Director: Homi Adajania
Writers: Gazal Dhaliwal, Suprotim Sengupta
Cast: Pankaj Tripathi, Sara Ali Khan, Vijay Varma, Karisma Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Tisca Chopra, Sanjay Kapoor, Suhail Nayyar, Deven Bhojani, Ashim Gulati
Duration: 143 minutes
Streaming on: Netflix
Based on creator Anuja Chauhan’s 2021 e-book Club You To Death, Murder Mubarak marks director Homi Adajania’s (relative) return to type after a decade. Adapted by Gazal Dhaliwal and Suprotim Sengupta, it appears to be proper down Adajania’s graffiti-blasted ally: Part-White Lotus and part-Knives Out, the movie is a snide social satire masquerading as a high-society whodunit. At 143 minutes, it’s a bit lengthy and meandering, however the indulgent world-building is a part of the payoff. A hunky zumba coach, Leo Mathews (Ashim Gulati), is discovered lifeless – choked by barbells throughout his morning exercise – on the unique Royal Delhi Club. CCTV footage suggests it was no accident. Assistant commissioner of police (ACP) Bhavani Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) reaches the scene, instantly tickled by the membership’s liberal elitism. One by one, he investigates their closet skeletons, blind spots and hypocrisies. It’s all muddled and free, however the plot is rarely too removed from a couple of class-rage truths.
Meet the Members
The character-cum-suspects are all “sample pieces”: Miserly aristocrat Rannvijay Singh (Sanjay Kapoor), gossipy Lutyens’ homemaker Roshni Batra (Tisca Chopra), her bratty drug-addicted son Yash (Suhail Nayyar), enigmatic middle-aged celebrity Shehnaz Noorani (Karisma Kapoor), and sex-crazed socialite Cookie Katoch (Dimple Kapadia). There’s additionally ‘commie’ lawyer Akash Dogra (Vijay Varma), who’s taunted by his Punjabi dad and mom for “turning leftist” after relationship a Bengali woman. And most conspicuous is Bambi Todi (Sara Ali Khan), an entitled kleptomaniac-widow who will get invested on this case as if it have been the newest Netflix true-crime collection.
The membership elections are coming, and tensions run excessive. As per template, the sufferer wasn’t precisely a saint. Each of the rich nutters had a cause to remove lusty Leo, a hustler who knew their secrets and techniques and blackmailed them into donating to his orphanage. On the opposite facet of the social ladder lies the membership workers: A dementia-addled caretaker (Brijendra Kala), a troubled hairdresser (Tara Alisha Berry), a traumatized waitress (Amaara Sangam), and trainers from Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh known as ‘twins’ by their casually racist shoppers. There’s additionally a torpid cat known as Prince Harry, who carries on the membership custom of animals being named (and maybe fated) after members of the British royal household. If the movie had waited extra, a lacking fish named Princess Middleton may’ve made a fetching cameo.
