Armaan Mistry (Ram Kapoor) is an ace sleuth. Cast out of the police force due to his mental disturbance, he is now summoned by ACP Sehmat (Mona Singh) to crack cases that seem simple but are always deceptive.
Armaan has faced the trauma of watching his wife (Shraddha Nigam) die in front of his eyes as her car explodes outside their home. He has now developed OCD (Obsessive-compulsive Disorder) but seems to have whetted his yen for noticing things others do not. The logic is honed so well that he cannot be fooled by apparent truths.
The eight episodes in this season see seven cases (the first episode runs into two parts) and are all about murders. The series mixes humor with seriousness and the general aura (it is an official adaptation of the series Monk that ran into eight seasons) is of Sherlock Holmes-meets-Hercule Poirot. All along the cases that Mistry solves, beginning with a case where a politician escapes being shot by chance and a security guard is killed, the detective, now supposed to be earning handsomely and yet paradoxically wanting to be reinstated as a cop, is haunted by the visuals of his wife’s death and his private investigation into who killed her and why.
The last episode brings him near to cracking his case (the expression “The case is cracked!” is used as a kind of signature just like Holmes’ “The game’s afoot, Watson!” and similar). And it is clear that a second Indian season is set to happen. As for me, I wouldn’t mind it at all, for the sooner it comes, the better for the sheer enjoyment of the cases, simple yet ingenious, and the traits of the four main protagonists.
Mistry, disturbed by the possibility of infection from germs and dirt, obsessed with disorder in any form, like mismatched placing of cups or other objects, and refusing offers to even shake hands, is exemplarily portrayed by Ram Kapoor, a formidable and proven talent. His hyper way of expressing himself through sweeping gestures and his almost embarrassed glances and declarations about facts or his own quirks are done wonderfully, complete with an angelic and beguiling smile.
Shikha Talsania plays the perfect foil as his secretary Sharanya, not one of those typically dumb or dense ‘Kitty’s’ to a Karamchand but an anxiously supportive and protective soul who is also a troubled single mother. Mona Singh is a straight and acerbic yet compassionate Lestrade to Mistry’s Holmes, often challenging his observations and yet admiring Mistry’s skills and even summoning him for cases when he does not stumble upon them himself.
Her assistant Bunty (Kshitish Date) is an amusing and bumbling soul, widely admiring of Mistry’s skills but a shade dense. Of the seven stories, I found the saga of the ghazal singer (whose fan Mistry is!) and that of the business tycoon wanting to rob a rich builder the most ingenious. But the supporting cast is uniformly good and comprises of known names like Atul Kumar, Shishir Sharma and Ishita Arun among others.
The music (Sarthak Nakul) aids the moods aptly and director Rishab Seth does a superb job overall. The Indian angles (like references to popular Indian mass culture like Shah Rukh Khan and his film Baazigar through a wacky security officer of a hotel) add a tangy touch but there are a few flaws that could have been ironed out: a hotel to which Sharanya goes for a vacation to get away from it all seems to be within city limits, ditto a kind of wellness center for the mentally disturbed, so that Sehmat alone is summoned or mentioned whenever a cop is needed!
The dialogues are the high point of the otherwise riveting writing by Ritviq Joshi and Aarsh Vora. No stone is left unturned in terms of atmospherics mixed with the constant amusing quirks of a master detective whose seeming simplicity and interfering nature masks a razor-sharp mind.
This is a series that invites complete investigation into its content!
Rating: ****
Jio Hotstar presents Banijay Asia’s Mistry Produced by; Deepak Dhar Directed by: Rishab Seth Written by: Ritviq Joshi & Aarsh Vora Music: Sarthak Nakul Starring: Ram Kapoor, Mona Singh, Shikha Talsania, Kshitish Date, Atul Kumar, Shishir Sharma, Ishita Arun, Namantar Rajendra, Abhiijeit Chitre, Ganesh S. Mane & others
