A few days back a friend sent me a well-made promo of an upcoming Hindi film and asked my views which I couldn’t give as I had stopped guessing about Hindi movies just looking at their promos long ago. Many major disappointments in the past were the reason for such firm decision. Still my indicative reply to him was that, “The one department in which Indian directors have surely achieved mastery over the years is advertising and promo-making of their well-publicized products, deserving praises”. And BHOOTHNATH RETURNS is a perfect example of the same since it really had such an uplifting & spirited trailer but the film turns up with a completely unrelated and disappointing content offering much less than what was all promised.
But before coming to the sequel, let me first talk about its original in only a few lines taking you back in time. BHOOTHNATH (released in 2008) was a pleasant surprise for many, particularly the kids as nobody was expecting a ghost story told in such an emotional, lovable and sober-comic manner, away from anything scary or routine. So where a few didn’t like it, most of the viewers loved it and the kids of all ages (including the grown up kids like myself) still like to watch it repeatedly either on a channel or on a DVD, whenever we get reminded of the same through some reference. With the lead character played by the 8 year old adorable Aman Siddiqui as “Bonku”, the film was truly enjoyed by children and families together after a long time.
Hence having this positive vibe, a part two coming after a long gap of 6 years is obviously expected to have everything targeting the kids only with some fresh content (just like the entertaining original). And moreover the promos also confirmed the fact with all its comic sequences revolving around the child artist standing along with Amitabh in style. But unfortunately what comes as the big surprise is that the film is nothing more than another confused drama, weirdly emphasizing on the elections and the ‘need for change’ movement of the society, forgetting its actual viewers sitting in the theater, still in the age group far away from becoming the responsible voters.
To give its deserving due, BR begins superbly with a novel thought of a ‘Ghost World’ and its official works being performed like a government office (the thought first came in FATSO, 2009). But then it starts taking too much time to reach any point and with 2 songs in the first 35 minutes itself, there is neither any excitement nor the lovable charm as seen in the original. Thankfully Boman enters next with his own style of comic portrayal mixed with cruelty like his earlier famous characters, but again quite annoyingly he also has only 2-3 scenes before the intermission without contributing much. Besides a completely social, thought provoking song made on the lines of Michael Jackson’s “Heal The World” (with stills showing poverty, hunger, pain and class divide in the society exploiting the under privileged), strongly raises a question that what the director is really up-to and for whom actually he is making this sequel called BHOOTHNATH RETURNS?
Nevertheless in the first half, it still somehow remains bearable even when the film is nothing close to any comic entertaining venture involving the kids. But moving into its final hour, it questionably shifts gears and entirely becomes a social, preachy drama telling you all about the importance of voting and the need to elect an honest candidate in a democracy (ignoring everything which was supposed to be there in this sequel). The progression soon goes into a boring mode indicating towards the dualistic approach of the makers wherein they probably wished to en-cash both the family audience as well as the nation’s present election euphoria resulting in a completely avoidable and messy script.
Interestingly towards the final 30 minutes I could see kids playing on the staircase and a few chatting about something more important in their own lingo, simply ignoring what was happening on the screen regarding elections. In other words, apart from the first 15 interesting moments, nothing is there in this sequel comparing to the promises made in its excellent promos. In fact the theatrical trailer itself is the sum of all the enjoyable scenes in the film which keep coming at long gaps, serving you a lot less than the expected. Few surprising cameos are also thrown in to generate some kind of excitement in the audience which doesn’t work and even the hit track “Party To Banti Hai” fails to make any kind of impact beginning all of a sudden, without any fine build up.
Yes, admitting its merit, the message conveyed by the makers is no doubt important and perfectly apt in the current scenario of ongoing Lok Sabha elections in the county. Yet the 100 crores question is that what are these messages and lengthy preachy sequences doing in a film which is supposed to be made for the kids below 14 years? Elections have nothing to do with them in this tender age and hence they are least interested to see anything related to voting, candidates, vote buying, bogus voting, TV debates, speeches and more. So why such a script was written, chosen and approved by the production house as the sequel of BHOOTHNATH remains out of my understanding really.
Coming to the performance, the Senior Bachchan still has everything in his persona to lighten up the screen and he does that well in his baritone voice and unique funny expressions too like an institution. But still I somehow found the body energy missing and the movements too little, may be due to the age factor coming into the act inevitably. Boman Irani is as usual flawless as the opportunist don-builder-politician becoming more active only post the intermission. Sanjay Mishra, Brijender Kala, Usha Jadhav & Usha Nadkarni play it fine in their supporting characters whereas the three key figures of the Industry add nothing in their one scene cameos really. So in the end, Parth Bhalerao (The kid – Akhrot) remains the ultimate winner above all, showing amazing confidence standing amongst veterans such as Amitabh Bachchan and Boman Irani. And the boy certainly deserves praises for his ‘bindaas-tapori’ act played with courage.
Musically the soundtrack had two already hit party songs, particularly the Honey Singh track quite famous among the kids. But again, the director is unable to use them well and they still remain more enjoyable as individual tracks only on the dance floors. Cinematography convincingly executes the ‘Bhoot’ sequences as required but the background score is not able to create any kind of upbeat energy as it was there in MR. INDIA in many similar sequences (like the one where Anil Kapoor comes to meet Anu Kapoor in the office just like Amitabh goes to meet Sanjay Mishra here). Keeping the focus right on the subject only, the script doesn’t have any love or female angle as per the usual format but despite the fact it becomes too long and should have been wrapped up in just 120-30 minutes instead of 150.
Regarding the direction, frankly this would have been a perfect subject for Raj Kumar Hirani as I personally felt, since director Nitesh Tiwari completely ruins a potential plot with his confused handling, satisfying neither the kids nor the adults. The film keeps hanging in the mid with all the educative election insertions and I really couldn’t imagine how on earth that was all conceived in the film aiming the kids coming for the sequel of their favourite BHOOTHNATH. Besides there are certain flaws pointing towards the careless writing too like why Bhoothnath doesn’t go back to the Bhoothland after he successfully scares few kids fulfilling his only task, Why he keeps staying on earth after getting the task done, Why the table tennis is being played with rackets floating in the air when they were all Bhoots only living together visible to each other and why TV channels did not make it an issue of silly superstition being spread, instead of calling Bhoothnath for a Live interview?
In short, the film actually reminded me a lesson of Business Studies and Marketing in which we were taught that before commencing any kind of business or production, first you have to clearly decide upon your target audience to deal with because without deciding your exact target audience one cannot achieve any kind of goal, sales or profits ever.
And that’s exactly the big mistake made by the makers of this much awaited sequel, wherein they couldn’t focus on the right target audience of their product at all who happened to be the kids in the age group of 6-14. Summing it all BHOOTHNATH RETURNS is just a misguided film having nothing in its content as per the expectations raised and the kid residing in me was really disappointed watching all those heavy-boring scenes, especially in its second half.
Rating : 2 / 5 (Including 1 for the novel beginning & 1 for the few good songs).
