The Hindu : Karnataka News : Forget about this film

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 14, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Forget about this film

Quite unnatural: The cast of Bhool Bhulaiyaa in a scene from the film.

Bhool Bhulaiyaa

Cast: Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja, Akshay Kumar

Director: Priyadarshan

A couple of weeks after Dhol fell silent, Priyadarshan is back with Bhool Bhulaiyaa, a film that many would have expected to laugh their way through. Not to be. Priyadarshan decides to take a step beyond the safe confines of the laughter zone, and tries his hand at spooky fare. However it does not work simply because the director falls between the two zones. Nothing is natural about the jokes.

They are all predictable, many of them about the nether regions. Even less natural is the fear element in the film.

We are told there is an old room that stays locked in a haveli because a ghost resides there. And if somebody opens the door there will be a calamity. But a foreign-returned Shiney Ahuja, consistently plastic and his foreign wife, Vidya Balan, a lovable, adorable darling who fills frames with happiness and good cheer do not believe in ghosts. So they go and live in the haunted mansion. Soon, it rains tragedies in the family in the form of a half-burnt sari, a fallen shelf and the like. Who is responsible for it? The adopted daughter, Amisha Patel, whimpering, as usual or the psychiatrist, played with aplomb by Akshay Kumar. Or is it the rational couple? Never mind, the film’s narration is tardy enough to keep you from being interested.

Dear viewers, forget about Bhool Bhulaiyaa.

Z.U.S.

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