The Buckingham Murders Review - Inventive but not-so-Intriguing

Ashwin Ram

The Buckingham Murders starring Kareena Kapoor is a Hinglish (mostly English and partly Hindi) language film. It is directed by Hansal Mehta.

Premise:

Kareena Kapoor is in grief of a personal loss. She is an investigation officer who unwillingly gets appointed in a missing case of a school kid. The foul play in the proceedings pulls her in, how she resolves the mystery forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The opening scene showcases the murder of Kareena Kapoor’s son, committed by a stranger out of a psychic purpose. After the incident, we get to see a lifeless woman at several instances in the film as montages, however there is a reflex to it in the very end, those portions are very repetitive, feels flat too because they don’t organically come well together till a point. The story behind the core whodunit is convincing with some decent twists and believable situations that help the narrative to be engaging to an extent. Sadly the cinematic aspect is a little turnoff as it is more like an art film with a potentially thrilling story. The interrogations are realistic, but again the problem is with the dry treatment that we don’t get to feel it that much. The unpredictable climax has a shock value, set with the right logical reasoning. With neater staging and better pacing, it would have been an impactful nail-biter. Interval block has a deep meaning to it when it is revealed later, but the shots are so vague that they feel senseless while viewing. Despite the odd making, the approach style is fascinating, by setting the film in the UK, the authenticity is pitch-perfect by placing the English dialogues and the respective accent without any compromises.

Performances:

Very apt casting, starting from Kareena Kapoor who has delivered a focused performance. All the supporting artists have done well, the Indians as well as the foreigners. They have grasped the situations correctly and acted accordingly.

Technicalities:

No songs. Horrible background score from start to finish, there is absolutely no correlation between where the story is taking place and the type of instruments used. Not just that, the music is so overpowering in most scenes just to give that intense feel. Bad quality sound mixing, the dialogues had very little volume and it was difficult to follow without subtitles. Decent visuals, but for the chosen terrain, they could have explored much more. Crisp runtime of less than two hours, still certain lags in the initial hour could have been taken better care of.

Bottomline

A watchable whodunit thriller made in an ordinary manner. The story had potential to shine brighter, but settles on the ground level as an average slow burner with unimpressive directorial touches.

Rating - 2.5/ 5