Slick, silly and production-designed to death, “Jewel Thief” is a Netflix franchise starter that’s cartoonish enough to be a non-starter.

“The Heist Begins” is about an all-knowing, infallible thief (Saif Ali Khan) blackmailed into stealing a nine-year-old’s idea of what a giant red diamond would look like for a murderous “gentleman” gangster Rajan (Jaideep Ahlawat) who likes to “paint” wall-hangings with the blood of those who cross him.

Our thief is chased around the globe (we meet him in Budapest) by a crack cop (Kunal Kapoor) whose inept underlings often let Mr. Sticky Fingers get away. Not that thief Rehan hasn’t planned to fall into their clutches, from time to time, when it suits his purposes.

The plot concerns the battle of wits between thief Rehan and the “gentleman” gangster Rajan over the big heist they have to collaborate on.

The Red Sun is an African diamond on display at an Indian museum. Rajan has threatened Rehan’s do-gooder doctor father to coerce him into this theft. Rehan, forced to move into the murderer’s mansion to plan (not really) the crime, has an eye for the killer’s moll, the fetching painter Farah (Nikita Dutta).

I’ll “steal you AND the Red Sun,” he promises.

Okeydokey.

The dull, underplotted heists and attempted heists are facilitated by the usual magical gadgets and a blue-haired hacker (Meenal Sahu), who only shows up in the film when she’s needed.

The fight choreography is about as believable as everything else in this shiny, luridly-lit bubble of affluence.

The threats are unintentionally comical — “You have three days to go, and just one life!”

It’s no surprise that this is an Anglo-Indian production, with co-writers and co-directors from different worlds. “Jewel Thief” is like a not-remotely-funny parody of an Indian action film, a heist picture that’s not serious enough, a caper comedy that’s too bloody bloody to be that.

The tired tropes and cliches saunter by as our co-directors struggle to make every thing pretty enough to pause over, rather than fret over pacing, suspense, etc.

But kudos to one and all for getting Netflix to buy the pitch, to the production designers who showcase lots of upscale clothes and settings and to director of photography Jishnu Bhattacharjee for lighting the living daylights out of every setting until it’s neon-tinted, fashion model shoot perfect.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, smoking, sexual situations, some profanity

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nikita Dutta,
Meenal Sahu and Kunal Kapoor

Credits: Directed by Robbie Grewal and Kookie Gulati, scripted by Sumit Arora and David Logan. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:56