Murder Mubarak _ Sara Ali Khan, Vijay Varma, Pankaj Tripathi

Misdirection. Murderers and magicians thrive on it, and, to some extent, film directors too. Homi Adajania knows his way around misdirection: his debut feature, Being Cyrus (2005), was an eerily involving thriller, its calm conceits and subtle performances building up to a delicious twist. He attempts the same trick all these years later in Murder Mubarak. As before, he gathers a fine ensemble whose florid antics keep us guessing. The only slip-up is that one of the performances — by no means a peripheral one —is alarmingly off-key, drawing more attention to itself than it ideally should.
During a murder investigation, a non-traditional police officer turns a spotlight on an array of suspects. He steps into their world as an outsider, only to find there is so much more than what meets the eye.