Bhooth Bangla Movie Review | Anupama Chopra | THR India

Anupama Chopra reviews Bhooth Bangla, Priyadarshan’s horror-comedy reunion with Akshay Kumar after 17 years, now in theatres. The film — also bringing back Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav, Manoj Joshi and the late Asrani ji for the ultimate nostalgia ride — tries strenuously but resolutely fails to recreate the magic of earlier collaborations like Hera Pheri (2000) and the OG Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007). Almost three hours long, the film piles on an apex demon named Vasudhar, bats, a man who is half-bat, an adopted son, a shrapit haveli, a village where no one gets married, a chanting machine and multiple Akshay Kumars — and yet, by the end, it’s still hard to figure out what happened. The script — story by Aakash Kaushik, screenplay by Priyadarshan, Rohan Shankar and Abhilash Nair, and dialogues by Rohan Shankar — leans deep into superstition and black magic while rehashing familiar tropes, right down to shooting at the same Chomu Palace in Jaipur where Bhool Bhulaiyaa was filmed. Anupama also flags the awkward casting: Jisshu Sengupta, younger than Akshay, plays his father; Wamiqa Gabbi, much younger than Akshay, plays his love interest; and Tabu, Mithila Palkar and others drift in and out. A few moments in the first half lift the film, but post-interval the ghost busting turns into a slog. Exhausting and dispiriting — even the most successful collaborations need reinvention. And that is the THR bottomline.

#BhoothBangla #AkshayKumar #Priyadarshan