Bhoot Police(Disney Hotstar)
Starring Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Kapoor
Directed by Pavan Kriplani
Rating: *
Setting aside all the cautiously positive reviews,all sponsored, how bad is Bhoot Police? It’s hard to say. This work touches such unscaled peaks of dumbness that one is at a loss for words.
Descriptions like, awful and mediocre would just about touch the tip of the tale’s woeful inadequacy. If I say it was unbelievably bad, I’d only be talking about Saif Ali Khan who tries so hard to be funny, it’s scary. In fact I could write a whole thesis on Mr Khan’s ‘Bihari’ accent, Being from Bihar I am yet to hear anyone speak like that.
Bhoot Police is filled with such never-before sights and sounds. …Like A Chudail belching profanity like Linda Blair , like Saif trying to mimic Rajkummar Rao in Stree and failing miserably,or Arjun Kapoor puking into a holy earthen pot while Saif holds it for him, or…never mind! This pointless illustration of the horror-comedy that neither horrifies nor amuses can go on all day, and we would still not be able to do justice to the plot holes and storytelling absurdities.
When we first meet brothers Vibhu(Khan) and Chiku(Kapoor) they are seen exorcizing a ‘possessed’ woman. We soon realize Bhoot Police is the kind of ‘possessed’ horror-comedy where horror and comedy can easily exchange places, none would be any the wiser…
Not that wisdom counts for anything in a film as witless and wimpish as this. There is not one moment in Bhoot Police that can be considered even remotely inspired. Saif Ali Khan, in his career’s worst performance(yes beating even his early performances in Aashiq Awara and Aao Pyar Karen) hams his way through scenes that were probably pitched to him as funny.
They are nothing of the sort.Khan and Kapoor play off one another like the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb & Dumber positioning themselves as the dumbest. Kapoor believes in ghosts, Khan feels it’s all makebelieve. They spend all the footage arguing whether ghosts exist or not.We can promise you there are no ghosts if you promise not to make such tediously trippy films about them.
Oh, before I forget Jacqueline Fernandez and Yami Gatam play the non-believer and the believer’s girlfriends. They are hardly in the film. When they are around the two boyfriends look at them like juicy chicken legs.
Succulent moments are hard to come by in this conjob, a full-blown compendium of cockiness and creepiness where the scares are just not there. And the comedy is funny only when you are in the mood for laughter at any cost.Even two canines copulating on the road amuse some.For those of us who are a little more demanding Bhoot Police offers some hope . Things can only get better from here.