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Poorna Jagannathan kills it in ‘Deli Boys’

‘Deli Boys’ takes a familiar premise—hapless inheritors of a crime empire—and injects it with a spicy, subcontinental spin

Published14 Mar 2025, 11:13 AM IST

Poorna Jagannathan in 'Deli Boys'. Image via AP — Poorna Jagannathan in ’Deli Boys’. Image via AP

“Am I speaking fucking Gujarati?" snaps an impeccably well-heeled Tan France, his irritation as crisply tailored as his suit. It’s a line that arrives early in Deli Boys, and in that one moment—equal parts haughty, dismissive, and hilarious—we get a taste of what this Hulu series (streaming in India on Jiostar) is up to. Here is a show that knows its brownness, wears it effortlessly, and jostles it among the usual roster of racist mob-movie insults. For if you’re going to have organized crime, it might as well be properly seasoned.

Created by Abdullah Saeed, Deli Boys takes a familiar premise—hapless inheritors of a crime empire—and injects it with a spicy, subcontinental spin. Our protagonists are two feckless brothers, the nerdily eager Mir Dar (Asif Ali) and the perpetually stoned Raj Dar (Saagar Shaikh), who, upon their father’s mysterious death, find themselves at the helm of a Philadelphia-based Pakistani drug ring. Their father, ever the entrepreneur, smuggled bricks of cocaine inside giant tubs of achar. This is an elegant setup: equal parts absurd and believable. We’ve seen drug lords hide their goods in mango shipments, in piñatas, in stacks of old books—why not in pickles, the currency of every desi household?

Also read: ‘Nadaaniyan’ review: The kids never stood a chance

And so the brothers bumble through this newly acquired underworld, seemingly incapable of getting their act together. They are quite literally called “kaamchor number one, kaamchor number two,” and the show doesn’t try to make them into secret geniuses. They remain morons, much to the chagrin of the real boss of this enterprise, Lucky Auntie played by the fabulous Poorna Jagannathan.

Jagannathan steals the show — and knows it. Lucky Auntie is a force of nature, a fashion-forward assassin who dispatches enemies as smoothly as she delivers cutting insults. In one scene, she sizes up her hopeless nephews and sneers, “You’re both as soft as my ex-boyfriend when he’s not getting choked.” She makes that line ring louder than any gunshot. In a lesser show, this role would have been some generic hard-boiled matriarch. Here, it’s a declaration: of style, of swagger, of a woman who has seen and done it all. The show is never more fun than when she’s onscreen, doling out both wisdom and violence with equal grace. Ruthlessness becomes her.

The brothers, meanwhile, have an amusing odd-couple dynamic, with Mir’s hyper-anxious pragmatism clashing against Raj’s pot-fueled apathy. Ali and Shaikh play off each other well, but Deli Boys makes the critical mistake of tethering itself too closely to them. Scene after scene, we are stuck with their misadventures, with little breathing room for side characters or a broader world to develop. The pacing feels jagged, the momentum inconsistent. In later episodes, when the action does cut to supporting characters — like an ambitious policewoman or a frequently incredulous shaman — the show breathes better. Without the polish and precision of more accomplished contemporaries—say, The Bear or Barry— Deli Boys aims instead for the chaotic energy of a Guy Ritchie caper, albeit one where the budget is much tighter.

The show’s brownness never feels forced, nor does it pander. The cultural backdrop—Pakistani instead of Indian, a crucial distinction—adds texture without needing exposition. The setting, too, is a welcome shift. Philadelphia, often overlooked in the crime genre, provides a scrappier, grittier energy compared to the polished menace of New York or the cinematic sprawl of Los Angeles.

The Pakistani immigrant experience has been making for some fine television in the UK. From Guz Khan’s wonderful Man Like Mobeen to Nida Manzoor’s superlative We Are Lady Parts (also streaming on Jiostar), we’ve been seeing radical comedy. Deli Boys, in comparison, doesn’t try to push the envelope as much as it tries to write on the back of it.

The good thing is that the show knows it. Abdullah Saeed serves up a cheesesteak: nothing groundbreaking, nothing overly ambitious, but something you’ll enjoy while it lasts. Perhaps that, in itself, is quietly revolutionary. We have had brown characters in high-stakes, artsy crime sagas before—The Night Of comes to mind—but rarely have we seen brown morons just… exist in a silly, blood-splattered comedy.

Even in its broadest moments, the show finds clever ways to poke fun at both racial stereotypes and the absurdities of crime storytelling. A pair of Pakistanis with British accents are dubbed “Paki Blinders.” Raj, in a moment of DJ snobbery, insists on Talvin Singh over Punjabi MC. A confused Italian mobster asks if one of the criminals is Indian. “No,” he spits back. “I’m Pakistani.” The Italian is mystified that people who look so alike can hate each other. (Cricket fans from both nations are just as mystified.)

Deli Boys is unpolished, unpretentious, and deeply unserious. It doesn’t have the staying power of great crime comedies, but it does something arguably more important: it lets South Asians be messy, ridiculous, and criminally stupid. Sometimes that’s enough. Take it from me. I’m a Delhi boy.

Poorna Jagannathan kills it in ‘Deli Boys’

‘Deli Boys’ takes a familiar premise—hapless inheritors of a crime empire—and injects it with a spicy, subcontinental spin

Also read: ‘Nadaaniyan’ review: The kids never stood a chance

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