Finally, a film which gets the delightful tonal qualities of Anuja Chauhan’s novels, so Delhi, so quirky, and in this one specifically where she trains her gaze on class through that most classist of Delhi places — the club where you wait forever to become a member because those who are there will never leave, unless they are murdered.
ACP Bhavani Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) and his sidekick are hauled in from their roadside chaat stall into the tony environs of the Royal Delhi Club. Does it stand in for the Gymkhana, or Raisina, or Golf, or a combo? You decide. The murder of a hunky gym trainer opens a can of worms which wriggle quite deliciously under the weight of Bhavani’s deceptively benign eye, and his sharp understanding of human nature.
Everyone is a suspect. Rannvijay Singh (Sanjay Kapoor), the broke ex-royal who takes left-overs home under the guise of giving to the poor; Shehnaaz Noorani (Karisma Kapoor), the B-grade heroine of C-grade movies; the always tipsy, wonderfully named Cookie Katoch who sips on tequila-and-beetroot, while sculpting on the side (Dimple Kapadia), the perfectly-attired Roshni Batra (Tisca Chopra) who loves her son to distraction. There are others in the list too, the ones who play Tambola with the battle-like glint in their eyes, when not casting those peepers into everybody else’s business, which includes the plump, sniffly club manager (Deven Bhojani).
‘Aap jaise log nahin samjhenge what this club means to me’. This priceless sentence, uninflected by irony, hurt completely unintended, is Bambi (Sara Ali Khan), the ditsy Todi girl, trailing a string of admirers and a dead husband in her wake, just being Bambi. The ‘log’ refers to ‘people like Bhavani’ who refuses to be put in his place, because he knows exactly who he is, as opposed to the girl opposite him, who proffers kind words to Guppi Ram (Brijendra Kala), the cat-loving old server who’s not quite all there, and breathy kisses to childhood pal-who-could-have-been-more Akash-aka-Kashi Dogra (Vijay Varma).
The ensemble is excellent. Pankaj Tripathi as Bhavani Singh stays Pankaj Tripathi except for a characteristic hmmm, and a habit of adding ‘ji’ to all names, leading to much hilarity: the dead man is ‘Leo ji’, and Bambi becomes, of course, Bambi ji. Good to see Karishma Kapoor back. And for Khan to rediscover the fact that she can play a character. Sanjay Kapoor gets a moving moment. I’m not so sure about Verma because he doesn’t look as smooth as he should, but he’s always so good to watch, so that’s fine. And the murder-mystery, which involves a dash of blackmail and old secrets, does unravel quite well (too bad for those who remember the killer from reading Chauhan’s ‘Club You To Death’): the big reveal is quite a shocker.
The thing that takes away from the film somewhat are its scattered bits. You wish, for example, Bambi’s dead husband was given a bit more to do when he was up and about; there’s an entire chunk revolving around an orphanage, and an abandoned baby, which could have done with a bit more detailing. Your eye doesn’t really settle in as much as it should, but fortunately the plot does have quick recovery loops. And while ‘Murder Mubarak’ is the closest any film has come to re-creating Chauhan’s universe, very few can do the insider-outsider divide with such acuteness, both sharp and warm. Watch it, smile, and then, if you still haven’t, go read.
Murder Mubarak cast: Pankaj Tripathi, Sara Ali Khan, Vijay Varma, Karisma Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Tisca Chopra, Sanjay Kapoor, Brijendra Kala, Aashim Gulati, Varun Mitra, Deven Bhojani
