Detective Sherdil Review: Diljit Dosanjh Charms in Weak Murder Mystery

Detective Sherdil kicks off with a swaggering rap number that hypes up its flashy protagonist, ending with the bold claim, “Sherlock and Bakshi could never compare!” It’s a cheeky line — and technically true, since neither Holmes nor Byomkesh ever stuck around crime scenes to film reels for social media. But that's exactly what Sherdil (Diljit Dosanjh) does in his first scene, posing more like a pop star than a sleuth.

Fresh off cracking Budapest’s biggest kidnapping ring — where, oddly, no one speaks a word of Hungarian — Sherdil is pulled from vacation to solve the murder of telecom tycoon Pankaj Bhatti (Boman Irani). Bhatti’s car is blown up on a highway by a motorcycle assassin, who’s caught immediately. But who ordered the hit?

Instead of grilling the killer, Sherdil heads to the Bhatti mansion and places the entire family under house arrest. Classic murder mystery tropes unfold: a recently altered will, a house full of suspects — wife Rajeshwari (Ratna Pathak Shah), children Angad (Sumit Vyas) and Shanti (Banita Sandhu), a missing brother-in-law (Chunky Pandey), a shady driver (Mukesh Bhatt), and Shanti’s boyfriend, Purvak (Arjun Tanwar), who is set to inherit most of Bhatti’s fortune.

The film nods to Indian sleuth icons like CID and Karamchand, but it clearly draws most of its inspiration from Knives Out. From the spiral staircase to quirky flashbacks and eccentric suspects, Detective Sherdil borrows heavily from Rian Johnson’s murder mystery universe. But while it mimics the visual flair, it lacks the narrative sharpness.

Director Ravi Chahabariya injects energy through fast pacing, voiceovers, and slick editing. The film leaps frequently from the mansion to the city, trying to stay ahead of the audience. Yet, the second half becomes overly tangled, with plot twists that pile up without payoff.

Though Dosanjh is charismatic, his character is often let down by flat writing. Sherdil constantly states the obvious — “This is a classic whodunnit,” he says at one point — and the quirky dialogue doesn’t match the intelligence his character is supposed to embody.

Detective Sherdil wants to be a fun, modern murder mystery, but ends up all style and little substance. With tighter writing and a less derivative tone, it might have had a shot at greatness.