil talks frequently in voiceover, at times speeding through whole conversations to hand us the gist. The jokey dialogue writing does poorly by his rapid-fire mind. Fatally for a detective, he has a habit of stating the obvious (“This is a planned murder”, “this is a classic whodunnit”).

The beat is perpetually dropping in Diljit’s head in Detective Sherdil. The actor hits his comedic marks, blowing on a gold-plated harmonica to punctuate his deductions and doubts, wielding it on one occasion like a batarang. Mostly, though, he struggles to enliven scenes. Sherdil is perhaps too chipper an investigator to take seriously (for the right balance between quirkiness and command, see Radhika Apte in Monica, O My Darling).This is where the voiceovers would’ve come of use—but they don’t. Despite the constant inner monologues, Sherdil gives no hint of an inner life.

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Irani, Vyas, Sandhu and Bhhatt do respectable filler work—nothing more, nothing less. And a minor bravery award should be conferred on Diana Penty (as Sherdil’s co-investigator Natasha) for sitting for a staring match with Ratna Pathak Shah. Better actors would have shuddered. From sassy Maya Sarabhai to icy Rajeshwari, the heat in Pathak Shah’s glare has remained undimmed.

Detective Sherdil is streaming on ZEE5