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Bhool Bhulaiyaa
Reviewer's Summary - Sheer Torture
Language: Hindi
Year: October 12, 2007 in the U.S.
Actors: Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja, Amisha Patel, Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav
Director: Priyadarshan
Producer: Bhushan Kumar
Screenplay: Neeraj Vora
Dialog: Manisha Korde
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Lyrics: Sameer
We never thought we'd say this ever - Yes, Bollywood's horror show Amisha Patel does a better job in Bhool Bhulaiyaa than Parineeta girl Vidya Balan.
Vidya Balan sleepwalks through Bhool Bhulaiyaa offering a gratuitous insult to her fans who made the mistake of watching this movie.
After Parineeta, it seems like Vidya Balan has been steadily going downhill.
None of Vidya's subsequent movies evoke the intoxicating freshness and beguiling charm that she displayed in Parineeta.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa is a rehash of the successful Malayalam movie Manichitrathazhu, which was subsequently made in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu as well.
Perhaps tired of stealing from Hollywood plots, lazy Bollywood directors and producers are now resorting to remakes of popular regional films or remakes of old Hindi hits like Sholay.
A few years back, we watched the Tamil version of Chandramukhi featuring Rajnikanth, Jyothika, Prabhu and Nayantara. Chandramukhi turned out to be one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of Tamil films.
Vidya Balan is not half as good as Jyothika was in Chandramukhi. That's scary when you consider that Jyothika herself is an actress of only limited abilities, way behind her peers like Padmapriya, Navya Nair, Meera Jasmine and Shreya Reddy.
So Bhool Bhulaiyaa was a combination of dejavu and ennui for us. Dejavu because we had seen the Tamil version, ennui because the Hindi version had nothing extraordinary - by way of acting, music, dance or photography - to hold our interest.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa hews closely to the Chandramukhi story with some minor changes.
A young NRI couple from America Siddharth (Shiney Ahuja) and Avni (Vidya Balan) move into a huge palace supposedly haunted by the ghost of a long-dead dancer.
Soon, very strange things start happening to the people living in the palace complex.
When things seem to be going completely out of control at the palace, Siddharth seeks the help of his psychiatrist friend Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar).
Before you know it, the psychiatrist is throwing around phrases like dissociated identity disorder and split personality a la Sybil.
Akshay Kumar does a decent job given the limitations of the script.
The comedy angles involving Rajpal Yadav, Paresh Rawal and Asrani are downright sophomoic and a testament to the lack of imagination among Bollywood directors and writers that they have to frequently resort to such infantile techniques in a vain effort to hold audience interest.
As for the music and Vidya Balan's dancing in the movie, it's hard to tell which is worse. Copyright SearchIndia.com.
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