'The Buckingham Murders' movie review: Buckingham’s dull, subtle Singhams!

Movie The Buckingham MurdersA Thriller mysteryDir Hansal MehtaCast Kareena Kapoor Khan Ranveer BrarRating 25The Buckingham Murders is probably the first Indian film with a fullline explanation in the language column of its censor certificateAnd indeed a new language selection Hinglish as separate from Hindi on BookMyShow the ticketing app Meaning this is a movie thatrsquos primarily in English with a smattering of Hindi since everyone must knowAlso meaning if Irsquom not mistaken this is the first English language production for lead actor Kareena Kapoor Khan Over about two and half decades in Bollywood she has largely embodied the supersanitised mainstream heroinersquos roleSo much so that it feels sweetly strange to watch her casually slip in the throwaway fwordmdashonce even to her father on this screenKareenarsquos presence apart The Buckingham Murders is entirely what one could describe as a British murdermystery Although specifically set among Brits of desi origin in England As a race they get identified as lsquoBritish AsiansrsquoWherein two Brit Asian cops including Kareenarsquos character lead an investigation into the case of a missing boy from a PunjabiSikh familyA statistic I learnt about missing kids is that 70 per cent of the times theyrsquore either found dead or donrsquot return at all The key is to find them within 12 hoursYou know this filmrsquos title Itrsquos hardly a national secret then that the missing kid will be murdered Although Buckingham in the moviersquos name has nothing to with Londonrsquos royal palacemdasheverything to do with Buckinghamshire County where the murder and the movie is supposedly setAs in a thoroughly gloomy smalltown called High Wycombemdashwhere apparently everybody knows everybodymdashwhile a female cop dealing with her own demonsdepression follows crimes involving young missingdead oneWho ordered in this movie My educated guess is Kareena herselfmdashafter watching the brilliant Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown 2021 similarly in a sleepy kasbah off the American East CoastWhich was so much a show about people whorsquove been through stuff including the female lead cop while the murdermystery is simply the sidedish that never leaves the tableIrsquom just not sure Kareena fits into this adopted new town the way Kate did with Mare in Easttown And I donrsquot just mean this for lack of the basic twangaccent that sets Kareena apart from the British colleagues in the cop force let alone the other subjectssuspectsShe does get internal with the performance like Katemdashdealing in this case with the freak murder of her own child Somehow you arenrsquot hit by her grief in the same way Or her character for that matterI suspect this has something to do with how the movie dully deals with so many themes simultaneouslymdashdrug abuse domestic abuse adultery adoption communal strife samesex relationship tabooshellipAfter some point you neither care for the crime nor the charactersmdashforget them establishing any relationship with each other the audience comes only much laterThe story is credited to Aseem Arora Vedaa Ek Villain Returns Malang etc Itrsquos coproduced by Kareena along with Ektaa R Kapoor among others Directed by Hansal Mehta who films and edits content at a higher rate than you can consumeIrsquod barely finished catching his series Lootere right on the back of Scam 2003 post the show Scoop and Chhalaang film that hersquos delivered this theatrical release while on the verge of wrapping an ambitious biographical series on Mahatma Gandhi simultaneously creating Scam 2010 if not a whole lot else PoufThere is fair mention of COVID in The Buckingham Murders Itrsquos a subject you may have noticed that nobody brings up in regular conversations these days As if that virus never existedMy sense is this picture got planned during the pandemic when the Queen was alive because she appears in a dialogue as well Why pick the UK thoughYou could ask the business heads that Brits offer astounding subsidies and cashback if you shoot in their locations including local crewtalentsBut this picture opens rather promisinglymdashoffering you lay of the land once set smartly post the Leicester Riots with religious tensions after cricket matches concerning the Indian subcontinentApparently such fracas has become quite a common phenomenon within the British Asian community in the UK Given the rise of religious fanatics Especially among the brainwashed youngAlso it takes special level of guts to film in English when your lead is a bona fide Bollywood star It adds to the authenticity of courseMakes you all the more admire Kareenarsquos choices lately never mind the outcomes Crew Jaane Jaan Laal Singh Chaddha The Buckingham Murders certainly adds to her resumeacuteBeyond that it makes it to the subgenre of Indian movies that draw you in but leave you dry As in the long listicle of pictures suffering from schizophrenia between their two halvesOnes where you simply switch off once the novelty of the world has worn off and some yarn or the other meanderingly takes over I nearly slept off in the second half I know it was 1245 am but thatrsquos not the point

'The Buckingham Murders' movie review: Buckingham’s dull, subtle Singhams!

Movie: The Buckingham Murders
A: Thriller, mystery
Dir: Hansal Mehta
Cast: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Brar
Rating: 2/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Home / Entertainment / Bollywood News / Article / 'The Buckingham Murders' movie review: Buckingham’s dull, subtle Singhams!

'The Buckingham Murders' movie review: Buckingham’s dull, subtle Singhams!

Movie: The Buckingham MurdersA: Thriller, mysteryDir: Hansal MehtaCast: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer BrarRating: 2/5

Trending Stories

Latest Photos

Latest Videos

Latest Web Stories

Mid-Day Fast

Movie: The Buckingham Murders
A: Thriller, mystery
Dir: Hansal Mehta
Cast: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Brar
Rating: 2/5