Shaque: Trust No One Review Rating:
Cast: Parineeti Chopra, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Harleen Sethi, Jennifer Winget, Soni Razdan, Anup Soni & others
Creator: Siddharth P Malhotra & Rensil D Silva
Director: Rensil D Silva
Streaming On: Netflix
Language: Hindi dubbed in English, Tamil, and Telugu
Runtime: 7 episodes of 40 minutes each
I have always been fond of thrillers. Ever since I was a kid, my entire family loved watching CID! It packed plenty of excitement, and when ACP Pradyuman famously declared, “Daya, Kuch To Gadbad Hai,” everyone would immediately start debating what that trouble actually was. Later, discovering the universe of Sherlock Holmes deepened my obsession with the genre. In India, Vikash Swarup shook things up with his book Six Suspects, cementing thrillers as a dominant force in both literature and entertainment. When Parineeti Chopra’s Netflix series Shaque released a fantastic teaser, I was instantly hooked and convinced it would make for a phenomenal watch. But does it deliver? Frankly, yes—provided you strip away the suspense entirely.
Created by Sidharth P Malhotra and Rensil D Silva, and directed by Rensil D Silva, this Netflix offering acts as the exact opposite of a suspense thriller. Within the opening 10 minutes, the entire plot is laid bare. You certainly don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure it out! The narrative follows a well-worn blueprint: a faithless husband, a wife plagued by self-doubt, a handful of pointless suspects, and the actual villain popping up midway through the community only to tie back into the location by the final episode.
To be fair, this isn’t an inherently terrible plot, but it suffers from severe overexposure. Unless you bring something genuinely fresh to the table, you are simply consuming the same old trope repeatedly. Shaque attempts to construct a world featuring various subplots, but they remain too disjointed and never successfully merge with the primary kidnapping storyline. Otherwise, the show possessed immense potential to keep viewers captivated.
Shaque: Trust No One Review: What’s It About:
Shaque: Trust No One centers on Anvita (Parineeti Chopra), whose newborn daughter vanishes from a hospital. Nine years later, a potential lead emerges, casting suspicion on everyone in her inner circle—including her husband, mother-in-law, friends, and neighbors. It serves as a compelling hook that aligns with the series title, Shaque: Trust No One. The mystery of who abducted Anvita’s baby girl forms the backbone of this seven-episode run, even though viewers likely deduce the culprit by the second or third episode.
Rensil D Silva designs a sprawling maze and hands you the blueprint right in the premiere. It operates much like The Traitors—you already know who committed the act, leaving you to merely track how long the protagonist takes to catch up. Meanwhile, audiences are left faking surprise at every twist, praying, “Oh God, let my guess be wrong and make this interesting.” Unfortunately, cinema gods cannot rescue a weak script.
Shaque: Trust No One Review: What Works:
Parineeti Chopra’s series successfully establishes an atmosphere. The foundational plot is solid, featuring a generous number of suspects, and the runtime never drags. The pacing is remarkably brisk, which helps the show function to a degree despite the shaky whodunit revealing its killer early on. This fast tempo acts as the production’s saving grace, ensuring viewers never grow bored. It moves quickly without insulting common sense.
Shaque: Trust No One Review: Star Performance:
Regardless of the writing limitations, Parineeti Chopra portrays the desperation of a mother who has spent nine years refusing to accept her daughter’s loss with striking conviction. She provides the series with a grounded emotional anchor, and her dedication is what truly keeps viewers invested in her journey. On the other hand, Harleen Sethi, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Soni Razdan, Anup Soni, and Sumeet Vyas function primarily as an eccentric supporting cast that does little to build real intrigue or distrust. None of them genuinely project the aura of a culprit.
I had high hopes for the subtle dynamic between Bhasin and Harleen, but their restricted material rarely moves past kisses and intimacy to engage in actual narrative work. Conversely, Jennifer Winget’s introduction in the second or third episode with her signature Beyhadh intensity breathes welcome life into a series that Parineeti cannot carry entirely on her own shoulders.
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Shaque: Trust No One Review: What Doesn’t Work:
The show’s major flaw lies in its excessive subplots—incorporating black magic, illegal surrogacy, murder, infidelity, a revenge arc, a cop battling cancer, and tarot readings—all of which could easily be discarded. None of these secondary strands survive the thin writing, resulting in a severe suspense deficit. While these elements theoretically held the potential to enrich the narrative, they ultimately weaken it. Clearly, the writer struggles with mastering the art of the bluff.
Even the framing, camera angles, dialogue, and musical score fail to generate tension. Although the title insists everyone is guilty, the audience never believes it from the opening frame. At a certain point, Soni Razdan’s portrayal of the mother-in-law grows somewhat grating, though whether intentionally or not remains unclear. Ultimately, the domestic saas-bahu drama here functions far more effectively than the attempted Sherlock-style mystery.
Shaque: Trust No One Review: Last Words:
Shaque aspires to be a slow-burn thriller centered on the people closest to you, but it overlooks the fundamental rule that a slow-burn requires concealing the fire. The show simply lacks cleverness, ignoring the primary mandate of investigative dramas: keeping the audience guessing until the very end. Its core failure is neglecting to protect the culprit’s identity through the final moments. A successful mystery should force you to question your own deductions, yet here you will feel entirely certain of the conclusion from early on. If ACP Pradyuman were on the case, he would have solved it before the interval, preventing him from ever uttering his trademark line, “Daya kuch to gadbad hai!” Honestly, “yahan kuch bhi gadbad nahi hai!” The series leaves you feeling like the fastest Sherlock Holmes in history simply because there was never any real riddle to unravel.
2.5 stars
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