Murder Mubarak
Introduction
*Yawns*….Could a murder mystery with bouts of humour and a stellar cast ever go wrong? Yes! With that, I finished watching the new Hindi film Murder Mubarak which is now streaming on Netflix. For those of you who are regular readers of my reviews would know that murder mystery is one of my favourite genres, and everytime there is a new murder mystery on celluloid, I am absolutely game for it. So when I did get to know about Murder Mubarak, I was really excited for it. Although I managed to stay away from its trailer, the film did give me a Knives Out kind of vibe wherein a murder would lead to an investigation peppered with a lot of dry and quirky humour while keeping you at the edge of your seat. To top it, the stellar ensemble cast was nothing short of a casting coup but one thing was minutely bothering me. Maddock Films are often known to pick interesting subjects(and kudos to them for trying) but more often than not, the execution has been lacking and I say this irrespective of the fate of their last film Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, which again was a classic example of this scenario. But given that Homi Adajania was at the helm of things here, it did give me a little confidence of the film being in safe hands. With much anticipation, I ventured into the film Murder Mubarak, does it manage to impress, let’s find out.
Story & Screenplay
Murder Mubarak follows the story behind the investigation of a murder that takes place at a local club house. With so many suspects in the fray, finding the murderer seems like finding a needle in the haystack. But in reality, the story here accounts for one of the biggest slogs of the year which is such a shame. You just cannot quite go wrong with a quirky murder mystery but the makers have done the unthinkable here. The writing here is a hot mess in many ways that it became all the more difficult to control things with a firm grip on the narrative. The issue is thst it wishes to be a social satire with a tinge of romance while being quirky and having to solve a mystery, in other words clearly trying to chew more than it actually can over a screenplay standing at close to 140 minutes. If there was a need to branch out the murder mystery which by the way is an intimate and tense space, then the design of the film was wrong in the first place. This should then have been converted into a webshow for a better impact!
The drama begins on a delicious note with the introduction of a cat licking a red liquid on the floor that supposedly seemed like blood, lying next to which is supposedly a lifeless body. This, while you are introduced to all the principal chatacters with the emphasis being on the class divide. So there are characters that belong to a high society and are either shown to be snooty or simply flamboyant while the members on the other side of the spectrum are mere spectators to their antics, much in dismay. The entire opening sequence sets the ball rolling well for the drama that culminates into the characters discovering a body, only for the writers to make a U-turn in the next scene with respect to the actual death of an individual. So the quirky element was definitely there. The issue is that the writers try to get too ambitious rather than sticking to this formula that can seldom go wrong.
The proceedings turn into a slogfest from the moment the investigation kickstarts which was such a shame. There are a couple of fundamental mistakes with the writing here from the point of view of the setting. There is a reason that closed door murder mysteries(or those set in a single location) work well. This is because the narrative style is heavily focused on the investigation without allowing the drama any room to branch out into other directions. But that was not the case here – the drama aspired to be many things all at once, and as a result, even the investigation portions fell flat as a pancake. The writing tried to incorporate many things along the way, including a love story with a flashback that diffused the tension in the drama, more than it ought to have. Even the social commentary after a point was abandoned while strictly focusing on the characters of the high society rather than balancing things out, and what you suddenly had was a mess that you couldn’t quite gauge or control.
The investigation itself was a yawnfest with no sort of urgency, so much so that you couldn’t care less of other murders happening along the way. The staging itself was so ordinary that it almost made me snooze off while watching this rather insipid drama that continued to falter right until its final act. The final act here is an interesting case because I do think that the entire climax would have worked well on paper. But once again, the distance between the cup and the lip was huge, a gap too far to bridge wherein even the twisted revelation at the end just does not give you the high. The entire screenplay garbled mess between what it wished to communicate versus what it actually did. It was Yawnfest Mubarak in other words.
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are quirky in some places but far too silly to even induce a remote sense of tension in the proceedings. The further understated lines during the investigation didn’t help either which made me also think that there was a tonal shift in the drama, subconsciously speaking. The BGM ought to have had a memorable haunting theme that would play at various instances, something that was lacking. But the song included ‘Aawara Hoon’, the yesteryear’s smash hit that was an interesting integration at various junctures in the drama. The cinematography is adequate but it failed to truly capture the vibe of the drama. The editing left a lot to be desired because of the multiple lags in the screenplay that were not ironed out. I also did feel that the editor was lost in the convoluted srructure of the narrative wherein at times even the transition between two events wasn’t entirely satisfactory. Homi Adajania is a good director, generally speaking and he is unique in his own style that has a lot of eccentricity. But here, the drama spilled beyond his own control and I kind of felt that he wasn’t in control of the proceedings at all. It was in fact a futile attempt on what it was trying to say in the first place, and this baggage also extended to the setting of the scenes including that in the final act. The direction is poor and there is no other way to put it, but we can forgive Homi for this minor blemish in his filmography although you hardly can go wrong with a murder mystery. Alas!
Performances
The performances are a mixed bag here by a very talented ensemble cast. The real shame is that all actors get a proper introduction with her character names flashing onscreen to indicate them being a suspect, but halfway through this idea is abandoned and you get to watch very little of each of them. Talented actors like Grusha Kapoor and Purnendu Bhattacharya are purely wasted. Amaara Sangam as Minu has such a wonderful screen presence and to be able to standout in a character with a limited screen time is indeed difficult, something that she does effectively while doing a good job with her expressions. The issue was that her character was terribly underutilized whereas in the larger scheme of things, it coukd have been different. The same applies to Tara Alisha Berry who looks stunning onscreen but has very little to do otherwise.
Stalwarts like Karisma Kapoor as Shehnaz and particularly Dimple Kapadia are terribly wasted and their characters just felt rather pointless. Tisca Chopra as Roshni does her best to salvage a sinking ship and her performance was quite good. Even talented actors like Suhail Nayyar and Aashim Gulati are used just as fillers, this even when the latter should have had a better use case given the fate of his character. Brijendra Kala is good but again underutilized(do you see a pattern here?). Sanjay Kapoor as Rannvijay is decent but a subplot featuring his identity never contributes to the larger scheme of things. Deven Bhojani and Priyank Kumar are outstanding and both are terrific in their roles.
Vijay Varma is now getting repetitive(although he is good here) and it is time for him to go back to the drawing board and figure out a way to get out of this zone(easier said than done). I don’t wish to single out a person but Sara Ali Khan is once again underwhelming in a character that had an opportunity to rise above the garbled script. Her dialogue delivery itself is so flat and dull that all her scenes simply fall flat with zero impact. This is in contrast to the final act wherein she literally hams that gave me an impression that here is an actor who is so confused with what she wants to communicate, and that how much is enough. She really needs to sharpen her skills because she definitely has the talent and the persona.
Pankaj Tripathi is fast turning out to be a curious case. While he is good here, I miss the Pankaj Tripathi who used to say that he loves picking smaller roles that leave a bigger impact. His urge to take up lead roles is clearly there but in this process, his script selection is faulty and his performances slightly one-dimensional although still efficient, much like Nawaz who is in the same boat. It happened with Main Atal Hoon and now here, this may well be a minor wake up call to go back to what he does best, and in the process, fight his way up with some well written roles and scripts.
Conclusion
Murder Mubarak is such a slog of a drama that it ought to have been titled ‘Yawnfest Mubarak’, making it a masterclass on how not to stage a delicious murder mystery. Available on Netflix.
