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INTRODUCTION
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”RGV making a supernatural thriller?!''Wow!!! Thats gotta be THE flick to watch this Summer, I thought to myself!!! After watching the AMAZING Company, I felt that finally, Bollywood Cinema was coming of age and growing up to make more Sensible and Watchable movies. And RGV was spearheading that mission, with able support from Farhan Akhtar and Ashutosh Govarikar. But the USP of RGV has been that he hasn't shied away from any genre of movies.....always keen to experiment and try out new avenues....looking at his record....Romantic movies like Mast, Rangeela....thrillers like Satya, Jungle, and Company...and two Horror movies, Raat, Kaun, and now, BHOOT, I feel its second to None.
Coming to Horror, Raat, his maiden attempt, managed to scare the daylights out of me and I ended up watching the flick far more times than one would enjoy watching such movies. It was Thrilling, Chilling and above all, had none of the stereotypical elements usually associated with such films. Jara Hatke!!
With Satya, and more recently, Company, RGV was at the PEAK of his career...one wondered whether he would Reach so high as to touch Oscar's....moreover....Bhoot was the ideal movie........no songs....just pure horror.....would it elevate him to the stars?? Well, its MY time to ANSWER the Million Dollar Question!! And, its NO!
Well, its once in a Blue Moon that our movies reach the doorsteps of the Oscars, and Lagaan proved it isn't Impossible...neither are our movies getting neglected nor are the Oscar Jury biased....RGV had a golden oppurtunity...but sadly Goofed Up!!
Why o why, one may ask? Read on!
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REVIEW
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What went wrong?
The hype was BIG….BIGGER….BIGGEST….more than anything ever witnessed in recent times. Bhoot was supposed to Horrify the viewer….giving him scares that would last long after he retired to bed…..after all, everyone IS afraid of the darkness…and there are many, like me, who get up in the middle of the night to fetch a bottle of water from the refrigerator, in your new flat. What if you saw a Ghost in front of your eyes, with just the fridge illuminating the room! Gulp! The water will tremble with your throat, and you may experience even stranger feelings when you sit to watch TV and the same ghost appears again…..AAAHH!!!! What do you do? No one’s ready to believe you, since it’s the modern age and Bhoot is considered to be a thing of the past….a superstition!
What happens when your wife starts seeing things….drives herself and you crazy. What happens when you get hallucinations of your possessed wife striking you with a knife, punching you around the room and behaving stranger than ever before. Has a ghost found its way into her body? Should you start believing in ghosts? What if the only way out was tying her to the bed and listening to a debate between the doctor treating her and the medium (tantrik) who has a strange, spooky face and even stranger mannerisms. What do you do with the Inspector who is annoying you with weird questions and expressions? And finally, what about the murdered watchman…..how did that happen?
Well, that was for you the story of Bhoot, presented in as different a fashion possible…well I am not a gr8 storyteller but its important so I did it this way…howz it?
Coming back to the movie, lets talk of the Positive Aspects first…
Dwarak Warrier, the sound designer, as most of you must have already mentioned has whipped up a Spooky atmosphere, amplifying sounds to send a shiver down your spine….specially the door bell!
Vishal Sinha’s cinematography isn’t anywhere close to Hemant Chaturvedi’s Slick work in Company but some of the scenes linger in your memory long after the movie is over….just take the shot of the haunted building at night…..with no other building in the background….a WORK OF ART!!
Background Score by Salim-Suleiman is up there with the BEST….even worth recommending for a few awards…..to put it simply, its WONDERFUL!
Performances are TOP NOTCH..
The Top Honours belong to Urmila….I know many have been talking miles about her Superlative performance. I wholeheartedly agree with them. She expresses fear in the purest form.
While she looks terrified in the first half, Ajay Devgan looks as perplexed in the second half and gives one a sense of what must be going on in his mind. Spell binding!
Victor Banerjee has the next best role and does most of what is given to him.
Nana Patekar induces the occasional guffaws with his strange behavior.
The Negative Aspects that PULL the film DOWN:
Story and Screenplay by Lalit Marathe and Sameer Sharma is devoid of any Freshness and feels as if they were out of ideas and borrowed conveniently from movies ranging from Exorcist to RGV’s own Raat!! Since I have already seen the mentioned movies, I didn’t enjoy the movie as much.
The Screenplay only adds to the frustration with repetitive scenes like Vishal traveling to office and back…..Urmila running up and down the stairs with effortless ease….and most importantly, the sudden crowding of the scene in the second half…..with loads of characters popping in without much significance….felt more like a drama than a movie….
RGV’s Direction is surprisingly repetitive, considering his creative muscle in movies like Satya and Company. Looks like he wasn’t too interested in handling the subject with the Imagination and Style to drive one crazy with fear. He felt All the Hype and the Tagline “Be Afraid” would be enough to get the audience in the theatre..he was right!
The dialogues were quite ordinary....couldn't RGV get someone better like Hriday Lani or even Jaideep Sahni to pen the dialogues.
Other performances (Rekha, Tanuja, Fardeen Khan, Seema Biswas) ultimately turn out to be Mediocre since the characters have Extremely Miniscule roles. Its unfair to waste such talented performers just to add to the star power in the film.
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CONCLUSION
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All in all, Bhoot will be a Rewarding Experience for New-comers, but for those who have been through Exorcist or Raat, its just Old Wine in a Flashing New Bottle, with Star photos pasted Back and Forth !!
