- Date of Release: 20 June 2025
- Genre: Comedy, Mystery
- Language: Hindi
- Watch On: Zee5
Detective Sherdil
Introduction
If there was a Face Palm D’or award to be presented to a list of nominated detectives, then the winner would be Detective Sherdil. This is because the tone of the movie is unintentionally laughable from the start. The idea was to create a Knives-Out-coded or Pink-Panther-coded whodunnit by introducing a flamboyant detective known for his goofy antics and solving the case in a jiffy. This basically means working with the characterization of the protagonist in a way to make things interesting. Instead, what you get is a dumbed down version of ‘Sherlock, Bakshi and Karamchand’ whose sass is making a reel on the crime spot, just because it feels cool! (No wonder Diljit Dosanjh has distanced himself from the film by not promoting the film at all on social media). It is almost like serving a reverse-sweep shot in a T-20-coded test match, only to woefully fail in the process. It is like catering to a non-existential fan-base of an IPL team who returns home trophyless every year, but for making reels and having fun along the way. And the real murderer of the film remains its tone, that is so patchy and so inconsistent that you can’t help but repel from the drama!
Story & Screenplay
The whodunnit element in Detective Sherdil is audacious at its absolutely worst. If you were to ask yourself, what are the key ingredients of a whodunnit, then the reply would be a bunch of characters wherein everyone remains a suspect. Yes, Detective Sherdil does have a bunch of characters that are prime suspects of the murder of Pankaj Bhatti (Boman Irani), who is shot in broad daylight. But where is the characterization to define the suspects, other than literal one-liners to shape their characters – a scheming wife Rajeshwari (Ratna Pathak Shah), a greedy-son Angad (Sumeet Vyas), a deaf and mute daughter Shanti (Banita Sandhu), and a shaman-esque Aakhri Pasta….errr just a shaman (Chunky Panday), to name a few. If you are familiar with the genre and if you look closely, the killer and the very clear motive of money can be seen from a countrymile!
To give detective Sherdil company is Natasha (Diana Penty), the frowning detective who just can’t get along with him but ridiculously, that plot-point is conveniently forgotten after the initial set of friction. You see them working as a team to resolve the case, even as Sherdil has a weird fetish for mouth-organs (pun not-intended; you guys😂), a la Sunil from Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na (1994), wherein the blaring background score prepares the viewers for a supposed revelation. Amongst the list of suspects is also a deaf and mute outsider called Purvak (Arjun Tanwar), who is involved in a relationship with Shanti, so the joke is that like Saifeena or Branjalina, they literally are Shanti-Purvak (given their deaf and mute undertones). When there are hidden jokes like these, how would you expect the viewers to take this already snoozy drama seriously?
The writing is so lazy and outlandish that at no point are you really invested in the drama. Take for instance the setting of the drama in Budapest – why Budapest because you would probably get a hefty remuneration fee for shooting in the country as opposed to having any impact on the screenplay. And oddly despite being set in Budapest, you see a character taking a leak on the streets even as his boy is supposedly assassinated in broad daylight. Because why not? The character is Indian and ‘Humaare Yahaan Aisa Hi Hota Hai’. You even have a hoody character whose identity is revealed at a later point, but isn’t that a basic trope of a genre that has been beaten to death? In another scene, you see books of Gone Girl and Stephen King placed next to Rajeshwari, almost like coaxing the viewers into suspecting here. If this isn’t lazy writing, then I don’t know what is!
To be fair, I didn’t mind the revelations that transpired in the final act, something that relatively brought the film marginally on track. But if I were to think closely on how did Sherdil pick on the smaller details of the case, then I still don’t have an answer for it! It is the sort of lazy writing wherein everything is laid out on a platter for the viewers, as opposed to allowing them to decipher the clues and play the guessing game along the way. In a way, it all felt like a dumbed down version of the already dumb film Housefull 5 (2025) minus the adult jokes, and a lesser budget, that builds the foundation of Detective Sherdil. Either that or it is a 100 minute long music video featuring Diljit Dosanjh whose theme is a whodunnit! It creates an illusion of a great whodunnit at the end, but in turn fails to answer the basic questions about the whereabouts of the characters in terms of the revelation. It is silly and audacious thereby summing up a screenplay that is a swing and a miss!
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues try and be cerebral with funny undertones, but instead aren’t as sharp as you would expect in a whodunnit. The BGM is blaring and it prepares the audience for the slightest of revelation that is around the corner. In fact, the loudness of the score often submerging the mystery in itself, by pressnting it as a pulpy fiction instead of a tense whodunnit, something that didn’t match with the soul of the drama. On a side note, had the proceedings been sombre without a trace of comedy, the drama could have been passable. But the concept of a Punjabi Sherlock hits rock bottom here. The cinematography just creates as illusion of Budapest through tracking shots of some random buildings, that never allowed the city to play a character. And the comic-book transitions felt like another hot mess, making you further disconnected with the characters and never quite having the urge to participate in the guessing game. Director Ravi Chhabriya misses the mark and how! The main culprit in his armoury remains his inability to handle the tone of the drama, something that is distracting and annoying to the core! Neither does the comedy stick, nor does his presentation of a whodunnit land, thereby making Detective Sherdil immensely uninspiring! The direction is really weak and there is no other way to word it!
Performances
The performances are pretty decent here although the basic idea of characterization is missing here. And that makes it a wasted opportunity given some of the names involved. Arjun Tanwar as Purvak is decent but the outline of his character was quite patchy while not accounting for his different shades. Talented actors like Sumeet Vyas and Ratna Pathak Shah have so little to do here, that it kind of fuelled my frustration, even more with respect to the writing. Boman Irani as Pankaj is dignified with his performance. Chunky Panday as Bodhi Mama is well relatively restrained while being passable here. Banita Sandhu as Shanti is alright but the emotional core in her character is next to negligible. This is true given how an atrempt was made to establish an emotional father-daughter bond in the screenplay. Kashmira Irani Saxena as Falak stands out and puts forth an immensely commendable act that is stoic but also mysterious. Sarah Barlondo as Elizabeth is hardly there in the mix, in a role that didn’t quite tap into her acting potential. Mukesh Bhhatt is woefully wasted here. Diana Penty as Natasha always wears a frown on her face that probably acts as a shield for her limited range as an actor. But she still was decent here. The film heavily relies on the charm of Diljit Dosanjh and to be fair, if the film is watchable then the credit does go to him. But a performer cannot salvage a sinking ship when the basic building blocks of the ship (read : writing) is wobbly and shoddy. And that quite honestly, seals the fate of Detective Dosanjh…..I mean Sherdil!
Conclusion
Detective Sherdil is an uninspiring Knives-Out-coded whodunnit packaged in a detective drama for dummies that makes for a woeful watch. Available on Zee5.
