Bhooth Bangla

Bhooth Bangla Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Akshay Kumar, Tabu, Wamiqa Gabbi, Paresh Rawal, Asrani, Mithila Palkar

Director: Priyadarshan

What’s Good: The humor is earthy and often irreverent and wacky

What’s Bad: The editing—that is, the excessive length

Loo Break: Depends

Watch or Not?: For Akshay Kumar, definitely!

Language: Hindi

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 173 Minutes

User Rating:

The Bhooth Bangla story is set in Mangalpur, a small town in North India, where brides disappear on their wedding day, as per a legend involving a demon and a nymph. London-based Arjun Acharya (Akshay Kumar) heads there when he learns that he and his sister, Meera (Mithila Palkar), have inherited billions, as well as an old haveli (mansion), from their just-deceased grandfather, Dushyant Acharya (Rajesh Sharma).

Meera has been betrothed to her boyfriend, Rahul, and as per astrological guidance by the boy’s family priest, Maharaj (Manoj Joshi), the couple must be married at a specific post-sunset time (muhurat) on a particular Hindu calendar date (tithi).

Arjun’s and Meera’s father, Vasudev Acharya (Jisshu Sengupta), is a respected authority on spiritual talks and has gone to Sydney when both are told of their inheritance. Vasudev has a quirk: he does not pick up his mobile phone when on a work trip. So Arjun decides to go himself to Mangalpur, as he decides that Meera’s wedding will be celebrated in the haveli. But what he finds there is something completely unexpected: a dilapidated mansion and a lot of (ghost) stories spun around it.

The Acharya family has a guruji, Vashisht Guru (Zakir Hussain), who confirms the curse on the town, even if Arjun refuses to accept it. He feels it is nothing more than a canard spun by vested interests, like the caretaker, Shantaram (Asrani), who is known to sell antiques from the mansion for profit!

Arjun decides to clean up the dilapidated haveli and deck it up in time for Meera’s nuptials. He even employs a cunning, money-hungry wedding planner, Jagdish (Paresh Rawal), who in turn employs his nephew, Balli (Rajpal Yadav), an expert electrician.

Meanwhile, Arjun encounters Priya (Wamiqa Gabbi), a girl he has rescued, en route to Mangalpur, from falling off the train. She comes there as a writer of a book on ancient temples, but her actual agenda is something else.

The haveli is soon inundated with workers, but mysterious things begin to happen. When Meera and her in-laws travel there, and so does her father, the latter also tells Arjun that the wedding should not happen there because of the curse. Vashisht Guru, and he explains this malediction to Arjun. The complex past story also involves Arjun’s late mother, Yashodhara (Tabu).

So what happens next? Will Meera be safe, or will she, too, vamoose like the brides in the past few years?

Bhooth Bangla Movie Review: Script Analysis

Akash Kaushik (Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3, Housefull 4), who seems to specialize in this genre, has spun a complex story that, on reflection, reads as an intelligently constructed plot (despite some inconsistencies) about a lingering curse and devious human beings of all ages. It is constructed as a screenplay by Abhilash Nair, Rohan Shankar, and Priyadarshan himself, but the problem is the excessive length of the film and the way the climax is stretched. The twists are a mix, as most are predictable.

Rohan Shankar also pens the dialogues, and Akshay Kumar’s lines are typically suited for his irascible temperament that results in wisecracking of a testy nature. The rest of the lines are a mix of the witty and the classically filmic, with some echoes of the dialogues we have heard in the Priyadarshan-helmed Bhool Bhulaiyaa, his last hit in Hindi.

However, a few gags nearly descend into the toilet level, so uncharacteristic of Priyan. There is a nice message in the end about how men play God. And a romantic angle that is fresh for such a film.

Bhooth Bangla Movie Review: Star Performance

Akshay Kumar is, to say something cliched, in full form. He is terrific as the cocksure Arjun, who has a rational explanation for all the weird things happening in his presence (or absence) in the haveli, and his delicate side is seen only with his sister and with Priya. As always, Akshay takes on every character of varied hues and makes it his own.

Next to Akshay, Mithila Palkar scores high as his sister in a simple, quite brief role. Tabu is wasted in a role that could have been essayed by any good character artist rather than someone of her stature. Wamiqa Gabbi gets her big film and hero, and impresses whenever she is there for the decorative angle.

Frankly, Paresh Rawal, Asrani, Manoj Joshi, and Rajpal Yadav do not have the meat their characters normally possess in such genres, especially in their comic films with the same director. We are told that Asrani completed his work before he passed on, but the way his character completely vanishes, it would seem that the actor did not do so. However, of the three, he still makes the maximum impression, though it is largely a serious role.

Jisshu Sengupta is alright, but Zakir Hussain and Rajesh Sharma, cast against their grain, impress, the former more than the latter. Bhavna Pani is excellent as Ragini.