Despite its title, The Buckingham Murders isn’t about a series of deaths at the British monarchy’s seat of power. Rather, Hansal Mehta’s new movie is set in Buckinghamshire, miles away from London. Here, a typical specimen of the troubled police officer beloved of crime fiction investigates a boy’s murder, all the while trying to forget the death of her own son.
Jasmeet (Kareena Kapoor Khan), who smiles only in flashbacks, is attached to an investigation into Ishpreet’s death on the day she arrives in Buckinghamshire. Jasmeet has to deal with fraught nerves, painful memories and competition from her colleague Hardy (Ash Tandon).
The case draws attention to the troubled marriage of Ishpreet’s parents Daljeet (Ranveer Brar) and Preeti (Prabhleen Sandhu). When a Muslim known to the family is arrested as a suspect, communal tensions break out in a town already on the edge because of earlier riots in Leicester.
The Buckingham Murders is in English as well as Hindi in keeping with its mostly South Asian characters. From a distance, Hansal Mehta examines themes related to injustice that could easily apply to an Indian setting too. Aseem Arrora’s screenplay adds sociology to criminology, with prejudice, misogyny and a rush to judgement among the ideas that elevate a routine police procedural.
The plain-looking movie feels like an extended episode from a television show. The understated style complements the exploration of deep-seated bias, which renders routine violence banal as well as conceals it from view.
The behaviour of almost everyone in the 114-minute film is consistent with their social standing. If there is an outlier, it is Jasmeet, whose unprovoked outbursts and overall surly manner are at odds with the unfussy storytelling.
Jasmeet is clearly modelled on the complicated police investigator played by Kate Winslet in the acclaimed show Mare of Easttown, but without the writing to support her exertions. The big reveal about the killer’s identity falls flat, especially since this subplot has been deliberately underplayed to maintain an air of suspense.
For all its provocations, The Buckingham Murders put outs a numbingly conventional take on motherhood. Although Kareena Kapoor Khan takes a big swing at a role that is a departure for her, Jasmeet turns out to be the weakest link in a chain of events that begins long before Ishpreet’s demise. More than Jasmeet’s past, the killer’s back story needed elaboration, if only to make proper sense of why a child has to needlessly die.
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