‘The Buckingham Murders’ Review: Kareena Kapoor Khan Shines in an Inconsistent Thriller

Director: Hansal Mehta
Writers: Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker, Kashyap Kapoor
Cast: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Brar, Ash Tandon, Keith Allen
Language: Hindi/Hinglish

The Buckingham Murders can be considered the third in Kareena Kapoor Khan’s trilogy of wounded women. These are characters damaged by the vicissitudes of time and destiny but despite the bruising — emotional and physical — they refuse to break. Think of Rupa D’Souza in Laal Singh Chaddha (2022), undone by her dreams of being a Hindi film actress, or Maya D’Souza in Jaane Jaan (2023), an erstwhile bar dancer who murders her abusive husband to protect her daughter. And now, there’s Jasmeet Bhamra in The Buckingham Murders, a detective, who, after losing her own son in a senseless act of violence, must investigate the murder of another young boy.

The thing to note is that the “murders” in the title are plural. There are several killings in the film, set in Buckinghamshire in the United Kingdom. The small, bucolic town is roiling with tension (the events are loosely inspired by the 2022 Leicester riots, which broke out after a cricket match; here, the Hindu and Muslim communities have been replaced by Hindu and Sikh). Jass takes a transfer to Buckinghamshire, even accepting a demotion, because she wants to flee. Early in the film, we see her tuning out the world with her earphones. But the pain is etched into her bones. She cannot escape it. The film begins with her sitting alone and haunted, which remains her state of mind for most of the narrative.

The Buckingham Murders has been directed by Hansal Mehta, who has a distinctive flair and fondness for damaged, difficult protagonists. Jass would not be out of place at a dinner with S. Siras from Aligarh (2015) or Harshad Mehta from Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020). Mehta and his writers Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor, situate Jass’s personal grief against the tropes of a police procedural. The plot device isn’t new — one of the inspirations for the film is Mare of Easttown (2021), in which Kate Winslet plays a detective investigating a murder while grappling with her own personal issues, which include a son dying by suicide. But the setting and language of The Buckingham Murders sets it apart — the film has been completely shot in the UK and 80 per cent of it is in English.

Stills from The Buckingham Murders

This is the immigrant experience that Hindi cinema rarely captures; instead of lavish mansions, high fashion and swanky cars, we see working class lives, businesses that fail, the casual racism, sexism, substance abuse, physical abuse and misogyny. Almost everyone is hiding something, but as a storyteller, Mehta has rarely been interested in villains. He operates more as a non-judgemental observer, deciphering why people do the things they do.

The film is powered largely by Kapoor Khan’s emotionally resonant performance. She inhabits Jass’s raw, screaming pain with eloquence. There are a few scenes in which Jass lets loose with her fists and it is a thing of beauty. The supporting cast – Ranveer Brar as the father of the missing child, Prabhleen Sandhu as the mother, and Ash Tandon as Jass’s colleague — are also solid. The inherent melancholy of the story is accentuated by Karan Kulkarni’s music — the piercing notes of the tabla are put to good use.

But after a strong first hour, the plot hits several bumps. The screenplay lurches wildly as though the writers were grappling with how to tie the various threads, and the tension dissipates as the events become more implausible. It’s almost as though there are too many issues that the film wants to comment on.

Thankfully, Mehta steers it back on track for the climax. By then, almost everyone has blood — literal and metaphorical — on their hands. What’s chilling is the violence that runs underneath the veneer of civility and family. Even seemingly reasonable people are only a trigger away from horrific aggression. As the character of Noah Cross so memorably put it in the 1974 classic Chinatown: Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and right place, they’re capable of anything.

More than anything, The Buckingham Murders is a showcase for Kareena Kapoor Khan, whose second act is proving to be even more potent than the first. Earlier this year, the actor powered the inconsistent comedy Crew to box office success with her signature chutzpah and charm. Here, she does a 360-degree turn and delivers. Watch this film to see an actor in her prime.