The Pet Detective

For all its liveliness, the film stumbles in places. A handful of jokes fail to connect, and many supporting roles remain underdeveloped. Even an actor of Vinayakan’s stature is limited to a brief and forgettable appearance. With so many parallel threads, the screenplay at times appears to be struggling to stay coherent rather than moving ahead with conviction. By the end, The Pet Detective may not break new ground for the genre, but it sustains enough humour and spirit to stay engaging. The narrative can feel cluttered at times, yet the performances, led by Sharaf U Dheen, keep it lively. Praneesh Vijayan maintains a playful tone throughout, creating a world where confusion and coincidence drive the fun. It never quite matches the sharpness of the classics it draws from, but it remains an engaging and occasionally clever comic adventure.

Clocking under two hours, The Pet Detective is trying to be a zippy madcap ride, and to an extent, it manages to be what it promised. Rather than predictability, I would say there is a familiarity in certain characterizations that made it less original and more inspired. When Vinay Forrt’s character appears in the last act of the movie, we have almost forgotten about that character, and you can’t say the same about Jagathy Sreekumar’s character from CID Moosa. The humor in the final act and the performances of the main actors are so good that The Pet Detective ultimately manages to make us forget or forgive all its writing flaws.