CAST: Katrina Kaif, Ishaan Khatter , Siddhant Chaturvedi, Jackie Shroff Sheeba Chaddha
DIRECTED BY: Gurmmeet Singh
If you are a Bollywood buff, you will laugh your heads off while watching Phone Bhoot because of so many shibboleth only to be appreciated nostalgically by those who are ardent fans of that content.
Is Phone Bhoot another Fukrey in making? It does have the potential. It is slapstick as hell, with its erudite one-liners only to be understood by those who appreciate even the tackiest of the sub-plots. And the makers promise you a sequel, so.
Is it enjoyable enough to send you into squeals of loud laughter – we loved it. And we do not make any bones about liking the art of slapstick.
Friends Major and Gullu ( short for Gallelio) love ghosts and everything spooky. So much so that they rescue a Raka inflatable from the sets of a TV show. For those who are uninitiated, Raka is the famous villain of the Chacha Chowdhary -Sabu comic series. Bald, threatening and a baddie, this character has God status in the spooky interiors of the guy’s home.
The guys live in a dungeon of a house, off their fathers who represent the North and South of India but have one thing in common, their useless sons.
There could not be better actors than Siddhant Chaturvedi as the Punjabi lassi chugging Major and a clueless, soft hearted, curly haired cutie Ishaan Khatter as the Madrasi Gullu. Their comic timing and chemistry is fire and they carry the movie
Full of Bollywood quirky references, the movie alludes to such epic moments in Bollywood history, the memorable dialogues, the song tunes, the situational quip-ins that it surprises you in its quick and dirty.
Gullu says, “ Astra hai to button toh hoga hi” alluding to the much memed Brahmastra Part One where Ranbir Kapoor’s character Shiva said,”Isha mera button hai (Isha is my button.” As Gullu touches the staff, music from Jadoo plays in the background and Jackie Shroff tops it off with his signature tune from his film Hero as he says he has been one since 1983.
Katrina Kaif plays Ragini, a ghost that has not been awarded deliverance because she was killed along with her fiancé in a road accident. She is now a “wandering” ghost who cannot keep still and must keep changing her locations till she is able to rescue the spirit of her fiancé who has been captured by a Ghost broker called Atmaram ( Jackie Shroff). She presents a business idea to the duo in return of a favor since they are a bridge between the living and the dead.
Sheeba Chaddha as Chikni Chudail who is Bengali is a riot and how we literally laughed out loud at those scenes as she makes her way from a freelancer to a corporate structure in Atmaram’s ASSouls Inc.
The Major – Gullu one liners take the cake especially when they find themselves holding a staff they dont know how to operate. Furkey make their presence felt when they create whatsapp forward memes of the Bhoot Busters. Munna from Mirzapur makes his presence felt too and the duo also get invited to an Idiots of India reality show.
Taking jabs at the Ramsey Brothers now and then. Phone Bhoot does not take itself seriously and makes no airs about it. It seems proud to be idiotic and that’s what is beautiful about it.
The film also explores diversity in the ghost world, as a Tamil ghost is exorcised by the Bhoot brothers using a photo of Rajinikanth, and the Punjabi Lady Dayaana is controlled by a peppy bhangra number and the ! Language remains a contemptuous issue in the afterlife as well, when Chikni Chudail the Bengali witch cannot pronounce moksha. There is also an Aslam as well holding up the good man’s lantern for those who could lose way to the other side.
Katrina in a movie after many years looks a bit botoxed in parts but charming never the less.
On the whole, we enjoyed the knockabout and we do recommend it for your weekly laughter fix.
