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What do you get when an Indo-Canadian comedian, a slightly ill-assorted cast, heavy accents, broken Hindi, fake landscapes and everyone mispronouncing Toronto, come together? Netflix’s The Indian Detective.
The Indian Detective is a dramedy that stars Russel Peters, Anupam Kher, Hamza Haq, and Mishqah Parthiephal. The cast is the only noteworthy thing about the show. These cast members don’t really do anything much but speak in extremely broken Hindi IN THE CITY OF MUMBAI.
The show is about a Canadian constable, Doug D’Mello (Russell Peters), who has been suspended and demoted and comes to India because his father, Stanley (Anupam Kher) has had a heart attack, but then it just turns out to be gas, but not really, because he did actually have a heart attack. D’Mello then gets embroiled into the seedy underbelly of Mumbai because his pretty neighbour asks for help.
A few typical shots of the Gateway of India, a few beggars, some cows and stray dogs are used to fool the viewer that the show is shot in Mumbai. Then they cut to sets in Canada and Cape Town and try to pass off Native Americans as extras in the background. Why? Why would you shoot in South Africa? Mumbai offers plenty of locations! Why? And then, why on earth would you even post a picture of the filming with the hashtags #SetLife #SouthAfrica #TheIndianDetective?
Russell, shooting in authentic locations will not hurt you real bad.
If you’re Indian, don’t even bother watching The Indian Detective. The Hindi language used on the show is so misleading that it infuriates you. Not one word of Marathi is spoken in a police station situated in Mumbai? Not even one pudhe chala? The lingo used in the show is so fallacious, I won’t be surprised if a political party took offence.
The plot is so thanda, that you don’t even bother paying attention. An international money-laundering set is busted in two minutes, and they talk about 50 million worth of heroin, as if it were McDonald’s takeout.
It barely manages to hold your attention with it’s inauthenticity, so much so, that I was looking for split ends in my hair and cutting them off.
Apart from Hamza Haq, who plays the bad guy, no one puts on an act worth watching, not even Anupam Kher, especially when he is donning a ridiculous toupe. Hamza is the only actor who manages to get his emotions right and actually puts you on edge when he flies into a rage, AND GETS THE DAMNED ACCENT RIGHT.
It was fun to see Haq play ‘twins’ and his backstory would make for a better show than Russell Peters’ overdone comedy.
No seriously Netflix, you could do a lot better with a show about the origins - how Gopal and Amal Chandekar went from being slum dwellers in India to international crime lords. Try that out.
Should you watch The Indian Detective? I’ll let Constable Cheema answer that for you.
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