With an increasing popularity for the subgenre of the horror-comedy genre in Bollywood, the audience has lately been presented by numerous tries by the creators. The newest presentation is by Gurmmeet Singh’s “Phone Bhoot” based on the ghost catchers, Major (Siddhant Chaturvedi) & Galileo aka Gullu (Ishaan Khatter) who can see dead people. This duo is a fan of everything horror and tries to plan parties around the theme to earn money. With little to no success with their ideas, they end up getting an electric shock instead which enables them to see ghosts. It is then that they meet Ragini (Katrina Kaif) who is indeed a very smart ghost.
The idea of horror comedy is to combine the two genres – horror and comedy so that the audience can have a good form of adrenaline rush due to the constant shift of feelings from fear to laughter and back to fear. The film though, is neither frightening and nor funny. It is a waste of production money on a bunch of memes brought to life in order to make the audience laugh; but were the writers and creators assuming their audience to be so shallow that the stupidest references could make them laugh?
“Phone Bhoot” is a major disappointment on most fronts. The cinematography is so bad that most of the scenes are moving too fast and not upto the mark that it is unbelievable that a professional director directed this film. There is no sense of direction for the screenplay, the sets look fake even in the final edit. The only things on point are Katrina’s hair and makeup and Ishaan Khatter’s well oiled abs. The bromance is barely apt to the writing. There is no emotion whatsoever and the worst are the songs. They may have made a good impression during promotions but are out of place and annoying in the film.
There is a literal witch who cannot stop herself from dancing on bhangra and therefore doesn’t catch this trio. Their illogical comedies are mostly based on some meaningful backstory. Phone Bhoot does not even work on that well. The climax was the most underwhelming aspect of the film. Jackie Shroff is the antagonist, Aatmaram. Even he doesn’t deliver funnily. The actors did well but that didn’t help the script enough. They just seemed to be doing their own thing to a limit that Katrina in some scenes to show her lack of interest in the two boys and their shenanigans is seen standing in another room doing nothing and all of it made no sense.
“Phone Bhoot” is not as great as anticipated. You would laugh more in an average comedian’s comic set.
