‘Mrs Serial Killer’, starring Jacqueline Fernandez and Manoj Bajpayee that released on Netflix over the weekend, is a wobbly thriller that is unintentionally funny. Here are seven points that truly creeped us out about this inane film, that’s now the fodder for mean memes on social media ...
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1. “You haven’t seen the torture yet, now you will,” the leading lady of ‘Mrs Serial Killer’ Jacqueline Fernandez snarls at her victim with a sharp knife in her hand. Fernandez’s menacing words should ideally be applied to the thriller. Director Shirish Kunder’s psychological thriller — an absurd tale of a glamorous wife who sets out to prove her husband’s serial killer charges — is torturous and painful to endure.
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2. The biggest mystery in this thriller? How did an Indian National Award-winning actor like Manoj Bajpayee get convinced to place his faith on this clunky project led by Kunder. “Don’t call me Joy, I am not a [expletive] ice-cream,” are some of the inane dialogues that he is expected to breathe life in. While Bajpayee seems to be having fun with the role during the climax, there’s not much in it for the viewers. At some point, you get the distinct impression that Bajpayee was just having a ball, revelling in a shoddy film.
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3. Jacqueline Fernandez is one of the sunniest personalities to interview and is a lovely person off-screen, but her acting skills, or the lack of it, can leave you in a dark space. Her turn as the wife of a tainted husband, who has been accused of killing young, pregnant women, isn’t convincing. Her attempt to breathe life into the title character is painful to watch. This should ideally have been her career-defining role, but Fernandez simply doesn’t have the heft or the artistic bandwidth to do the heavy lifting. Even when she is distressed and distraught, she looks like a fashion-forward runway model who broke her heel. Her scarlet-painted lips, her salon-perfect hair and nails make for an unconvincing portrayal of a troubled woman.
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4. The twists in this whodunit are so ludicrous, that you wonder whether the actors were in on the joke and just having a ball knowing fully well that they are making a truly terrible film.
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5. The psychological thriller is also riddled with stereotypes that cripple Bollywood films. The serial killers’ victims are always young, single women who get knocked up before marriage. Teen pregnancy equals immorality and that they should be penalised for their promiscuity forms the spine of this thriller. Another dialogue that truly rankled was when a police officer, played by Mohit Raina, wonders aloud ominously: ‘why would a single woman go to a gynaecologist’? Do these players live in this era and why should there be any shame attached to visiting a specialist doctor? If this wobbly thriller engulfs you with that been-there-seen-that feeling, then you are not alone.
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6. Seasoned actor Darshan Jariwala’s character in ‘Mrs Serial Killer’, as the morally-bankrupt, high-profile lawyer living in a fancy mansion, is meant to be dark and brooding. But he is also unintentionally funny and some of his legal advice are borderline whacky. Asking his client to kill and replicate a gory crime to exonerate the in custody, is all shades grey and they make you laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.
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7. While we are all about giving second chances to directors and talents, it’s disheartening to see filmmakers like Shirish Kunder get a berth to display talents but then shred that opportunity with terrible films. A psychological thriller, if done right, can be a cracking genre, but Kunder — whose credits included ‘Joker’ and ‘Jaan-e-mann’ wastes a golden chance here. Mrs Serial Killer has given birth to a series of mean memes and they are more entertaining than the film itself. But my favourite scene in this film is when Fernandez’ character attempts to abort a foetus of her pregnant, young captive by watching a YouTube tutorial. We are not making this up!
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