Review of Murder Mubarak / मर्डर मुबारक, directed by Homi Adajania

When I was writing my master’s thesis, which was on Korean women’s literature from the colonial and immediate postcolonial period, there were many days where I just wanted to let my brain rot. Instead of writing endless amounts of paragraphs synthesizing my research, I watched movies.

I had no idea Murder Mubarak even existed before I pulled up my Netflix account on this day. I watch Indian movies on and off throughout my free time, although they tend to be more off lately because of the fact they sometimes push three hours. That doesn’t mean they’re bad, though.

I think it was the title in this one that ultimately led me to stop and read the synopsis. I was thinking in the moment that Murder Mubarak is such a fun title, and that this definitely had to be a wacky movie because it was titled such.

And so I pressed play, despite my better judgements. Man, this was so painful to get through to be honest. I had to break it up into chunks, and I don’t know why I kept forcing myself to watch it.

Here’s my review!

At an elite Delhi club, a murder takes place, leaving its occupants scrambling to find out who did it.

We begin this movie meeting an eclectic cast of characters. Set inside of a boujee Delhi sports club, where people pretend to lowkey be descended from British royalty and are pompous in that way, these characters are probably going to be some of the most annoying people you could potentially come across in recent years. Still we’ll watch them, though.

There’s a special night happening when we meet all of these characters, and the next day, the club’s gym trainer, Leo, is found dead. A barbell fell on his throat, effectively choking him to death. What a way to go. The police officers arrive and try to take the initial notes, and BCP Bhavani Singh is convinced this is a murder after seeing the CCTV footage is covered.

We then investigate the characters who first stumbled upon the body: Roshni, Cookie, and Bamb. None of them probably did it, but they point fingers at Aakash, who made a statement the night prior that he was Leo’s lawyer. We learn he did help Leo once right after that, but the three girls who found the body also cast suspicion on others, such as Shehnaz, an actress.

The forensic report comes out, and Leo had a drug in his body. A questionable love story then arises out of all of this between Bambi and Aakash, and she reveals to him the connections between Leo and her, as it turns out that Leo was blackmailing her all along. Bhavani follows her trail of donations to an orphanage in the meantime.

The other characters deny Leo’s blackmail, but then we learn Leo brought in a ton of donations to the orphanage. All of this is linked to the drugs, and Bambi and Aakash go to a club to find the dealers who sell this lucrative drug. They spot Yash there, so she breaks into his home and takes pictures of drugs in his drawers.

The funeral happens, and we learn even more drama, including Shehnaaz giving birth during the Mumbai Riots. Soon after, Guppie, who said Leo did sinful things, finds his cat dead in an oven and kills himself. Aakash goes to Bhavani with the evidence against Yash, but the police find nothing there.

Rannvijay is then investigated, and we discover the guy was actually poor along. He is arrested after a skeleton is found in the kitchen garden, and Bambi continues investigating on her own. The skeleton has crystals in its eyes, and Bhavani realizes they must be from Cookie.

The next suspect is Aakash, and we have drama between him and Bambi, leading to more problems. Bhavani asks Bambi to stay away from the case, while Yash tries to commit suicide. Ajay is captured not long after that, and Bhavani reveals to everyone the skeleton was Bambi’s dead husband.

Bhavani then asserts that Yash killed Bambi’s husband, but Aakash might have also done it. He also asserts Aakash might have killed Leo because of the blackmail, and Aakash accepts the prison sentence. Bambi then makes a confession about her husband having an affair, and that she killed him.

Guppie helped her with the body, and he spilled to Leo while drunk the secret. Bambi then killed Leo because of it and tried to frame Yash, and she actually tried to kill Yash too. Aakash because of her lawyer, and we end it with Bhavani telling Aakash not to get involved with this case.

Overall Thoughts

Y’all, I thought this movie was just too much. I was wrapping my head around some of these plot lines, and if the summary above seems a bit convoluted, it’s because I tried to be concise about this.

There was just way too much happening. I get that it’s a satire, but I found it so overwhelming to the point where I did not want to continue anymore, and found myself struggling to get through this.

In hindsight, I should have just dropped it. The world would not have ended if I did. But if you loved this film, good for you! It just wasn’t my cup of tea in the end.

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