By Sriya Kundu
Having been both a bibliophile and an admirer of Anuja Chauhan from a very young age, I always watch movies based on novels with a certain apprehension and skepticism. More often than not, it is indeed difficult to replicate and capture all the nuances of a book in a movie. Of course, there are movies that have turned out to be a bigger hit than the book itself, but even then it fails to capture the exact essence of the book.
With Anuja Chauhan’s books, the difficulty lies in bringing those characters to the silver screen. She has this innate ability and wit to describe her characters in a way that you already have their image ingrained in your head in a certain way. And to match up to that image is definitely not an easy task.
However, Pankaj Tripathi as Bhawani Singh in Murder Mubarak which is based on Chauhan’s murder mystery novel – Club You To Death, couldn’t have been better cast. The fact that he fits into the shoes of ACP to the T would be an understatement, to say the least. A veteran like him knows exactly what the story needs and how to make his character resonate with the rest to the correct proportions.
Bhawani Singh is a cop who is out to solve a murder that’s taken place in the coveted Gymkhana or as the movie refers to it as the ‘Royal Club’. With a string of meta plots surrounding the lives of Delhi’s corps d’elite, each of which leads to the ultimate climatic revelation of who the murderer is.
Murder Mubarak, directed by Homi Adajania captures the basic essence of the book pretty well- the rather complex lives of the upper class. Every class in the society has their own set of problems. What the upper class follows as their daily routine is a luxury that the middle class strives for.
The members of the Royal Club thus reveal a variety of such facets- showcasing the complications of family life entwined with the constant need to put up an image of the so-called perfect life for the rest of society to watch and desire.
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Like any other adaptation, the movie begins a little slow, in order to establish enough context for all the characters. The problem however arises towards the middle, where the plot is rushed through, because the end again was very well laid out.
There were some tweaks in the story one of which was the relationship between the two protagonists – Bambi Todi and Akash Dogra. For a person who enjoyed the book thoroughly, such tweaks were unnecessary. However, if we look at it through the cinematic lens alone, they were predictable tweaks made.
While Pankaj Tripathi emerged as the lone star carrying the plot forward, there were some more noteworthy performances delivered. Among them, one has to mention Karisma Kapoor’s comeback to the cine-world after a long hiatus and she ruled the screens leaving no crumbs behind playing the ‘B-Grade Movies Ki C-Grade Actress- Shehnaz Noorani’.
Up against her is Sanjay Kapoor playing the ‘Khandani Hukum- Ranvijay Singh’. Among other big names, we have Dimple Kapadia playing Cookie Katoch, Sara Ali Khan playing Bambi and Vijay Verma playing Akash.
While Vijay did serve justice to Akash Dogra’s character, Sara did take it up a notch more than was required. There was a point in the movie where it seemed as if she were repeating her performance from her previous movies like Love Aaj Kal 2 or Atrangi Re.
All in all, it was definitely an entertainer packed with enough drama being delivered by the ensemble cast, led by the master ACP Bhawani Singh. After all, Anuja Chauhan is a standard quite difficult to match up to and recreate on screen and now we all look forward to the sequel to Murder Mubarak – a movie based on her recent ‘The Fast And The Dead’.
Feature image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: India Today, TOI, Firstpost
This post is tagged under: Murder Mubarak, Murder Mubarak movie, Murder Mubarak Pankaj Tripathi, Anuja Chauhan, Anuja Chauhan book, Anuja Chauhan movie adaptation, Karisma Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Sara Ali Khan, Vijay Verma, Homi Adajania
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