Phone Bhoot movie review: Sputtering horror comedy, survives on its charismatic cast

Cast: Katrina Kaif, Ishaan Khatter, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Jackie Shroff, Sheeba Chadha

Director: Gurmmeet Singh

Language: Hindi

If there’s a human being out there who can convince Hindi filmdom that there is more to Tamil Nadu than the Rajinikanth craze, please, I beg you, step up.

In the recent Doctor G starring Ayushmann Khurrana, a Tamilian doctor made such a forced reference to Rajini, that the actor playing the part looked almost embarrassed while delivering her line. We’ve had less than a month to recover from that awkward moment, when along comes this week’s Phone Bhoot, in which a Tamilian ghost is distracted by the sight of a photo of the megastar being waved before her.

Who needs sleeping pills when jokes can be repeated ad nauseam instead?

This is not the only soporific element in director Gurmmeet Singh’s Phone Bhoot, written by Ravi Shankaran and Jasvinder Singh Bath. What starts out as a frothy horror comedy gradually peters out, ultimately surviving almost entirely on the strength of its lead cast’s charisma.

Ishaan Khatter and Siddhant Chaturvedi play close pals Gullu and Major who are fascinated by the paranormal and have the power to see spirits. Gullu is actually Galileo Parthasarthy, while Major is Sherdil Shergil. Their goal is to rest their careers on their knowledge of the supernatural. Both men are huge disappointments to their fathers. Enter: the gorgeous spectre Ragini (Katrina Kaif), with a business proposal, hidden motivations and a sad past.

Anentrepreneurial spook and a Tamilian named Galileo from a state known for its Lenins, Stalins and Kennedys – there’s a good starting point for a laughathon. The writers and director are fortunate to have available to them two rising stars who are clearly born to do comedy and Katrina looking more comfortable with the genre than you might expect from her filmography.Watch Ishaan’s Gullu critiquing an Urdu-spouting, poetic, romantic apparition, and soundinghilariouswhile doing so, not just once, but a second time too after a considerable lapse of time, and you will know why I say he is naturally gifted. So is Siddhant. Despite having so much to build on, however, Messrs Gurmmeet, Ravi and Jasvinder keep slackening their hold on the reins, frittering away their early gains with a lagging pace, dated humour, clichés and a surfeit of self-referential passages.

Seriously, what will it take to get Hindi film writers to realise that rhyming words are not funny per se? Lines about a “dude” who drinks “doodh” (milk) and others of that ilk are as old as the hills and as passé as Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan’s slapstick comedies. Getting Katrina to resurrect her seductive act in an advertisement for a mango drink makes for a just-about-tolerable gag, and the bow to Fukrey passes muster only because it flows with the narrative. But the long-drawn-out tribute to one of Jackie Shroff’s biggest hits, Hero, is embarrassing because it shows that the writers of Phone Bhoot are completely out of touch with the harsh truth that some of Hindi cinema’s most humongous blockbusters from the 1980s were of remarkably ordinary quality and the mere fact that they were hits back then does not at all mean that they are now remembered as classics (or remembered at all).

For the record, Jackie plays Phone Bhoot’s villainous baba. Yes he does, and he is stiff as heck in the part.

Sheeba Chadha, who is initially entertaining playing a ghost that Gullu and Major mistake for a real person, can only do so much with her role when the writing runs out of imagination and steam.

The song and dance numbers in Phone Bhoot slow it down further and seem to have been inserted into the film purely for the opportunity to glam up Katrina, which is such a mindless approach to mining her presence since she has grown into a skilled dancer over the years and her two male co-stars too have some pretty good moves going for them. In fact, even as Phone Bhoot rises and falls, picks itself up, launches an effective wisecrack here and therebefore spluttering and choking again, the only thing that keeps it going is the chemistry between Katrina, Ishaan and Siddhant as they go about their jobs as ghost-busters.

A ghost who doubles up as a ghost-buster… Ha. Like this summary of Katrina’s character though, Phone Bhoot as a whole is more interesting as an idea than it is in its execution. The trio of leads, the production design, make-up and VFX teams appear to have poured their heart and soul into the film, but all the acting enthusiasm, atmospherics and prosthetics in the world cannot save it from the chaotic screenplay, over-crowded with pop culture mentions and formulae that are trying too hard to be amusing.

We know from Amar Kaushik’s utterly lovely, thoughtful, rip-roaring Stree (2018) – written by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK – that horror and comedy are not mutually exclusive. But Phone Bhoot does not have Stree’s zip or its intelligence. If it weren’t for the zeal and charm of its cast, this film would have been a non-starter.

Rating: 1.5 (out of 5 stars) 

Phone Bhoot is in theatres

 Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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