Murder 3
- Director
- Vishesh Bhatt
- Studio
- Vishesh Films
- Release Date
- 14 February 2013
- Running Time
- 123 min
- Language
- Hindi
- Country
- India
- Budget
- ₹15.00 Cr
- Box Office
- ₹27.75 Cr
Review
Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's *Murder 3* attempts to resurrect the erotic thriller formula that once thrived in Hindi cinema, yet it stumbles under the weight of its own convoluted premise. The film borrows heavily from the genre's established playbook—the jilted lover, the mysterious new woman, the police investigation—but squanders these familiar elements through narrative bloat and tonal inconsistency. Randeep Hooda delivers a competent performance as the tormented Vikram, though he's largely reactive rather than driving the emotional core. The real issue lies in the screenplay's inability to commit: it lurches between a conventional murder mystery and a psychological character study, never fully inhabiting either space. By the time the secret room reveal arrives—complete with 1947 backstory that feels lifted from a different film entirely—any tension the film had cultivated dissolves into absurdity.
What's particularly disappointing is how the film squanders its potential as a modern take on obsession and complicity. Jacqueline Fernandez brings some edge to Nisha, but the character's moral ambiguity, which should be the film's beating heart, gets sidelined for cheap thrills and murky plotting. Compared to Vishal Bharwaj's *Phobia* or even the original *Murder*, which understood how to weaponize paranoia and desire, this feels like a pale shadow—technically proficient but emotionally hollow. The hidden chamber gimmick and Roshni's fate might have worked as a twist in a tighte
Storyline
So there's this talented photographer named Vikram who gets absolutely blindsided when his girlfriend Roshni dumps him through a video message. He's pretty messed up about it, and while he's drowning his sorrows at a bar, he meets this amazing woman named Nisha and they hit it off immediately. Things move fast and Nisha ends up moving into the apartment that Vikram shared with Roshni, which sets off all kinds of alarm bells with the police since Roshni has gone missing.
The cops investigate Vikram pretty thoroughly, but they can't find any real evidence that he had anything to do with Roshni's disappearance. It turns out the apartment actually belongs to a British woman who shows everyone this bizarre hidden room that was originally built as a secret hideaway for her husband back when he was involved with the Indian Army in 1947. The room is completely self-contained with its own life support basically.
Through some flashbacks, we learn that Roshni was actually jealous of Vikram's work friendships and decided to pull off this cruel prank where she'd fake leaving him. She recorded the breakup video and hid in that secret room to spy on his reaction through one-way mirrors. But here's where things get dark—she loses the key and realizes she's now genuinely trapped with no way to call for help. When Nisha discovers the mysterious key and eventually figures out that Roshni is locked inside, she faces a serious moral dilemma that tests just how far she's willing to go to keep Vikram all to herself.
