Akshay Kumar and Priyadarshan’s highly anticipated reunion in Bhooth Bangla attempts to revive their classic comedic synergy but ultimately falls flat, delivering a forgettable horror-comedy, writes Sreeju Sudhakaran..

We live in an era ruled by nostalgia. Clips from films like Hera Pheri, Garam Masala and Bhagam Bhag flood social media, making us laugh and reminisce about a time when comedy felt effortless and genuine.

So, I don’t blame anyone for getting excited about the reunion of Akshay Kumar and Priyadarshan after 14 years for Bhooth Bangla.

That said, it is equally hard to ignore that Akshay has been stuck in a string of weak comedies for some time, or that Priyadarshan himself has struggled to deliver a solid entertainer in recent years, let alone a good comedy.

And, perhaps most crucially, an essential part of their comic synergy, Neeraj Vora, is no longer around.

Bhooth Bangla reminds you of all these shortcomings from its very first scene of its lead star, where Akshay Kumar’s character is seen marrying his sister to a tree, while looking old enough to be her uncle.

Yes, this one gives you the wrong kind of spooks.

What’s Bhooth Bangla About?

Arjun (Akshay Kumar) lives in the UK with his sister Meera (Mithila Palkar) and their father Dr Vasudev (Jisshu Sengupta). Meera is set to marry her boyfriend, and they are oddly fixated on hosting the wedding in India.

Why India, and not somewhere closer? I suppose that has something to do with her highly superstitious in-laws. A few reels later, Meera is going to encounter a demonic presence, but honestly, the demon feels like a pussycat compared to the horror of a family she is about to marry into.

In a conveniently timed twist, Arjun and Meera discover that a grandfather they never knew existed has left them a palace and a fortune. Naturally, they decide this is the perfect wedding venue, and Arjun heads to India to prepare the property.

What he does not realise is that the palace lies in Mangalpur, a cursed village haunted by a bat-winged demon named Vadhusur, who abducts brides on their wedding nights. One can only assume he has some sort of manosphere pact going on with Sanjeev Kumar’s werewolf in Jaani Dushman and Sarkatta from Stree 2 on who hates women the most.

There is a surprise reveal about Vadhusur before the interval. Otherwise, he looks like a love child of the creature from Jeepers Creepers and Vikram’s beast in the Ennodu Nee Irundhaal song from I, who then goes on to become a fanboy of Morbius.

He can only appear in complete darkness, moonlight being the lone exception; otherwise, we would barely see him in action at all.

In what feels like the film’s only mildly inventive touch, he is repelled by the torchlight of a Nokia phone. Which also reminds me to mention that Bhooth Bangla is set in the early 2000s. Whether this timeline serves any real narrative purpose is debatable, beyond justifying a plot device that barely makes sense. Or that how Priyadarshan comedies used to be actually funny in that era.

Screenplay and Humour

The screenplay by Priyadarshan, Rohan Shankar and Abilash Nair tries too hard, and too absurdly to justify some of its most illogical plot turns.

Take, for instance, Dr Vasudev being completely unaware of Arjun’s plan to visit Mangalpur simply because he refuses to answer his children’s calls while on an international trip. I understand that call rates, especially on roaming, were steep back then, even for incoming calls. But if your children are calling you incessantly, you answer the damn phone, particularly when you know they are capable of spectacularly foolish decisions and one of them is about to get married.

The first half plays out as a string of flimsy, barely amusing gags, as Arjun tries to prepare the palace with the help of wedding planner Jagdish (Paresh Rawal), his electrician nephew (Rajpal Yadav), and the caretaker (the late Asrani). Unless you still find random slaps funny, the humour struggles to rise above the painfully mediocre.

Most of these gags are recycled from Priyadarshan’s own films like Hera Pheri, Garam Masala, and Khatta Meetha, or from other Malayalam comedies like In Ghost House Inn and Romancham.

You could call it nostalgia bait; I would call it creative fatigue.

Look, you don’t need to point it out to me that many of Priyadarshan’s earlier films were remakes that also borrowed from other sources.

The difference was Neeraj Vora; he had the knack of adapting those elements seamlessly for Hindi audiences. Here, in his absence, you can clearly see the struggle to recreate that effect, and the lack of impact is quite disheartening to watch.

It also doesn’t help that some of the gags come across as outright distasteful. Take the scene involving Rajpal Yadav and Bhavana Pani in the courtyard, which Arjun misconstrues as something sleazy, it is lifted from Priyadarshan’s Malayalam film Geethanjali. It wasn’t funny then, and it certainly isn’t funny now.

Supernatural Elements and Performances

Once the supernatural track properly kicks in during the second half, Bhooth Bangla shows some faint signs of narrative momentum, but then it does very little with it.

The scares are ineffective, and the flashback portion leans more towards the ridiculous than the dramatic, largely due to awkward styling and overplayed performances. The human characters behave with such baffling stupidity that I jumped camp to Team Vadhusur.

The climax, despite featuring a human-versus-demon showdown, lacks any real tension. The use of practical sets in there is a welcome touch, but the visual effects elsewhere remain unimpressive.

It is also not easy to ignore the obvious attempt to tap into the success of the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise, which Priyadarshan and Akshay Kumar inadvertently helped launch in 2007.

Unfortunately, Bhooth Bangla feels like a rejected draft from that universe and that’s saying something. There is even a point where you can easily imagine Mere Dholna fitting into the film better than the song that is actually there.

Technically, too, the film feels scattered. For all their flaws, at the very least, the Bhool Bhulaiyaa films had a certain visual vibrancy.

Here, several shots suffer from oddly placed camera angles that look awkward on screen, and the editing often feels out of sync. The film lingers excessively on reaction shots, at times making you wonder whether the actor delivering the dialogue was even present in the same frame.

Akshay Kumar’s Miscasting

And then there is Akshay Kumar.

I have seen him salvage weaker films through his impeccable comic timing, but here, he feels miscast, and his casting only amplifies the miscasting around him.

Watching Jisshu Sengupta, who clearly looks younger despite the makeup, play his father is unintentionally hilarious. Every time Akshay calls him ‘Baba‘, I chuckled.

Even if you try to overlook the miscasting (which is difficult, given how frequently the film reminds you of it), Akshay’s performance feels laboured and forced. He is unable to elevate the weak material here, and instead, he and his co-actors — Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, and the late Asrani — default to loudness, delivering punchlines at high volume and with exaggerated rudeness.

He is particularly uncomfortable to watch in the major flashback portion, where his age becomes evident, the styling does him no favours, and the performance becomes unintentionally hilarious.

Then there is Tabu, reduced to a baffling, poorly-written cameo that makes you wonder the amount on the cheque the producers wrote to convince her to just show up on the sets.

Wamiqa Gabbi, meanwhile, drifts in and out of the narrative with little purpose. Her character’s twist is fairly obvious, though the film treats it as a major reveal. It hardly needs stating that she and Akshay Kumar make for an awkward pairing.

Towards the end, a character says, ‘Isko bura sapna samajh ke bhool jao.’

I felt that was directed straight at me. I wish I could, bro. I really do.

Bhooth Bangla Review   **