Soham Rockstar Entertainment and Three Dimension Motion Pictures’ The Bhootnii (UA) is a horror drama.
The spirit of a young girl, whose love had remained unrequitted, wreaks havoc in the lives of two lovers, Shantanu (Sunny Singh) and Ananya (Palak Tiwari). It takes a Baba (Sanjay Dutt) to free the two lovers from the clutches of the spirit who had earlier claimed the lives of some other lovers too.
A college campus has a virgin tree which is considered lucky for students in search of love. But of late, strange things have started happening in the college. There have been deaths reported in the campus. It is feared that the deaths have something to do with a spirit which resides in the virgin tree. The school authorities seek the services of Baba (Sanjay Dutt) who can ward off spirits. Currently, the spirit is after Shantanu who has just been ditched by his girlfriend. In desperation and exasperation, Shantanu had asked the virgin tree to get him his love back. That is when the spirit of Karishma (Mouni Roy) is awakened. The spirit ensnares Shantanu who first believes it to be a beautiful girl. Besotted by her, Shantanu is shocked to later learn that Karishma is actually a spirit. Gradually, the spirit also goes after Ananya because she loves Shantanu and so does Shantanu love her. How Baba saves Shantanu and Ananya forms the crux of the story.
Sidhaant Sachdev has written a story which is pathetic. It is not just confusing but also often illogical. The concept of a virgin tree in a college campus itself appears weird — and that’s putting it mildly. The romantic track of Shantanu and Ananya is so half-baked that it serves to confuse rather than convince the viewers. Vankush Arora and Sidhaant Sachdev’s screenplay is terribly weak. At times, the audience get the feeling that students of the college attend love and romantic classes only, because that’s all they talk about and do. The drama, even otherwise, is so hotch-potch that one has to actually make efforts to understand the context of the proceedings. Baba’s efforts to ward off the spirit look ridiculous, to say the least. All he does is to give orders to the students to do this and that for him. All in all, the drama is so unconvincing that the viewers don’t enjoy it. A few comedy scenes do entertain, but they are few and far between. Sidhaant Sachdev’s dialogues are dull except a few comic ones which are funny.
Sanjay Dutt goes through his role of Baba quite mechanically. Mouni Roy is alright as the spirit/Karishma. Sunny Singh is fairly good as Shantanu. Palak Tiwari is so-so as Ananya. Nick is earnest as Sahil; he has a good sense of timing. Aasif Khan performs quite well as Nasir. Harsh Vardhan Singh Deo (in a brief special appearance as the boyfriend), Meherzan Mazda (as Raghuvendra), Narendra Bedi (as Prof. Kalra), Priyanka Bedi (as Prof. Mishra), Swati Seth (as Swati), Anisha Dua, Pragati Shahi, Dheeraj Pawar (all three as members of Swati’s gang), Komal Chhabaria (as the college principal), Pritam Jaiswal (as Baba’s intern), Siddharth Rai, Suraj Sonik, Prashant Sethi, Vaibhav Deshmukh, Swastik Burman (all five as Raghu’s friends), Umang Jain (as Mehak), Rahul Bajaj (as Varun), Sparsh Kotwal (as Gagan), Rishabh Rishi Kumar, Sehaj Rajput, Prerna Ghimiray, Utkarsh Baheti (all four as the University detectives), Rewati Upadhyay (as Anisha), Satyam Singh Bundela (as Siddharth), Lovedeep Sharma (as the paraphysicist), Durg Singh Thakur (as the good ghost) and the others lend routine support.
Sidhaant Sachdev’s direction is poor, much like his script. Music (Nikhil Malik, Shabbir Ahmed and Mukund Suryawanshi) is quite melodious. Lyrics (Shabbir Ahmed and Ajay Pal for Mahakaal Mahakaali; Vaishnavi Thakur for Rang laaga; Sidhaant Sachdev, Iconyk and Akshay Dhawan for Tara rara; Akshay Dhawan for Aaya re baba; Siddharth Gauba, Aditya Ojha and Raunaq Singh for Nakhre; and Sidhaant Sachdev for ‘The Bhootni swag’) are alright. Ganesh Acharya’s song picturisations are okay. Amar Mohile’s background music is fair. Santosh Thundiyil’s cinematography is nice. Computer graphics and visual effects are shoddy. Real Satish’s action and stunt scenes are ordinary. Dipankar Dasgupta and Sunayana Gopal Paradkar’s production designing and Gurmel Singh’s art direction are so-so. Bunty Nagi’s editing is loose.
On the whole, The Bhootnii is a weak fare and a childish attempt at scaring the audience.
Released on 1-5-’25 at Inox (daily 2 shows) and other cinemas of Bombay thru Zee Studios. Publicity: so-so. Opening: dull. …….Also released all over. Opening was poor everywhere.
