Murder Mubarak Movie Review: Homi Adajania’s whodunit shines in absurdity, tires as a satire

Murder, old men and a face immersing in a bathtub. Director Homi Adajania’s Murder Mubarak, frequently brought back memories of his debut feature Being Cyrus (2005), a nightmarish account of a Parsi family and their secrets. With his latest Netflix stint, Adajania takes the setting to an exclusive Delhi club, filled with gaudy caricatures. The film, just like Cyrus, is more of a quirky societal study than a murder mystery. But unlike the Saif Ali Khan headliner, the class satire in this film, although enjoyable at times, gets too on the nose. Murder Mubarak relishes in its loose eccentricity but the thriller at its centre often loses grip. It’s more of an absurdist comedy packaged in the delicious pulpiness of a whodunit. Just that the wrapping paper comes undone too easily.

Director: Homi Adajania

Writers: Gazal Dhaliwal and Suprotim Sengupta

Starring: Pankaj Tripathi, Sara Ali Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, Vijay Varma, Dimple Kapadia, Tisca Chopra, Aashim Gulati, Suhail Nayyar, Brijendra Kala

Prince Harry is licking what seems like blood off the floor. Before you make weird assumptions, Harry here is the name of a cat. The opening image of Murder Mubarak sets its Agatha Christie-an mood effectively. Although, for the murder at the core of the film, no blood is shed. Womanizer Leo Matthews (Aashim Gulati) is found wide-eyed and dead in the gym of the Royal Delhi Club. It seems like a classic case of a bench press gone wrong. But nothing can escape from the sharp eyes of Pankaj Tripathi’s chaste Hindi speaking cop Bhavani Singh (He even dons two glasses). The helium balloons over the CCTV camera suggest that this might be a murder. The suspects are an idiosyncratic bunch of South Delhi socialites. There is royalty-hungover cheapskate Raja Rannvijay Singh (Sanjay Kapoor), yesteryear diva turned horror schlock star Shehnaz Noorani (Karisma Kapoor), rich-girl with tragic past Bambi Todi (Sara Ali Khan), lovelorn lawyer Aakash Dogra (Vijay Varma), garrulous gossiper Roshni Batra (Tisca Chopra), her rehab-returned son Yash Batra (Suhail Nayyar) and alcoholic Cookie Katoch (Dimple Kapadia). Leo was blackmailing all the members to get donations for his orphanage. Everybody had a bone to pick with him and had skeletons in their closets.

The pleasure of a whodunit lies more in savouring the delicacies offered by its characters rather than finding which one of them has an odd aftertaste. Adajania with writers Ghazal Dhaliwal and Suprotim Sengupta weaves characters that, although at times outlandish, still remain funny and interesting. Credit also goes to Anuja Chauhan’s book Club You To Death on which the film is based. Some performances, however, don’t hold up to their characters. Tisca Chopra as Roshni Batra is amusing only by excess. Her portrayal of a Delhi aunty is impersonation at max. Sara plays Bambi playing Sara. Her eyebrow raises and goofy demeanor isn’t any different from the actor’s public persona. Vijay Varma as the one-sided lover serves as a red herring at most.

In contrast, Pankaj Tripathi is hilariously good as the cop. A detective using the word ‘vartalaap’ (conversation), this is a character Tripathi could have sleepwalked into. His act might give flashbacks of his previous performances (most recently Kadak Singh) but the actor brings an adorable sweetness to Bhavani Singh. The regular homie of camp Adajania, Dimple Kapadia, also serves a lesson on how to make exaggerated characters sing. Karisma Kapoor balances grace with the comical while Sanjay Kapoor is effective as the insecure Maharaja.

More than the performances and the plot, in Murder Mubarak Adajania scores with tidbits of absurdist humour. Notice how all the waiters at the club are senior citizens, being summoned by a bell by the patrons and being called ‘boys’. While telling an emotional story about his subordinate, Tripathi’s Bhavani puts in an unnecessary but hilarious detail of his junior practicing belly dancing at night. A PG owner gets so excited when cops come to her house for questioning, she clicks a selfie with them, as if this was a moment to cherish. Karisma’s Shehnaaz steps back and stands in front of a huge fan, head tilted, hair flying, like she is a 90s heroine checking out the new guy in the college. What she is really looking at is Bhavani who has come to interrogate her.

The Delhi satire, however, is as loud as Delhi itself. Murder Mubarak isn’t subtle or nuanced. The jarring background music by Sachin-Jigar often hammers humour in case you missed it. The Us Vs Them narrative feels inorganic and borrowed from the Knives Out franchise. At a run time of 142 minutes, the allure of the mystery starts fading. The film opens free-spirited and then suddenly morphs into a tight thriller. To quote another ACP, Radhika Apte’s V Naidu in Vasan Bala’s Monica, O My Darling, rightfully suggests, “Loosen the story a bit. With feel.”