Title: Slow-moving, Rather Silly Mystery
Product review: I was hoping for better in this film by Merchant Ivory. I have liked some of their work and others not so much. However, this mystery set in India with an Indian police detective looking for diamond smugglers/thieves is definitely not one of their best and if a series was planned, I trust better was thought of the idea. The Indian detective who is the central figure is supposed to be intelligent but long-suffering and appealingly maladroit with his superiors and his wife at home. However, I found him boring and colorless, and at times downright sappy. Stellen Starsgaard, who looked very young here, plays an almost superfluous character, a visiting Swedish criminologist, who is even more inept than the detective. The plot, in addition to being slow-moving, is rather inane and jerky and overall not very involving. I don't know if the book from which this was derived was good but if so, I would have to say that it was not done justice in this film adaptation.
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