Rating: 5/10
Bhool Bhoolaiyya was doing okay until the climax when it started resembling a brainless ‘80s movie. The suspense it had built up till then was passable, although predictable, but once the ‘bhoot’ character started ‘acting’ like a bhoot, it started getting really ridiculous, and my brother and me started cracking jokes, something we almost never do while watching movies. We were watching this at home, by the way.
 There’s a Mithun movie, I think, where he’s going to die of a brain tumour but the villain shoots him in the head during the climax and the bullet removes the tumour or something and he gets fixed. I don’t know whether to classify Bhool Bhoolaiyya’s resolution at the same level, but I will say that this was what I was reminded of.
 I wanted to watch this movie during its initial theatre run, thinking it to be a comedy - Akshay Kumar’s grown into a fantastic comic actor, and even Paresh Rawal was part of the cast. But someone told me it’s actually a suspense/horror kind of flick, and I lost interest. After the stupid mystery subplots of Bhagam Bhag and the headache-inducing Dhol, I didn’t have any faith left in Priyadarshan’s handling of suspense. The only reason I got around to watching it was curiosity, since it’s now ranked among the big hits of 2007.
 Akshay Kumar doesn’t appear till around the 45 minute mark. Paresh Rawal and a few horror film tricks cover up for him decently enough till then. But after Akshay appears, he straddles two genres at the same time. On one hand he’s hunting for the bhoot and on the other hand he’s fooling around with everyone else. I don’t know whether I’d have like the film more if it had stuck to one tone instead of having two legs in two boats, but Akshay does manage to pull it off, to his credit.
 Bhagam Bhag was a comedy with suspense thrown in, Bhool Bhoolaiyya is a suspense film with comedy thrown in. For me, however, the climax was the funniest and most ludicrous part of all, although it was intended to be a frightening horror-film climax. I mean, imagine a Bengali-speaking bhoot! If any Bengali netizens who’ve seen the film are reading this, please leave some comments on what you thought of the bhoot. I have 3-4 Bengalis among my best buddies, and somehow I don’t think whoever mouthed the bhoot’s dialogues was a Bengali.
 The story? Well, there’s a haunted mahal. Shiney Ahuja’s. His wife is Vidya Balan and his childhood friend is Amisha Patel. The bhoot gets a little violent, so he calls his psychiatrist buddy Akshay Kumar to do some ghostbusting.
 Having watch a few films more than the average moviegoer, I aver that people who’ve seen many movies will easily find Bhool Bhoolaiyya predictable. I’m a little flummoxed as to how the hell it became such a big hit. It gets really stupid towards the last half hour. But I guess the average moviegoer doesn’t think too much. Hell, even I don’t think too much – in fact, for movies like Dhamaal and Dhol, I leave my brains at home and come to have a good time. Dhamaal I roared throughout and Dhol gave me a headache. But movies like Bhool Bhoolaiyya pretend to be something they’re not – they try to be psychological thrillers or horror flicks or comic horror or something. But the truth is Bhool Bhoolaiyya is highly superficial and you can pick out nice gaping holes in its logic.


 Bottomline

You might like this film if: You don’t mind a Bengali speaking, Bharatnatyam-dancing bhoot.


Blog Trailer: I"ll soon be posting my list favourite films, performances as well as worst films etc and my own personal nominees for this year"s awards. I just need to watch Return of Hanuman, Welcome and Manorama Six Feet Under and then I"ll be done with this year"s films.