Hansal Mehta’s journey of making crap films continues with ‘The Buckingham Murders’. This so called mystery crime thriller will murder your time as well as patience level. Kareena Kapoor and Ektaa Kapoor’s 2nd consecutive theatrical release in 2024 after Crew is nothing but a mental torture for the viewers.
Jasmeet Bhamra (Kareena Kapoor) aka Jass is a detective, assigned on a case of a missing child in Buckinghamshire. Later it is known that the child is murdered and there are many suspects to the case. Will Jass be able to solve the case or not, is what The Buckingham Murders all about.
Kareena Kapoor gets an ordinary role where she does nothing. Any newcomer or debutant would have pulled this easy and dull role, and someone like Kareena was not really needed. Kareena fails to carry the detective attitude and her screen presence only bores you, and the writers are to be blamed for it. Kareena looks completely misfit for her role. Apart from Kareena, the entire cast tries to be natural, but goes unnoticed.
Hansal Mehta was making films in the 2000s, but went unnoticed. He rose to fame with Shahid and delivered a hard hitting Classic. Post Shahid, Citylights and Aligarh were top-notch films made by him. Hansal Mehta seems to be lost after Aligarh, as he has only made craps after that. The Buckingham Murders is his 5th disappointment in a row after Simran, Omerta, Chhalaang and Faraaz.
The Buckingham Murders is completely shot in a Hollywood style, and is way too offbeat for a regular Indian movie watching audience. The makers have decided to release 2 different versions, i.e. Hindi and Hinglish for different sections of audiences, but it won’t make any difference as no one is interested in such a film. Each and every frame acts like a sleeping pill and only tests your patience and tolerance level.
The Buckingham Murders talks about several things like child drug abuse, communal riots, religious clashes, LGBTQ, extramarital affairs, etc. All these things seem to be forcefully added just to add extra layers to this already dead story. Nothing goes well and everything looks fake and misplaced.
The film has a very short duration, but it feels very boring. The screenplay is dull and has zero thrill or suspense. The engagement with the story is completely missing. Even a slow burn thriller has something at the end to satisfy the viewers, but that’s not the case with The Buckingham Murders. The entire climax part and motive seems to be very foolish and childish. The treatment given is very tedious.
Despite having been completely shot at foreign location, the film looks visually poor. The locations are not at all eye pleasing. The cinematography is too bad. The framework and color grading only offers irritation and nothing else.
The Buckingham Murders will surely murder your time as well as patience level, so avoid watching it for your own good. The Buckingham Murders is by far the most uninteresting and boring film of 2024. Skip it.
Rating – 1.5/5*
