Excruciatingly loooong

It doesn’t come as a surprise to note that the BR Chopra production house is not only stuck with the idea of message oriented films, but is also stagnated in the 60s and 80s when films lasted a whole three hours! What could have been a crisp entertainer dealing with the ghost sent back on an assignment to the world and his fresh episodically interesting relationship with kids becomes one packed with platitudes from Nirvachan Sadan. This ghastly – nay ghostly outing is too boring and uninspiring for the kids and too boring for the adult.

The film starts off on a bad note with an irritatingly contrived laugh sequence that mocks Bhootnath’s failure to scare even a kid in his earlier outing. From the sets of an idyllic British church in juxtaposition with a visibly created cardboard setting which is said to Bhoot world we have Bhootnath (Amitabh Bachchan) coming back to earth to make amends with his earlier failure. It is another matter that he lands up with a bigger failure this time round!

He meets Akhrot (Parth) an urchin in Dharavi. The meeting leads to instant friendship. Soon Bhootnath who is on a mission to scare, becomes friendly not only with the kids but with the adults too. The initial part of the story deals with people reacting to the invisible ghost and the classic bewilderment they feel when told that they are in the presence of a ghost- albeit a friendly one. Most often Akhort uses the services of Bhootnath to get haunting ghosts from buildings off and to help builders proceed with the concrete jungle around Mumbai. Thus the visibly immediate beneficiaries of Bhootnath’s visit are the realtors and little Akhrot – who true to his name is tuff from outside but soft within.

Soon we have the visiting ghost getting pulled into the vortex of Indian politics. It’s not a tad paradoxical that the person doing all that on screen has confessed to the inconvenient experience of being in the cesspool of politics! The ghost goaded by his new found friend (to whom he cannot say a ‘no’) decides to contest the elections from the Dharavi constituency against a local leader (Boman Irani). From here everything in the film is from the pulpit and so full of aching platitudes that it would make even a docu-film maker blush. We are taken on a conducted tour of bad roads, water problem, corruption, electoral shortcomings and citizen indifference. We even have brand ambassadors in Shahrukh Khan and Ranbir stepping in to ask voters to cast their vote. There is a bit of the usual dramatics (read contrived) with the villains deciding to harm Bhootnath through Akhrot, and he fighting for life at an ICU. Lost in the dreary sands of hyperbole and over simplification is the wonderful idea of how a ghost takes advantage of the loopholes in the law and gets to contesting an election. The law does not require a living person to contest says the out of work lawyer (or say out of touch) Sanjay Mishra. It could have been a jolly good ride with a tongue in cheek look at the sanctimonious Election process. It could have had a healthy go at the citizens. Instead it gets preachy and boring. Normally you would expect the ghost to scare you, wake you up from slumber with a screech and raise the fear quotient in your life. This time around he is different and to that limited extent welcome. This ghost however puts you in forced slumber, makes you chuckle and even yearn for him. He is the new alternative to the local Civic authority!! Yawn.

Watch the film for the ever reliable Amitabh who may not be in his element but is still good, very good in fact. Watch it also for some fine performances from Sanjay Mishra and the moppet Parth who holds the film together. One sincerely wishes that this visitor from the high heavens was not a member of an election NGO or some new found political party making heavy weather of corruption and drifting India. The brand ambassador of Gujarat is now expanding the portfolio. This Bhootnath is more appropriately Bhoot not.