Detective Sherdil Review – Diljit Dosanjh stars in Detective Sherdil, now streaming on Zee5. Despite a vibrant cast and quirky touches to unending monologues, this murder mystery stumbles with a flat plot and underwhelming twists.
Diljit Dosanj, Diana Penty, Boman Irani, Chunky Pandey, Ratna Pathak, Sumeet Vyas, Banita Sandhu and a bunch of others are part of the latest Diljit Dosanj film Detective Sherdil streaming on Zee 5 with a changed logo. The movie is a murder mystery even though it predictably starts with a dance and song and has at its centre Sherdil – the detective who is self-proclaimed combination of Sherlock Holmes and Byomkesh depending on which country he is in. And in the beginning, itself, he does mention that the joy of his work comes at the end when he is into describing how the crime was done!
We should have taken the hint. In addition to detecting which he does with no effort whatsoever and some ill-fitting action included – Sherdil does a lot of monologues throughout the film. He goes about explaining the characters, the premise, his suspicions and who must have done what followed by who did what and shares a whole bunch of his other thoughts – while he decides if the murder – which he is investigating – is a ‘whodunnit and how done it’ – Several other quirks and tongue in cheek expressions are added to his dialogues that with great difficulty add the much needed layers to this new detective on the block.
Assisting him in this feat are Danny (Mikhail Yawalkar) and Natasha (Diana Penty) – the latter with an unexplained grudge for Sherdil.
Coming to the story – Sherdil ends up investigating the murder of millionaire Pankaj Bhatti played by Boman Irani – who is killed by an assasin. It is up to the genius detective to find the pay masters. The prime suspect is Bhatti’s accountant and his daughter’s beau Purvak, especially since the big man before getting killed alters his will to give major portion of his wealth to the speech and hearing impaired Purvak. Pankaj Bhatti’s wife Rajeshwari, her brother Bodhi, son Angad, daughter Shanti are not far from suspicion too.
But nothing is difficult for Sherdil. As he goes about unravelling the plot – you are left hanging on to the crumbs of intrigue and mystery as new characters keep making an entry into the story fraught with flaws.
While you want to like Diljit Dosanj as Detective Sherdil – the plot never thickens, and you are left high and dry wondering what hit you as the film ends with the Detective elucidates the plot some more.
That said this new addition to investigative thrillers that seem to the genre ruling OTT – can surely be watched once if only for the insanely high volume promotions all around.
Detective Sherdil Review
Rating: 2.0/5
