C.I.D. Moosa

Johny Antony's 2003 Malayalam film follows Sahadevan, who believes himself a great detective and solves almost nothing. His chief rival is his brother-in-law, a police officer, and the contest between them runs as pure comedy until a real criminal ring enters the picture. The film became one of the most quoted examples of verbal comedy in Malayalam cinema; its lines are still in circulation. Dileep's performance works by joining vanity to ineptitude. Its weakness is sliding into action in the second half, with the comedy giving way to conventional fight sequences. The woman character has almost no function. Who it's for: viewers who like Malayalam comedy and popular Indian cinema of the 2000s. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative consistency, or troubled by the gender conventions of the period.