Bhool Bhulaiyaa Hindi Movie

Oct 12, 2007 By Jahan Bakshi

Bhool Bhulaiyaa: Stay Away!

If there is one filmmaker in Bollywood who I would like to request to retire, it certainly is Priyadarshan. No, friends and film buffs- not even Ram Gopal Varma can beat Priyan to this. Ramu, however warped his mind his may have become of late, at least retains some remnants of the passion he had earlier, the burning zeal that led him to create such great cinema in the past. But here is a director that has clearly lost it all- his mind and fervor- all in favor of making dumb, assembly line films for a passive audience that seems to keep lapping them up.

Priyan is of course too lazy now to think of an original and interesting plot on his own anymore. So there he goes again, down south for another film to remake- only this time it's not an entirely stupid film- it's the 1993 Malayalam movie Manichithrathazhu starring Mohanlal and Shobhana (the film fetched her a National award which has already been remade as Apthamitra in Kannada and as Chandramukhi in Tamil and been well received.

Priyadarshan, who was part of the crew of the Malayalam original adapts the story of the original faithfully, but clearly can't make a compelling film out of the rather interesting premise. For those interested, the film follows the story of Siddharth (Shiney Ahuja) and Avni (Vidya Balan) who return from America to stay in their ancestral palace. The palace has a dark history, which involves a Bengali dancer called Monjulika, who was imprisoned by a king who was obsessed with her beauty and killed her lover. After couple starts inhabiting the palace and the curious Avni unlocks a forbidden room, spooky incidents start taking place, supposedly due to the vengeful ghost of the dancer. Halfway down the film, of course- enters Dr Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar)- a psychiatrist to help solve the problem and mystery.

The film never quite manages to balance the comedy (Typically Priyadarshan and slapstick- worse and more stale and boring than even before) and horror/ thriller elements in the story, and ends up being a confused film. Priyan also fails to update the film and give it enough atmosphere and texture to make it gripping and intriguing, and the simplistic and dumber-down psychological explanations do not help.

The film is supposedly set in Varanasi but evidently shot in Rajasthan- and so the film also lacks the rich cultural backdrop of the original. Priyadarshan's sole objective is clearly to mint money, and he plays safe by robbing Vidya Balan of what should have been an author backed role, and instead making the film a showcase for Akshay Kumar's incessant buffoonery, which just isn't funny anymore.

In fact it is painful to actually review a film that has been made so lazily, with such little real creative effort behind it, and believe me when I say that I am pushing myself more to write this than Priyan actually pushed himself to make this film. It isn't insufferable torture, but not something to recommend either- not funny or scary enough. The laughs do come out of the audience, but it is mostly at the wrong places. In fact, the dancer's vicious hissing in Bengali- "Aami Monjulika!", makes for some of the best moments of (unintentional) comedy in the film.

Akshay Kumar is decent, but the actor's brand of comedy is getting tiresome, just like the director's, and it is time for some serious reinvention. Vidya Balan was probably the only part of this film I really looked forward to, and needless to say, I am disappointed. She plays the typical heroine all through till the climax, where she finally gets to break free, and does reasonably well. The director barely gives her room to perform and the actress can't shine enough to make us really stand up and applaud. The rest of the cast including Shiney Ahuja, do their parts half asleep.

Don't get ensnared in this Bhool Bhulaiyaa - go watch a Johnny Gaddaar or Loins of Punjab Presents instead and do yourself and good cinema a favor- good cinema, th