Murder Mubarak Review: A gritty and whacky whodunit!

MURDER MUBARAK

Producer- Dinesh Vijan

Director- Homi Adjania

Cast- Pankaj Tripathi, Dimple Kapadia, Sara Ali Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Vijay Verma, Brijendra Kala, Tara Alisha Berry, Grusha Kapoor, Tisca Chopra, Deven Bhojani and Sanjay Kapoor

Platform of Release- Netflix

Rating:

By Jyothi Venkatesh

Based on the novel ‘Club You to Death’ by Anuja Chauhan, Murder Mubarak is a gritty and whacky whodunit, which sets out to blatantly prick the sordid bubble of the posh elite of Delhi’s posh Royal Club.  It is really a grotesque and dark comedy thriller with lots of black twists and thrills, though the story is not new but shown interestingly with great suspense and thrill.

The story is set in and around the Royal Club party in Delhi where many celebrities and VIP people are members in the club where one member gets murdered and ACP Bhavani Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) and his assistant sub–Inspector Padam (Priyank Tiwari) comes to investigate this case. During the murder investigation, the non-traditional police officer turns a spotlight on an array of suspects. Though he steps into their world as an outsider, he is shocked to find there is so much more than what meets the eye.

Amidst the rest of the actors are the sexy, silly and glamorous Bambi Todi (Sara Ali Khan) and the do-gooder lawyer Akash Dogra (Vijay Varma), childhood sweethearts playing detective, who help Bhavanbi Singh and Padam in their mission, as they are given just 10 days to find out who the murderer is and prevent the shutting down of the elite club.

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In this whodunit, each and every one is a prime suspect. Rannvijay Singh (Sanjay Kapoor), the broke ex-royal who takes left-overs home under the guise of giving to the poor; Shehnaaz Noorani (Karisma Kapoor), the B-grade heroine of colorful C-grade movies; the always tipsy, wonderfully named Cookie Katoch who sips on tequila-and-beetroot, while sculpting on the side (Dimple Kapadia), the perfectly attired Roshni Batra (Tisca Chopra) who loves her son to distraction.

Though Pankaj Tripathi tries his level best to shed his usual mannerisms, he is unable to get into his character effortlessly while it is good to see both Karisma Kapoor and Sanjay Kapoor back in full form. Sara Ali Khan goes overboard while Tara Alisha Berry has been wasted. Vijay Verma impresses, while Brajendra Kala is good.

I should say that Murder Mubarak is a comedic mystery that is, at best, what you can easily dub a mixed bag. While the core plot comes together intriguingly, too much and far too many characters hold the film back. While ‘Murder Mubarak’ is the closest any film has come to re-creating the versatile Chauhan’s universe, very few can do the insider-outsider divide with such acuteness, both sharp and warm