Murder Mubarak

The Royal Delhi Club, a gleaming enclave where Delhi’s social elite mingle with the staff who keep the place running, serves as the focal point for a tapestry of desire, suspicion, and concealed truths. Within this gilded circle, the lives of powerful patrons intersect with the workers who know their habits best, and every glance carries a potential motive. The film unfolds with an ensemble energy that sets the stage for a layered, slow-burning investigation.

The opening Tambola night introduces the cast of characters to the audience, hinting at underlying tensions and unspoken pasts. The next day, tragedy strikes when gym trainer Leo Matthews, Aashim Gulati, dies under a heavy barbell that crashes onto his windpipe. The death prompts the sharp, procedural instincts of ACP Bhavani Singh, Pankaj Tripathi, who is certain the incident is more than an accident, while SI Padam Kumar, Priyank Tiwari, supports a meticulous, evidence-driven approach. This clash of perspectives marks the beginning of a case that refuses to stay within the neat lines of cause and effect.

From the outset, the investigation narrows its gaze onto those who last saw Leo alive and those who might have reason to threaten him. Roshni Batra, Tisca Chopra, along with Cookie Katoch, Dimple Kapadia, and Bambi Todi, Sara Ali Khan, become central voices in the early interviews. Each woman offers fragments of a larger puzzle: rumors of affairs, whispers of leverage, and the way Leo may have leveraged his influence over others. As the inquiry unfolds, Aakash “Kaashi” Dogra, Vijay Varma, emerges as a key figure tied to Leo through a recent history of helping him in a drug case, complicating loyalties and alibis.

The investigation widens its net to include the complex web surrounding Shehnaz Noorani, Karisma Kapoor, a well-known actress with entanglements that ripple through the club, and Ganga, Tara Alisha Berry, a beauty-parlor worker who is rumored to be linked romantically with Rannvijay Singh, Sanjay Kapoor. Rannvijay’s own struggles—with money, status, and a hidden romantic life—become a second axis of the case as Bhavani probes deeper into who benefits from Leo’s death. Yash Batra, Suhail Nayyar, a drug addict and Yash’s connection to Aakash’s circle, adds another layer of danger to the investigation, hinting at motives that cross both personal and financial lines.

As for the club’s inner circle, the cast reveals a constellation of ties that will prove crucial. The Dogras—Brigadier Balbir Dogra, Purnendu Bhattacharya, and Mala Dogra, Grusha Kapoor—are tied to the club’s leadership and legacy, while Ajay Kumar, Alok Panwar, and his violent past with Ganga, Tara Alisha Berry, pull the investigation into a dangerous past that some would rather keep buried. Anshul, Varun Mitra, the husband of Bambi’s late spouse, becomes a pivotal figure in a web of secrets that includes Anshul’s mother and Anshul’s father, each with their own motives and shadows.

The plot takes a dramatic turn as Leo’s autopsy reveals a startling detail: a drug called Pinko Haathini coursing through his system in absurd quantities, a substance capable of stripping a man of even the ability to lift a light item. Bambi, Sara Ali Khan, learns the cruel truth of Leo’s power over her, as she and Aakash re-ignite their fragile, dangerous romance amid accusations and fear. In parallel, the Shepherd’s Orphanage—where Bambi had donated—becomes a focal point, tying the club’s wealth to a broader network of influence and deception. The warden of the orphanage, though not named in the cast list, plays a disturbing role as more secrets surface.

As the investigation progresses, the case begins to fracture the group’s careful facades. Roshni, Rannvijay Singh, and Shehnaz Noorani push back against the notion that Leo bullied them into silence; flashbacks reveal deeper, more painful histories. The team traces the drug network to a dealer who confirms Ajay Kumar’s involvement, linking the club’s members to a dangerous underground supply. The evidence mounts, and a crucial truth emerges: those who could have known about Ajay’s violent past were tightly woven into the club’s social fabric.

A turning point arrives when Rannvijay Singh’s finances and allegiances are scrutinized, pulling the rug out from under assumptions about his loyalty. The skeleton discovered beneath the kitchen garden—which Bhavani Singh, Pankaj Tripathi, declares to be Anshul’s, Bambi’s late husband, rather than Ajay Kumar’s—shatters previous theories and reframes who benefits from Leo’s death. The discovery of rare blue crystals in the skeleton’s eye socket ties a specific, wealthy set of suspects to a unique clue, and Bhavani deduces that only one person at the Royal Delhi Club uses such crystals: Cookie Katoch, Dimple Kapadia. Cookie’s past gifts—a pair of Mother Teresa busts—play a crucial role in uncovering the truth, with a bust at one house found intact and another missing, creating a tangible link to the crime.

With the evidence piling up, the case edges toward a cataclysmic confrontation. Aakash returns to the first anniversary party on a pivotal night, and Bambi discovers that the earrings she gifted to her partner have surfaced in Leo’s possession, casting doubt on their relationship and prompting Bhavani Singh to intervene to protect the investigation from being derailed by personal entanglements. The warden of Shepherd Orphanage, though not named in the cast list, emerges as a crucial figure whose connection to Shehnaz Noorani’s past further complicates the story.

In a sequence of dramatic reveals, Ajay Kumar is captured alive but claims that Aakash wanted him behind bars, a twist that explodes the case’s internal logic. Bhavani Singh gathers everyone at the club for a final reckoning and reveals that the skeleton’s identity is Anshul, not Ajay Kumar, and that the missing bust from the Dogras’ collection may be the weapon that sealed Leo’s fate. The narrative then pivots to blame shifting, as Bhavani Singh lays out a theory in which Aakash killed Anshul to protect Bambi’s social standing, while Bambi’s own past—suggesting Anshul had threatened Ganga and that Guppie Ram helped cover up another murder—begins to surface.

The truth behind Bambi’s actions gradually comes into view. She confesses a web of betrayals: Anshul allegedly pursued Ganga, pressuring Bambi to accept a divorce; the couple’s public image was built on a fragile, controlled façade, and Anshul’s insistence on leaving Bambi for Ganga triggered a violent reaction. In a moment of reckoning, Bambi reveals that she used a bust given by Aakash’s grandmother—an object steeped in scandal—to kill Anshul after learning he planned to move away with Ganga. Leo’s blackmailing of Bambi and her attempt to frame Yash collapsed when Yash managed to erase incriminating drug traces from the crime scene. Hariya, Guppie Ram’s cat, becomes a symbol of guilt and remorse as Guppie Ram himself falls to despair and takes his own life with a gun, unable to shoulder the burden of the orchestrated cover-ups.

In the final act, Bambi is held to account for a cascade of violent acts, while Aakash is spared a harsher fate and walks free, aided by Bambi serving as her own defense to reveal the deeper, more dangerous layers of the conspiracy. Bhavani Singh’s closing counsel—urging Aakash to stay out of Bambi’s case—leaves him with a stark personal choice, and the film ends with the quiet, unresolved note that Aakash has no girlfriend in Kolkata, a seemingly small detail that underscores the broader theme: in a world built on appearances, truth often arrives in fragments, and what remains is the endurance of a few who chose to tell it as it happened.

• The film artfully blends romance, betrayal, and police procedural tension, anchored by a formidable ensemble and a cascade of revelations that force every participant to confront what they’ve concealed. The result is a tightly wound, character-driven mystery that remains faithful to its melodramatic roots while delivering a contemporary, morally complex narrative.

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 10:21