Though not as effective and crackling as some of the best police procedurals out there, Mehta and Kareena Kapoor come together to deliver a satisfying, tender watch
Indian films set abroad are often weird. On the one hand, they come with the opportunity of placing the desi protagonist in a foreign environment that tests them and asks them to survive while they strive to retain their identity. Conversely, the terrain tasks the filmmaker with imbuing authenticity into the narrative as the assimilation process begins. You would want the locals — who are foreigners to us — to sound, operate and generally go about life as they would if the cameras were not on them, meaning that they should feel completely and genuinely at home. But, somehow, as often as it happens with Indian films, the foreign land seems strangely detached from reality and feels artificial, for the lack of a better word, because from the cadence to culture, almost every important aspect seems off.
Hansal Mehta, though, makes an interesting and pleasingly improved attempt at this. In his latest feature, The Buckingham Murders, a young boy of Indian origin named Ishmeet goes missing, prompting a police investigation that stirs up quite the storm. Jasmeet Bhamra (Kareena Kapoor), or Jass, is a British-Indian cop who encounters the case on the very first day of her new posting, and her assumed strengths in negotiating fellow Brown folks is the reason for her unwilling plunge. Moments earlier, we were told that she lost her son only recently in a bowling alley mass shootout and the wounds of that tragedy feel permanently etched in her eyes as much as her gait. And venturing into the disappearance of a boy of potentially the same age is the last thing she needs, especially if there’s the risk of secondhand pain and agony.
A web of intrigue and deceit
What’s most interesting is how Hansal Mehta and his writers — Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor — drop us straight into the belly of the drama and cajole Jass, and us, into action. Everything is oddly new to Jass and yet she feels too close to home. The town of High Wycombe, as pointed out bluntly by her superior Hardy/Hardik, is unfamiliar to her and the people — including immigrants — are yet to get to know her so she is relegated to the background for a bit. But seeing the missing boy’s parents, dad Daljeet Kohli and mom Preeti Kohli, suffer makes her want to participate in the investigation and as she tends to her own inner demons, a new kind of madness comes intertwined to make life suitably tougher.
Mehta, though, doesn’t limit his gaze to Jass alone but instead zooms out every now and then to offer a larger social context to all this. The Kohlis are Punjabis but Daljeet was once in business with a Muslim man which ended sourly, and there’s a possibility that this familial clash has something to do with Ishmeet’s disappearance. There’s a drug peddler who could be involved, there’s a case of adultery on the side and there are a few more personal grudges too, along with the caveat about the highly inflammable racial tensions in the UK. Anything Jass lays her hands on only crumbles to reveal more intrigue and deceit, but she cannot help that the angst within her is somehow slowly translating into a willingness to find the truth.
The Buckingham Murders then comes into its own when it starts to tie the various strands of the plot together. Hansal Mehta is ably supported by Emma Dalesman’s cinematography which views the world with familiar eyes and maintains a steady, lucid rhythm throughout. Characters speak their natural tongue throughout in that the ‘Hinglish’ version allows the milieu to feel more vibrant and inclusive, though the pristine neighbourhood (comprising mostly immigrants) harbours deep-seated prejudices.
Not crackling, but sincere and engaging
And yet, it is the local British folk who sound odd and out of place to suggest that capturing the idiosyncrasy of a particular region is still one of the hardest facets of filmmaking. While Hansal Mehta’s British cast members do a fine job with whatever they are offered as material, the English lines/dialogues composed by an Indian speaker don’t carry the rhythm or the pulse that the locals would.
But these periodic concerns dissolve as soon as they appear because Mehta remains focused on his emotional core. There are times when his sentimentality gets the better of him and Jasmeet’s agony feels hammered down into us with the repetitive flashes of the happier past. What these portions also inadvertently do is take some sheen off the layered investigation, although it time and again reveals the filmmaker’s trademark penchant for making small, innocuous moments spell out great meaning. One such scene occurs in the second half when a sleight-of-hand move presents the chief suspect of the case in a completely new light.
The Buckingham Murders also uses Kareena Kapoor’s stoic aura to its full potential. The actor has shown over the years that her famed ‘bubbly’ side can be easily countered with a meditative presence and here, she hardly sheds a tear but makes her grief feel loud and visceral. Popular chef Ranveer Brar, who collaborates with Hansal Mehta for the second time, springs a pleasant surprise with his effective portrayal of a cocky, callous husband. Ash Tandon as Jass’ superior Hardy/Hardik might feel a tad undone by the way his character fits into the plot in the end but the actor impresses nevertheless, while Prabhleen Sandhu shines brightest among all.
Is The Buckingham Murders Hansal Mehta’s best work? Probably not, and nor is it the most gripping crime saga out there because of just how much it takes on. The film sets out to be a complex character study and no doubt it remains focused on that for most parts, but the sentimentalism occurs as a distraction it didn’t need. It falls short of being crackling but the director-actor combo salvages things nevertheless, making it a sincere, engaging watch.
The Buckingham Murders is currently playing in theatres
