Bhoot Police

At one point in Bhoot Police, a character, addressing a crowd, advises them not to believe in the two tantric babas who have been hired to drive away the local chudail. They have only been hired because their father was a famous tantric. She says: Nepotism ne yeh poora desh barbad kar diya hai. And on cue, Saif Ali Khan and Arjun Kapoor, playing the ghostbusters Vibhooti and Chiraunji, give each other a look.

More funny than it is scary, Bhoot Police is undone by poor casting and an acute deficiency of Pankaj Tripathi. Starring Saif Ali Khan and Arjun Kapoor as sibling ghost-busters, Bhoot Police is the latest in Bollywood's ongoing flirtation with the horror-comedy genre. While it isn't as eye-winkingly sharp as Saif's Go Goa Gone, Bhoot Police is still a mildly amusing movie with moments of surprising emotional depth.

Making a horror comedy is surely not an easy task; you need to make the audience laugh and scare them at the same time. Director Pawan Kriplani, who has made a career in the horror genre (Ragini MMS, Darr @ The Mall and Phobia) tries his hand at something different. Bhoot Police tackles the subject of whether ghosts exist or is it just the superstition and 'andhvishwas' of people. The film fairly succeeds in doing so but succumbs to the limitations of a horror comedy.

BHOOT POLICE is the story of two tantriks who discover themselves when trying to ward off an evil spirit. Vibhooti (Saif Ali Khan) and Chiraunji (Arjun Kapoor) are brothers who pretend to be ghostbusters. They are the sons of the famed Ullat Baba (Saurabh Sachdeva) who died when Chiraunji was just 5 years old. Vibhooti doesn't believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits.

The film talks about two brothers, Vibhooti and Chiraunji who are tantric, the business of these two is to endure with ghosts and exorcise them. The film continues with its spooked and comic-filled journey, whereas the two enter a mad horror jungle, which has the existence of an evil called 'WitchKandi'. As the plot enters the jungle the real fun-ride of horror and humor begins.

Legacy makes the back stoop and the shoulders ache. Nobody knows this better than the heroes of Pavan Kirpalani's Bhoot Police. Vibhooti (Saif Ali Khan) and Chiraunji (Arjun Kapoor) are ghostbusting brothers whose father was celebrated for smoking out spirits and banishing them to the afterworld where they belonged.

Even Vibhuti and Chiraunji, the characters played by Saif Ali Khan and Arjun Kapoor respectively, have a similar dynamic as Jai and Veeru. Two inseparable orphans; the former an energetic, incorrigible womaniser; the latter a little more sorted and focused on the job at hand. (In Bhoot Police, they also happen to be brothers.)

The tea estate is owned by the sisters Maya (Yami Gautam) and Kanu (Jacqueline Fernandez). Vibhooti's career goals comprise women (any type is my type, he says) and money. The younger brother wishes to take the legacy of his revered late father (Ullat baba) forward by doing the good work. Can the two help the wealthy-turned-bankrupt sisters, from the aatma that hunts at night?

Vibhooti and Chiraunji have to be amongst the most original names to grace a bhoot-pret-bhatki-hui-aatma (ghosts, lost souls) Bollywood outing. The moment you hear them, you crack a smile. And that smile stays in place for quite a while in this supernatural-horror comedy featuring a couple of crack ghost-busters, till it runs out of steam.

Horror is a genre that Bollywood has not had quite a success with so far. In the recent past, several filmmakers have experimented with the horror-comedy genre as well and only a few films have been able to hit the right spot. Amongst them, Stree, was perhaps, the most memorable outing with a sharp feminist comment on the age-old fear of audacious and desirous women. Bhoot Police comes from a director who has experimented with the horror genre in his previous films (Ragini MMS, Darr @ The Mall and Phobia).