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Shekhar Home Review: Kay Kay Menon and Ranvir Shorey lack the frisky vibe of sleuths in the Indianized world of Sherlock Holmes
What: ‘Shekhar Home’ – The Bengali tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle’s world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes is doused in frivolity.
Shekhar Home web series review
Paying a Bengali tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle’s world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes, Kay Kay Menon embarks on a journey to unearth a variety of clandestine crimes in Srijit Mukherji and Aniruddha Guha created Shekhar Homes, where he is accompanied by Ranvir Shorey.
Menon plays the eccentric and extraordinary titular protagonist with a cocksure attitude and Shorey plays the relatively sober Jayvrat Sahni, a middle-aged doctor turned detective in the tranquil town of Lonpur, West Bengal. Set somewhere in the 1990s, Shekhar Home spans across six episodes where the duo forge an unlikely partnership in solving cases laced with mysteries.
Srijit and Rohan Sippy helm the series – there is a decent recreation of the era where we didn’t see any digital indulgence and relied only on our brain – and so does Shekhar with his immaculate and calculative prowess to smell something fishy from a mile. His colourful costumes are in sync with an idiosyncratic Bengali who yearns for Kosha Mangsho on Sundays.
But somewhere between the Brains and the Bong, the sizzle is lost. Kay Kay sleepwalks through the role that is saddled with frivolous writing, the dialogues are also not meaty enough for him to register an impact. The first two episodes lack heft and humour and are executed with such mediocrity that a talented actor like Dibyendu Bhattacharya goes unnoticed.
The writing is so basic and ordinary that even actors like Rashika Dugal and Kirti Kulhari fail to rise above it, even though the premises navigate exciting topics like blackmail, murder, supernatural and mob outrages. It is left to Ranvir Shorey to crack some funky one-liners and punches and set the ball rolling. Shorey is at his spontaneous best and my personal favourite with the immensely natural Shernaz Patel, the pesky and kind-hearted landlady of Shekhar.
I go with 2.5 stars out of 5 for Shekhar Home. It is produced by BBC Studios Productions India is streaming on Jio Cinema from 14th August 2024.
Ahwaan Padhee, is an IT Techie/Business Consultant by profession and a film critic/cinephile by passion, is also associated with Radio Playback as well, loves writing and conducting movie quizzes. More By Ahwaan Padhee