Vote for Bhoothnath

Bhoothnath returns

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Parth Bhalerao, Boman Irani, Sanjay Mishra

Rated: 6/10

Bhoothnath Returns could mean many things for many people but the unanimous vote for it will still go to it being a surprise package. For one, it is far removed from what you would have thought it was all about — a caper on an ageold bhooth’s antics with a child or a group of cherubic children, a little bit of darr and a lot of harmless fun in bhoothdom on Earth.

Far from it, actually. The film is a serious effort at gentle yet stinging satire on the plight of the Indian nation, its corrupt politicians and its election faultlines. The ultimate winner of this slap on the face of dirty Indian politics is not Amitabh Bachchan as much as it is the dialogue writers Nitesh Tiwari and Piyush Gupta whose pithy one-liners are punches that hit you hard. Yes, you laugh at what they say but you also marvel at the catching up they have done with the you-me-and-us situations of daily life. They are apt, razor sharp and at times poignant too and the beauty of their observations is that you don’t mind laughing at yourself.

Of course, Amitabh Bachchan is exemplary as usual, but the real winner here is neither him nor his pesty companion Parth but the way the film pans out on you. As Bhoothnath, Amitabh returns to a world much more tumultuous than his old times as bhooth when much of the action was limited to his bungalow where his NRI son had left him without company.

Now, having stepped out into the tumultuous Indian democracy and its audacious mores, visiting the Dharavi slums, the haunted buildings, the stories of other bhooths and the upright life of a young gun in the slums, he sees India in new light, ridden with such a huge mountain of corruption, murder and political criminality, that even the heaven above fails to remain untouched.

Waiting to be reborn as a human being in a one-crore plus waiting line, stuck in the babudom of reincarnation, almost paying more to be a celebrity’s pet than to be a cockroach, and getting mocked by peers at having failed to scare even one child during his stint on Earth, Bhoothnath returns to fight an election on Earth, quite obviously against an unscrupulous sitting MP played brilliantly by Boman Irani who, incidentally is part of the good script which this film floats on.

All in all, Bhoothnath Returns is the most impactful campaign that the Election Commission could have launched for making India vote in droves, and vote correctly. It seems the rulebook of Indian elections was studied hard before unfolding BR and that contributes delightfully in the correctness of situations.

The humour is wry yet very stinging, the characters well fleshed out — right from the little Parth to Sanjay Mishra who plays an out-of-work lawyer to Boman Irani to all other two-bit roles without which the film would not have been such a package. And that includes Anurag Kashyap who does a cameo as a song writer. Yes, indeed, party toh banti hai for this one in which Big B seems to be enjoying his role as the grand-dad of Indian cinema. 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 13 April, 2014