The Buckingham Murders

Cast: Kareen Kapoor khan (Jasmeet Bhamra or Jass), Ranveer Brar (Daljeet Kohli), Prableen Sandhu (Preeti Kohli), Sarah-Jane Diaz (Indrani Rai), Ash Tandon (DI Hardik Patel), Keith Allen (Miller), Manish Gandhi (Prithvi), Kapil Redekar (Saqib Chaudhary), Rahul Sidhu (Naved), Adwoa Akoto (DS Sharon Mark), Asad Raja (Saleem Chaudhary), Muneera Chaudhary (Ruchika Jain)
Director: Hansal Mehta
Producer: Shobha Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan
Production: Balaji Motion Pictures, Mahana Films
Platform: Netflix
Screenplay: Aseem Arora, Raghav Raj Kakker, Kashyap Kapoor
Release Date: 14th Oct 2023 (London), 13th September 2024 (India)

Rating: 3/5

The movie opens to a Kareena Kapoor Khan; staid, weary and mourning the death of her son caused in a school shootout. Kareena plays Jasmeet Bhamra or Jass , appearing in a relatively aged look or no makeup look with the only colour being the distinct red hue in her hair.

Reeling under the loss of her son and then demoted to the new town of Buckhinghamshire, she is insensitively put on the missing kid case of Ishpreet, son of a local indian couple Daljeet and Preeti Kohli. Additionally, Jass also has to deal with her reporting officer, Hardik or Hardy Patel, who does not appreciate her inputs and tends to cut her sentences.

As Hardy points out to his superior: Miller, Bhamra is unfamiliar with the locals, the internal dynamics and politics at play in Buckhinghamshire. Ishpreet was adopted and living under unhappy family relations alongwith neighbours who seemed a little too invested and involved in the couple’s life.

As Bhamra navigates the maze that is Buckinghamshire, certain shocking facts come to light including conjecture that Ishpreet sells drugs and that Hardy might have a personal vendetta to fulfill. Amongst, sabotaged evidence and falsified testimonies, Saqib, a local muslim boy with close ties to the Imam gets arrested, with Miller fearing an outbreak of communal violence..

Conclusion

I belong to the generation where I have watched/ was accustomed to Kareena Kapoor play more pepped up and boisterous roles like the ones in Jab We Met, or K3G or Hulchul among others.Which is why I did blink a couple of times when they opened to a non-dramatic, no frill, plain faced Kareena Kapoor Khan.

The talented Ranveer Brar delivers a surprise performance with promise. Ranveer Brar who is already a celebrity chef, published cookbook and recipe author, cookshow host now presents his second performance after Modern Love: Mumbai (2022) as per online records.

Buckingham Murders has the requisite twists and turns one would expect from a murder mystery. The title of the movie was a little misleading to me. I expected more British influence, but the star cast is primarily Indian with a setting in an Indian dominant community. The murders in plural led me to believe a serial killer on the loose. While multiple bodies do turn up, and there are unexpected plot twists with adequate hints of something amiss; the movie like Khan’s role appears muted and fails to ignite edge of the seat anticipation or thrill of the unknown.

Though the movie does a fair job with no glaring mistakes to point out, it’s the title that holds more punch than the movie.