The Bhootnii

The Bhootnii Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Mouni Roy, Sunny Singh, Palak Tiwari

Director: Sidhaant Sachdev

What’s Good: The occasional one-liner and (occasionally again) Mouni Roy and two supporting actors in parts.

What’s Bad: The rest!

Loo Break: Lots of opportunities

Watch or Not?: Don’t think so

Language: Hindi

Available On: Theatrical release

Runtime: 130 Minutes

User Rating:

A Virgin Tree in Delhi’s St. Vincent College of Arts and Culture is worshipped every Valentine’s Day by those thirsting for true love. On every Holika Dahan Day, a few weeks later, however, a student commits suicide and his soul is “taken away” by a spirit residing there.

The college management is flummoxed, and as their reputation is at stake, they call in a ghostbuster, Baba (Sanjay Dutt), who comes in with his sophisticated gadgetry to decipher the mystery.

Meanwhile, college student Shantanu (Sunny Singh) has been betrayed by his last girlfriend and craves true love. When howling (!) for sacchi mohabbat in front of the Virgin Tree, he is saved by the mysterious lovelorn spirit itself, named Mohabbat (Mouni Roy), who falls in love with him. But she will not like competition (Ananya), being herself deceived in love. Shantanu and Ananya are now developing ‘feelings’ for each other, see?

From here begins a complex blend of horror, comedy, emotions, romance, and drama that goes into strange realms in the climax, unveiling Mohabbat’s tragic past, and a twist in the tale for Baba.

The Bhootnii Movie Review: Script Analysis

Co-written by director Sidhaant Sachdev along with Vankush Arora, the story is a shade different from the standard horror drama and even horror comedy. However, it does have the standard tropes of such films—scared friends of the hero (Aasif Khan and BeYouNick), eerie sounds and happenings, and nightly incidents. Mohabbat is also actually full of ‘nafrat’ (hate) as she deals with Ananya and Baba, as in the best revenge-horror tradition.

The script tries to make do with fresh elements like Mohabbat explaining to Shantanu that she is “not alive,” Baba’s armamentarium of digital cameras and monitors, and ghost sensors scanning the campus and even the characters, with an acolyte monitoring the supernatural activities. Baba thus manages to save Shantanu and Ananya in certain situations.

The film unabashedly goes into absurd terrain when we see a college with such a ridiculous setup (the students’ rooms are like extended boutique hotels—and more, to give just one example!) with the institution allowing romance to thrive in the annual festivities and also encouraging paranormal investigations! The campus shown in long shots and close shots seems to be different from each other, and the happenings are extremely far-fetched and far from humorous, with the humor and one-liners being of plebian standards, like the Baba-Mama “joke” highlighted in the trailer.

The Bhootnii Movie Review: Star Performance

But for a sincere Mouni Roy trying her best in a ‘spiritual’ role, and Aasif Khan making the best of a trope-ridden character, no one really even tries to act with skill. BeYouNick has the right expressions and body language, but is ordinary on the whole. Sunny Singh, Palak Tiwari, and the others just go through the motions sans any distinction.

And Sanjay Dutt (also the co-producer of this film) does his umpteenth replay of the Munna Bhai mode, in the way Kareena Kapoor Khan would reprise Poo for a few years and movies! The rest do not matter.