Review: Kareena Kapoor Khan packs a punch as a fierce cop in 'The Buckingham Murders'

Kareena Kapoor Khan has mastered the art of ugly crying. Let me explain. When some actors cry or break down on the big screen, they unleash their trauma and sadness unfiltered. As a viewer, you can’t help but feel moved. Whether Kapoor is silently breaking down with tears dripping down her face or screeching in frustration, her unvarnished emotions hit you hard. Celebrated director Hansal Mehta has tapped into this acting reserve with aplomb in the murder mystery procedural The Buckingham Murders.

Set in the United Kingdom, Kareena plays Jaspreet Bhamra (Jazz), a grieving British-Indian cop struggling to come to terms with her young son’s murder by a disturbed white man with a gun. Understandably, her world has been rocked from its axis, and the troubled mother seeks a transfer to a new place, Buckinghamshire, hoping to find some sort of closure for that irrevocable tragedy. Her transactional new boss, played efficiently by British actor Keith Allen, tasks her with a new case—a missing child who disappears on his way back from school.

While he delivers the placatory “no parent should know the pain of outliving their child” spiel, he reminds her that public service and duty rarely discriminate. She’s reluctant to take on the case, as it will trigger her past trauma, but her boss coldly reminds her that her job doesn’t afford her the luxury of choosing which crimes need to be investigated.

This matter-of-fact tone is pervasive in this clinical but oddly disjointed whodunit. The film's no-frills, no-nonsense approach to storytelling is appealing, as it strips away unnecessary dramatics, keeping the focus on the core emotions and procedural elements. However, the version screened in UAE cinemas seemed sloppily edited in certain crucial scenes that could have added more weight and layers to the complex narrative. Just like how Kate Winslet was stripped of make-up in her hit crime series procedural 'Mare Of Easttown', Kareena does not hide behind any war paint, wears forgettable clothes, and is mostly dour-faced.

While she may be on the hunt for the murderer, she’s the one who looks hunted as she tries to solve the missing boy case, all the while struggling to make sense of her own son’s death. She owns the film from start to finish, but the other actors—celebrity chef Ranveer Brar as the violent father of the missing boy, Daljeet Kohli, or his on-screen wife and Punjabi actress Prabhleen Sandhu—pull their weight to keep the story alive. All these characters are far from likable or endearing. When provoked, Jazz turns aggressive and takes immense pleasure in punching them, while Brar—as the down-and-out, desperate father seeking answers about his son—treats his wife shabbily. While the missing boy was the one who needed to be saved, the ones looking for answers need to be saved.

Director Mehta has captured the working-class British-Indian immigrant existence in small-town England in great detail. These Punjabi businessmen of Indian origin are struggling in the post-COVID era. There’s solid animosity among business partners gone wrong, and their fractured families with angsty and troubled children don’t help matters. 

While the performances are splendid, the pace of the movie is rocky. It begins as a slow-burn procedural, then picks up pace in the second half. There are times when it’s difficult to keep up with the twists and turns, and you find yourself distracted by where it’s all heading. The subplots can get overwhelming, and you wish complex themes like domestic abuse, drug use, control, and narcissism were explored in greater detail. The motives of the murderer were fascinating, but the film seemed to be in a hurry to wrap. And, when things lagged in the procedural front in the middle, Kareena’s immense star power and charisma kicked in and salvaged this watchable film with great potential.

The answers aren’t always neat, but what’s the fun in a clean murder mystery? Plus, there's something incredibly attractive about a glamorous actress like Kareena Kapoor shed her glossy personna for a raw, searing film.