The Buckingham Murders is a bland rather than gripping concoction

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It should have been a milestone murder mystery: a London detective officer, Jasmeet (‘Jass’) Bhamra is more than traumatized as she has lost her only son in a shootout, and after the criminal (who is a shade psychopathic but claims that he killed the child unintentionally) is punished by law, she beats him up. Living with her father (Mairaaj Kakkar), she voluntarily takes a transfer to another location, only to find herself caught in riots between Muslims and Sikhs there.

And on joining the department there, she is assigned the case of a young Sikh boy, Ishpreet (Sartaaj Kakkar), who has gone missing. He is the adopted (from India) son of Daljit Kohli (Ranveer Brar) and his wife Preeti (Prabhleen Sandhu) and the darling also of their family friends Syringe, a reformed drug addict (Haider Javed) and Prithvi (Manish Gandhi).

Initially, Jass does not want to be involved in the case, as she has still to recover from her son’s death, but her new boss, Miller (Keith Allen) gives her no choice. Also, she has to assist the Indian detective, Hardy a.k.a. Hardik (Ash Tandon). Matters come to a head when Ishpreet’s body is found in a car left at a park. Investigations reveal that the chief suspect is Saquib (Kapil Redekar), son of Daljit’s estranged business partner, and soon the local Imam (Muslim priest)’s son, Naved (Rahul Sidhu) is also incriminated and testifies against Saquib.

Hardy, whose sister is in coma because of drug overdose, has a vested interest in the investigations as it is revealed that Ishpreet has delivered drugs to Saquib and Naved on the fateful day, but Jass spreads her investigations wide, as her instincts and logic both tell her that the truth lies something else.

The plot of the film does make sense, but Hansal Mehta and the script needlessly brings in (all totally needless here!) the Muslim-Sikh hostility angle, riots incited by communal passions and a now-increasingly ubiquitous homosexuality angle into the drama. Daljit’s late mother (not shown), to whom Ishpreet was very attached, his extra-marital flame, Indrani (Sarah Jane Dias) and Saquib’s distraught parents (Ruchika Jain and Assad Raja—who plays Daljit’s one-time business partner whom I mentioned earlier) also add to the suspense.

As it turns out, however, the main plot could have been the same minus some wholly extraneous angles that needlessly project a not-too-wholesome image of NRIs, rather than serving as effective red herrings. A mildly light touch is added by Jass’ black associate, Sharon (Adwoa Akoto), but the overall mood is somber and dark. As layer after layer unpeels, we get a look at human beings in the throes of depression, anger, desires and frustration.

And incidentally, it is the title of the film that remains an unsolved mystery for me!! Jass’ son is accidentally killed, so the only murders in the film are of Ishpreet and one killing later that happens in front of our eyes and is not a mystery as it is not connected with Ishpreet’s death. There is also one more death, but that is a suicide!

Hansal Mehta, who had once given us the riveting but unsuccessful and star-less thriller, Chhal, in 2003, does not exactly shine in the way he executes this story. At concept level itself, storywriter Aseem Arrora (who seems to be doing too much work nowadays, with his writing quality becoming the victim!) has gone more than a shade astray and thus we cannot completely blame Mehta either, though he must have approved the script (Arrora with Raghav Raj Kakkar and Kashyap Kapoor).

Technically, the film is upscale, but the songs are not just unmemorable (Karan Kulkarni) but also irrelevant-to-the-situation and silly (Bally Sagoo’s Sadda pyar toot gaya ve, complete with a shocking mispronunciation of the word “toot”, and is a grieving song that is tuned like a dance number!). The background score (Ketan Sodha with Night Song Records) tries to be different but ends up being very noisy, excessive and even obtrusively irrelevant.

Kareena Kapoor Khan does her best to essay a disturbed yet determined Jass, a cop with a baggage who also does not want the wrong persons punished and the right culprits going scot-free. But I wish that she would have been a shade more intense, though that seems to be lacking in the script as well as direction to start with. There is one exception: the sequence in which she burns her son’s blood-stained clothes when she finds closure at the end.

Ash Tandon is brilliant as Hardy, ditto Keith Allen as Miller and Ranveer Brar, a chef by profession, as Daljit. I loved the insolent yet helpless Saquib (Kapil Redekar), and Prabhleen Sandhu as Preeti also comes up trumps in her low-profile sequences as the dead child’s mother.

In an interesting coincidence, this is the third heroine-centric and minus-real hero -based crime drama in UK this year, after Savi and Ulajh, and this time the heroine is the investigating cop, not the helpless protagonist. But The Buckingham Murders is only just  decent, when it could have been much more.

Rating: *** (Just About)

Balaji Telefilms’, IBM Productions’ & Mahana Films’ The Buckingham Murders  Produced by: Shobha Kapoor, Ektaa R. Kapoor & Kareena Kapoor Khan  Directed by: Hansal Mehta  Written by: Aseem Arorra. Raghav Raj Kakkar & Kashyap Kapoor  Music: Karan Kulkarni & Bally Sagoo  Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Brar, Ash Tandon, Keith Allen, Prabhleen Sandhu, Sarah Jane Dias, Ruchika Jain, Assad Raja, Kapil Redekar, Rahul Sidhu, Adwoa Akoto, Jonathan Nyati, Darren Kemp & others