Bhool Bhulaiyya : A Maze Half Complete

Originally posted on Passionforcinema.com

Link to that post is

http://passionforcinema.com/bhool-bhulaiyya-a-maze-half-complete/

Priyadarshan is back again with Bhool Bhulaiyya just a couple of weeks
after the extremely intolerable Dhol with his loyal friendly starcast
of Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Rajpal Yadav etc along with Shiney
Ahuja, Vidya Balan and Amisha Patel. The movie as i guess everybody
knows is a remake of Manichithrathazhu (1993) directed by
Priyadarshan's mentor Fazil. The original has already been remade in
Tamil as Chandramukhi and in Kannada as Aapthamitra. But while the
former was a psychological comedy/thriller, The latter 2 were more of
what I'd describe as star vehicles.

Badrinarayan Chaturvedi (Manoj Joshi) is the regent of a kingdom in
Banaras. When his nephew Siddharth returns from the USA with his newly
married wife Avni (Vidya Balan) and announces his decision to stay in
their ancestral palace, Badrinarayan is extremely disturbed as that
palace is supposedly haunted by the vengeful spirit of a beautiful
dancer from Bengal named Manjulika who committed suicide due to her
lover Shashidhar being murdered by the cruel king Vibhutinarayan Singh
the ancestor of Siddharth. After the married couple moves in with the
rest of the family, they are disturbed by strange occurences. Attempts
are made on the life of Siddharth and the blame comes on the shoulders
of Radha (Amisha Patel) the adopted daughter of the family. This is
when Siddharth's friend Dr Aditya (Akshay Kumar) steps in and tries to
solve this strange case.

The story here stays extremely faithful to the Malayalam version, but
unfortunately the screenplay is anything but taut which ended up
causing a lot of restlessness. Till the entry of Akshay Kumar, the
movie is actually pretty dull except for a few interesting sequences
here and there. After the interval, the movie gets funnier, but the
pace keeps slipping every now and then which is extremely frustrating.
It finally leads up to a very well captured climax, but more on that
later.

The good parts of the movie are that in some scenes Priyadarshan
manages to keep his comic touch intact. The palace has been portrayed
in a pretty eerie way and the director manages to create a little bit
of suspense among the audience, but is let down by the screenplay. But
then, even Priyadarshan has been losing his touch lately thanks to a
bunch of indifferently made movies which are a far cry from some
genuinely good movies made by him in the past like Virasat, Gardish,
Hera Pheri and Hungama.

However these are not enough to save the movie. The screenplay (I keep
stressing on this because in the other versions, the screenplay was
tighter and there was never a dull moment) especially. Then some of
the comic portions which are anything but funny and even the songs
which end up acting like speedbreakers.

Akshay Kumar enters the movie only at the interval point, but manages
to stand out. He's in pretty good form here and manages to provide a
few laughs. Shiney Ahuja however is not exactly up to the mark here in
spite of having more screentime. Vidya Balan is as reliable as ever,
but unfortunately her performance in spite of its sincerity pales in
comparison to Shobhana in the Malayalam version and the late Soundarya
in the Kannada version. Amisha Patel looks better in this movie
compared to the last few movies that she's done, but her acting is
still as bad as ever. Her emoting is anything but convincing and she
literally hams in some scenes. Paresh Rawal and Rajpal Yadav are
supposedly the comic relief of the movie, but it doesn't really work
all the time except in bits. Vikram Gokhale makes a return to the big
screen after a long time, but you wish he'd returned in a more
substantial and consequential role. The rest of the starcast provide
able support.

The music of the movie is average and there are only 2 songs that stay
with you after the movie. 1 is the much hyped title song which appears
at the end of the movie though the opening riffs keep playing
throughout. The other is the soft romantic Labon Pe which is pretty
hummable. The background score of the movie however is pretty good.
It's eerie and complements the scarier sequences perfectly.

Overall the movie is a pretty decent watch if you avoid the comparison
to its more illustrious predecessors. However you wish that
Priyadarshan had worked harder and created a more fitting tribute to
his mentor.

What's On This Week!

Well,this week looks pretty good. Since it's Eid, 2 big movies are facing off against each other. Bhool Bhulaiya by Priyadarshan and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag by Pradeep Sarkar. Will be watching Bhool Bhulaiya on Friday. So, let's hope for some entertainment this week.