Hansal Mehta’s The Buckingham Murders movie is a murder mystery with elements of a gritty crime thriller. Set in a small town in the Buckinghamshire county in England, the movie features a British-Indian detective Jasmeet Bhamra who is handed the case of the murder of a 10-year-old boy not long after losing her own son in a public shooting. The film and its central mystery follow a topsy-turvy path where the suspect who appears obvious may just be a red herring. Needless to say, the final reveal of the actual murderer will take the wind out of your sails. Let’s go through that stupefying ending of The Buckingham Murders movie in some detail.
Starring Kareena Kapoor Khan in the lead role of Jasmeet (called Jazz), the movie also features Ranveer Brar, otherwise more known for his culinary skills, in the significant role of Daljeet Kohli, the father of the murdered boy. Also in the cast are Ash Tandon, Keith Allen, Stuart Whelan, Prabhleen Sandhu and more.
Spoiler alert!
The Buckingham Murders movie ending explained: Decoding the shocking twist
The Buckingham Murders is a murder mystery movie but it begins with court proceedings that deals with the case of the shooter who killed Jasmeet’s son. He is of course guilt-ridden, but Jasmeet is not ready to forgive. In fact, she has refused to move on at all and still possesses the blood-stained shirt of her dead child. To probably take the first step towards overcoming her grief, she gets herself transferred to another town and instantly gets saddled with the case of a murdered child. She just cannot catch a break, huh?
The son of Daljeet and his wife Preeti (Sandhu), the victim was called Ishpreet and was adopted by the couple from India. Jasmeet is not the lead investigator in the case and the person who is in charge, Hardik Patel (Tandon) sees her as an intrusion. Jasmeet has misgivings about the case and how it is being handled but her boss, simply called Miller (Allen), will have none of it.
As they search for the child (it is a missing person’s case before it becomes a murder case) they look for his whereabouts through CCTV cameras. They learn he got off his school bus for a certain park and did not exit. So dead or alive, he must be in there. He is eventually found, dead, on the shotgun seat of a seemingly-abandoned car.
Who are the prime suspects in Ishpreet’s murder?
Right from the beginning, Jasmeet notices that there is something off with this case. The car is traced to two Muslim teenagers, Naved (Rahul Sidhu) and Saquib (Kapil Redekar). During interrogation, Saquib is not very forthcoming, but Naved readily confesses it was Saquib who killed Ishpreet by holding his head underwater until he suffocated to death. Nobody is happier about this development than Hardik who appears to carry some kind of grudge against both or either of them. We learn that the teenagers had something to do with the current condition of his sister, for she is in a coma. Miller is happy that the case is, ostensibly, solved but worries that it might ignite communal tensions à la 2022 unrest in Leicester.
But Jasmeet smells a rat. She refuses to accept that either of the boys had anything to do with the murder and after assaulting Hardik and getting herself removed from the case, she finds out the truth. Well, not the whole truth. It turns out, that Hardik and a fellow cop found Ishpreet’s body before everyone else and not in the car. They put it in the vehicle so a finger of suspicion would point towards Naved and Saquib. Hardik had told Naved that Saquib would be free soon if he said he killed Ishpreet. That was a lie, but Hardik himself also did not kill Ishpreet. Then who did?
Who, really, murdered Ishpreet, then?
After Naved and Saquib are deemed not involved in the murder, Daljeet becomes the prime suspect. He had taken a hefty insurance policy in his son’s name and would gain a carload of money if the boy were to be, er, removed from the equation. He was also abusive with his wife and was having an affair with his son’s piano teacher and we are also told the kid had not been attending his lessons of late.
But in the end, it turns out the killer was none other than — drumroll, please — the boy’s own mother (well, adoptive mother), Preeti Kohli. The reason? After her marriage, she had been dissatisfied with her life as she was treated like a servant in her own house. When Ishpreet was adopted, against her wishes, mind you, her life became even worse. To add insult to injury, her husband was cheating on her while all she had in life was her home and chores.
The twist is both surprising and once you look at the whole picture, it makes sense. Though, it will pull the rug from beneath you.
The Buckingham Murders movie brief review
Kareena Kapoor Khan, hot off her storming performance in Jaane Jaan (2023), is once again magnetic in this murder mystery movie. She essays the role of a grieving mother with exceptional restraint, only now and then allowing herself to erupt in rage. It is a compelling performance in a movie that gives her time and space to shine. She was not kidding when she said, according to Variety, that she was inspired by Kate Winslet’s performance in Mare of Easttown.
Hansal Mehta’s direction is taut and maintains a steady tension throughout. The script, by Aseem Arrora, Raghav Raj Kakker and Kashyap Kapoor, gives a deliberate, though not exactly slow burn, pacing that gives a lot of complexity and depth to the characters and plot. Ranveer Brar, though not a professional actor, is also pretty impressive in the role, giving a full-bodied performance.
The Buckingham Murders movie trailer
Here is the trailer for The Buckingham Murders movie.
(Hero and featured image: Courtesy of IMDb)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
‘The Buckingham Murders’ follows a detective called Jasmeet Bhamra, played by Kareena Kapoor Khan. Jasmeet is a grieving mother who recently lost her son and in a sad twist of fate, she gets assigned the case of a murdered child.
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Kshitij is a journalism graduate who did not initially intend to become a film critic, but such are the vagaries of destiny. Now, Kshitij is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild, bringing expertise and experience in evaluating entertainment content with him. Additionally, he serves as a jury member on the Critics' Choice Awards in India. When he's not busy wielding words, catch him nose-deep in books or joyfully lost in the realms of gaming and photography.
