The Buckingham Murders review: Kareena Kapoor Khan delivers a masterful performance

Hansal Mehta's engrossing police procedural is one of the best Bollywood films of the year

Kareena Kapoor Khan plays a grieving detective in this unflashy police drama. Photo: Mahana Films

Hansal Mehta's latest crime thriller The Buckingham Murders kicks its narrative into high gear right from the get-go. Set in the market town of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, a newly transferred detective, Jazz (Kareena Kapoor Khan), is assigned the case of a missing child from India during communal riots.

Still in the process of grieving the loss of her child, she reluctantly takes it on. What seems to be an open-and-shut case, however, leads to an endless rabbit hole of drug abuse, insurance fraud, discrimination, police corruption, and the rising tension between Sikhs and Muslims across the town.

While the film's release in the wake of recent far-right riots fuelled by misinformation in the UK is a coincidence, it's hard to deny that the National Film Award-winning director's tale is difficult to separate from those events. An excellent slow burner that is locked in and committed to its craft, Mehta and co-writers Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor have created a tightly wound thriller that grips viewers from the start.

The Buckingham Murders is a bleak but powerful police procedural. Photo: Mahana Films

Film editor Amitesh Mukherjee, who collaborates with Mehta for the third time, understands the rhythm of each scene. The narrative gently picks up the pace when needed, without throwing away those moments of emotional devastation seen in Jazz, whose grief gives the film a suitable, if a touch derivative, character arc that parallels the primary plot.

Channeling its inner LA Confidential, The Buckingham Murders isn't trying to make a thrill-a-minute joyride, but a police procedural with a deliberate rhythm. While the film itself is 107 minutes long, it moves in a slow, almost calculated manner, with each twist bringing in a new side to most of its eclectic supporting cast. Ash Tandon, Keith Allen, Jonathan Nyati and Adwoa Akoto, bring their A-game, but the scene stealer here is Prabhleen Sandhu, whose mostly unassuming presence unravels in excellent fashion in the film's final act.

Add to this the masterful, nuanced turn from Kapoor Khan, whose display of quiet devastation speaks volumes – whether in moments of realisation, trauma or anger. Her grounded, almost internal emotional body language is the movie's driving force, making it a drama-thriller that's well-acted, but with razor-sharp focus.

Many moments in the film raise important sociopolitical questions without feeling preachy. The air of prejudice and discrimination and the human cost they leave in their wake linger long after the credits roll and the viewers return home.