‘Detective Sherdil’ Movie Review: Diljit Dosanjh’s Smug Sleuth Kills the Intrigue Out of This Murder-Mystery (LatestLY Exclusive)

Detective Sherdil Movie Review: What’s worse than an inept detective? A perpetually annoying one. And what’s worse than a perpetually annoying detective? One who’s also smug and keeps interrupting the movie with grating voiceovers. On that note, let's talk about Detective Sherdil, a whodunnit written and edited by Ravi Chhabriya, starring Diljit Dosanjh in the lead role. 'Detective Sherdil' Trailer: Diljit Dosanjh Turns Private Investigator in This Murder Mystery; Promo Wins Over Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif (Watch Video).

At its core, Detective Sherdil has a classic setup - a rich man is murdered, everyone in the family is a suspect, and a 'brilliant' detective swoops in to solve the case. Except here, the so-called brilliant detective is so unbearably smarmy and self-satisfied that he feels just as unlikeable as the wealthy red herrings in the story. And there's nothing 'classy' about how this mystery unravels.

'Detective Sherdil' Movie Review - The Plot

The film opens with the murder of billionaire Pankaj Bhatti (Boman Irani), who is gunned down on a quiet Budapest road. The assassin is caught, but the real mystery lies in who orchestrated it. Enter Detective Sherdil (Dosanjh), tasked with cracking the case.

Under suspicion are Bhatti’s family members: his wife Rajeshwari (Ratna Pathak Shah); his volatile elder son Angad (Sumeet Vyas); Angad’s socialite wife Elizabeth (Sarah Barlondo); and his daughter Shanti (Banita Sandhu), who is deaf and mute. Also missing in action are Bhatti’s driver Jaipal (Mukesh Bhatt) and his accountant Purvak (Arjun Tanwar), who is also Shanti’s boyfriend and shares her hearing and speech impairment. There is also a maid, Falak (Kashmira Irani Saxena), who hovers around the scenes, desperate to grab our suspicion.

Watch the Trailer of 'Detective Sherdil':

To complicate things further, we meet Bodhi (Chunky Pandey) - Pankaj’s brother-in-law and their resident gardener-turned-spiritual guru. Sherdil’s team includes his ex, Natasha (Diana Penty), and a cop named Danny (Mikhail), who all assist in an investigation that constantly tosses out red herrings and half-baked twists that mostly end up confusing the viewer.

'Detective Sherdil' Movie Review - A Boring Murder Mystery

Detective Sherdil is based on a story by the director and Ali Abbas Zafar, who also serves as the film’s producer. The movie clearly wants to evoke the charm of Agatha Christie’s classics like Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile. And there’s nothing wrong with borrowing from the classics - just look at how Rian Johnson pulled off a modern homage with his Knives Out films.

But as we’ve seen before, a good murder mystery needs smart writing and, more importantly, competent execution. Otherwise, you end up with another Neeyat. Remember Neeyat? The one where a morose Vidya Balan investigates a rich man’s murder? Exactly. You don’t.

Despite Sherdil’s self-professed brilliance, the film joins Neeyat in taking what should have been a compelling murder mystery and turning it into a tedious snoozefest. Neeyat Movie Review: Vidya Balan's Whodunnit Underwhelms with Clumsy Mystery and A Discerning Lack of Ingenuity.

'Detective Sherdil' Movie Review - An Irritating Protagonist

The biggest problem is the protagonist himself. Sherdil is too smug for his own good - a know-it-all with a constant self-satisfied grin, who even plays his own theme music on a mouth organ. It's hard to root for someone that grating, especially when the movie doesn't even challenges the investigator in him. He keeps acting as if he can solve everything in an instant - too bad the movie had to last a couple of hours so he has to play the waiting game.

Sherdil fancies comparing himself with some of the fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes, Byomkesh Bakshi and Karamchand, but instead of allowing us to make that decision, he keeps telling us how he is as good as them. His frequent, unnecessary voiceovers only serve to 1) remind us how annoying he is, and 2) suggest the film doesn’t trust the audience to follow the plot. And Dosanjh, unfortunately, delivers the role in an almost one-note manner.

Also, what is up with those bizarre “reel” sequences at the start and end, where the camera zooms in and out of Dosanjh and moves around, as if the film forgot it was a movie and decided to be a music video instead?

PS: If Sherdil wants to compare himself to the greats, someone should remind him that The Pink Panther is the name of a diamond, not a detective. The detective's name is Inspector Clouseau.

'Detective Sherdil' Movie Review - One-Dimensional Characters and Predictable Twists

The screenplay doesn't do any favours for the rest of the cast either. Most of the Bhatti family members feel like caricatures rather than characters, and are made to act accordingly. That’s a shame, especially when you have someone like Ratna Pathak Shah, who never quite sheds her Maya Sarabhai aura here.

The plot wastes too much time chasing after a glaring red herring - Purvak. And even I don’t need to be a Sherdil to guess he’s the wrong guy. Also, if all your characters act suspiciously and one doesn’t, well… it’s not hard to see where this is going.

Among the cast, Boman Irani puts in a decent performance, and his character had the potential for an intriguing arc, though it’s ultimately dulled by lazy writing. Chunky Pandey isn’t half bad either, even if his role feels largely pointless. Diana Penty, on the other hand, maintains a single expression throughout.

By the third act, Sherdil declares the case has turned from a whodunnit into a howdunnit. Firstly, every whodunnit is, by default, also a howdunnit. Secondly, this mid-shift reeks of self-awareness - an admission that the whodunnit angle has been botched.

The film also suffers from excessive and flashy editing. With the director also taking on editing duties, we’re treated to over-stylised transitions and random flares that seem more like a desperate attempt to jazz things up than genuine visual storytelling. It’s a prime example of why just because you can use every editing trick, doesn’t mean you should.

'Detective Sherdil' Movie Review - Final Thoughts

Detective Sherdil is a textbook case of a film that thinks it’s far smarter than it actually is. It struts about with smug confidence, dazzles with unnecessary style, and offers up a mystery that barely holds together on paper - let alone on screen. When your lead detective is the most annoying thing about a murder mystery, you’ve got a serious crime on your hands. Detective Sherdil is streaming on Zee5.

(The opinions expressed in the above article are of the author and do not reflect the stand or position of LatestLY.)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 20, 2025 12:01 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).