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'Detective Byomkesh Bakshy' comes to Tampa

 
Sushant Singh Rajput, right, stars in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy.
Sushant Singh Rajput, right, stars in Detective Byomkesh Bakshy.
Published March 31, 2015

Finally rising from the pages of 20th century Bengali literature, meet Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, India's Sherlock Holmes. (The Big Bang Theory fans might remember an episode last year that took issue with this description; Raj insisted Sherlock Holmes was actually "the English Byomkesh Bakshi.")

This incarnation of the hero of 32 stories by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay (say that three times fast) already has a few issues with canon — the character's name has been spelled Bakshi until now, and he never much cared to be called "detective," preferring "seeker of truth." But who cares what they call him when he's hitting the big screen this weekend, ostensibly for the first time in a big-budget Hindi movie. It's difficult to deduce why it took him so long, given the popularity of the 1930s to '60s stories and a 1990s low-budget Hindi TV show, which has gained new binge-watching fans via YouTube.

Director Dibakar Banerjee's noir thriller is set in British-controlled Calcutta during World War II and pits the traditional dhoti-wearing sleuth (played by former TV star Sushant Singh Rajput) against a Shanghai gang. There are also dashes of opium and a lady of the night thrown in for intrigue. And what's any detective without his tsk-ing Watson? Bakshi's is a writer named Ajit (played by Anand Tiwari).

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, with subtitles, opens Friday at AMC Veterans 24 in Tampa.

Caitlin E. O'Conner, Times staff writer