Mrs. Serial Killer

An overacting Jacqueline Fernandez torturing us for roughly two hours and watching a talented actor like Manoj Bajpayee getting tortured in a horrendous movie for two hours is what Mrs. Serial Killer in a nutshell for me. Writer, director, editor, producer, composer Shirish Kunder is trying hard to make it look like some kind of psycho-thriller. But the approach here is so lame that you are in that facepalming zone from the moment this movie starts.

Dr. Mrityunjoy Mukerjee gets arrested for killing five young unmarried pregnant girls. But his wife Sona was convinced that he didn’t commit any of those crimes. She finds an advocate who was her husband’s patient and that guy advises her that the only way to get him out on bail was to show the world that the serial killer is still out there.  What Sona does to make that happen is the core of Mrs. Serial Killer.

I would have regretted less if this movie had entered that unintentional comedy space. But Kundar isn’t even giving you that option. The predictability of this movie is almost unbearable. When Mohit Raina’s character starts to talk about a “Joke” in the climax, I was hoping that something will pop up that will give me a convincing answer to the one question of what made Netflix greenlit this movie. But sadly the joke was on the viewer who expected quality. If we have one out of the six bodies, how many are there remaining? This is a question a police officer asks a subordinate when he goes to the crime site. And the subordinate answered the obvious question and I was wondering which stupid officer recruited both of them to the police force. 

Like I already said, Jacqueline Fernandez is utterly disappointing. She used to get these caricature-like roles that mostly wanted to exhibit her physique rather than acting skills. Shirish Kunder this time gives her a character that looks emotionally hefty from the outside but was hollow from the inside. Jacqueline’s Hindi in this movie will remind Katrina Kaif her initial days. Giving her a solid company in bad acting is Aamir Khan’s niece Zayn Marie who plays the role of a medical student named Anushka. In the opening scene of the movie, her character challenges Jacqueline’s Sona saying her psycho stare is the better one and that scene was like the best example of two actors competing with one another on who is the worst. Mohit Raina is trying to make his character look real but Sirish Kundar had spoiled the movie for him, in the beginning, itself with that ridiculous barging-in scene. Manoj Bajpayee has said in interviews that movies like Satyamev Jayate are the ones that he commits to pay his bills and films like Aligarh give him that creative satisfaction. Mrs. Serial Killer is definitely for the bills and when his character utters dialogues like “I am not a f$ckin ice cream” and “call me Mrityu”, I am sure a part of him might have laughed out loud thinking that he is getting paid for mouthing this rubbish. 

DOP Ravi K Chandran is the only person who seems to have done an okay job in this movie. But after a point, the color tone of the movie is not at all aware of the mood of the film. It becomes super glossy and even the fight between Anushka and Sona in that green screen garden looked like an ad film. The villain is making the climax a disco for a short while and the advocate of Mrithyu is in a room that was previously used for some dance reality show. Kunder’s idea of making Sona look confident was by making her sit in the front row of the court and play candy crush in full volume and Jacqueline makes sure that her Juduwa 2 kind of eccentricity is there in that scene. The visual effects were visibly tacky and the background score was underwhelming. 

The recurring thought in your mind as you watch Mrs. Serial Killer will be that how this movie became a Netflix original film and the movie never gives you an answer that will convince you. If you have a feeling that great actors and great technicians can make mediocre movies look like average films, then watch this movie. Despite having talents like Manoj Bajpayee and Ravi K Chandran, this film was a mighty bore. 

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