Picture this, you are new to Mumbai, you are a sci-fi fanatic, and this is your first movie..what would you start out with...Bhoot? Hmm, all teh above are true for me. Now lets get on to the particulars....
First day, second show at 8:20pm at Fame Adlabs in Andheri...arrived there after a rollicking ride on the metro followed by a cab to the multiplex. Seemed BIG, and I did rue the fact that the tickets were for Bhoot and not for X-Men2(famke janssen is hot, but that can wait for some other time). Prior to teh movie screening, got a see some telly starlets, ad models...Time for the movie, get into the queue, buy yourself a generous bottle of Pepsi(no Sum Thups! available where I looked, so sorry), and settle into the seat. Ads. Trailers. Then the first bolt from the blue is having to stand to attention to teh national anthem....a feature I had’nt been exposed to earlier in my life at a movie screening.
The movie starts....panning camera, weird sounds, up above the traffic, zooming out, then zooming in to waist level for an ’’interesting angle’’. Movie starts in earnest.
I should’nt really be giving away the story, but I will say that the first part is slow, even boring. Couple(Ajay Devgan) looking for a flat, setting on one, shifting in with his ship-shape wife(yeah, hamari Urmila)...cootchey cooey scenes and Urmila’s black bathrobe...
Then she has these sightings, perceptions of the ghost of the former occupant of the flat, who apparently committed suicice. Of course, going by past Hindi movie experience, you can assume that said ’’suicidal female’’ was killed and her soul is thirsting for revenge. Well, Urmila sleepwalks, is treated by Mr Victor Banerjee, who happens to be a psychatrist here, moving away from his ’’Passage to India’’ dalliances.
But modern science is not enough, and educated ’’finance specialist’’ Devgan(well, he did have some company law books in the background in his office and was using a laptop when he had a perfectly decent workstation at his office, with a monitor that was too far away to see anything) decides to take the help of Tantrik Rekha, on teh advice of their maid, played by Seema Biswas. Urmila is by now in the Exorcist mode, and Rekha apparently takes on the Gabriel Byrne type of role to ward off the dead.
Nana Patekar is introduced via a murder...and he turns on the heat on the weird goings on at the society building. Nice twist in the end, bringing in Tanuja(kajol’s mom) and Fardeen khan, and a little boy and a rag doll to clear up teh mystery of the murder and the Bhoot that was Exorcising Urmila.
Now, till the intermission, I was shifty, very very shifty. And the person sitting ahead of be tinkering with a Sharp Zaurus did not help much, as I was looking right at it. The story was just so predictable you could take a walk and still not miss much. After the ’mission, it was another story, atleast it was decent and I did watch it interestedly till the end. Movie end time 10:30pm.
Now that’s a good movie, 2 hrs in length and not a song to break from the tension. Of course the sound effects are very good - some dry humour and above average acting by Devgan, Urmila, Seema Biswas, in fact everyone makes this a good movie to spend an evening with....Best seen in a theatre on the wide screen and good sound system. Urmila shows her sinews and she has nice symmetric veins/arteries running along either side of her neck. Nice hairdo.
What else can I say - it was a good movie. Time well spent. Even better times followed...Amrita Arora(otherwise famous as Malaika’s sis, and VJ)was sitting directly behind me. Cute. And Mayuri Kango coming in to watch the next show, though she’s plumpier from the Mammo days. I guess I saw a few other ’’celebrities’’ and ’’star/lets’’, though was unable to place them. They are all ordinary people after all, with as much right to their privacy as I would want for myself, and they too enjoy a good movie with friends.
Adios.