Customer Reviews

Bhoothnath

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4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We felt this movie was a nice little charmer. We didn't find it was like a weak horror film' as another reviewer experienced it (in fact there isn't any horror just a few symbolic scares initially to show the ghosts usual intentions).
Amitabh does a nice job with the ghost and relates to the kid well. SRK and Juhi Chalwa stay solid in the background as it really story about the ghost and the boy- and the few other characters aren't as central. It is for those who enjoy the sentimental and good-hearted movie and about ghosts finding their salvation!
There are some OK songs and dance. Amitabh adds a few hiphop moves to his usual limited dance moves but does it with charm. Large groups of kids get their chance to strut their stuff too.
Western children would probably enjoy it but probably wouldn't be bothered reading subtitles or couldn't manage them. So it is for those young at heart (in our case the viewers were in late 20s and 50s!)
It's a nice little movie and even a few tears welled at some of the more moving (though sentimental) scenes.
I gather it didn't do well at the box office yet carries a 'to be continued..' at the end. Well if they did make a sequel we'd seek it out.
Not for the skeptics or realists but for others a quiet charmer of good heart.

When i went to the movie, i was expecting it to be a kiddish movie, and since it is coming from Bollywood, i thought the presentation and the special effects would be amateurish.. But i must say, i was really surprised by the movie narration and direction. The special effects were fantastic, of the standards i have seen in Hollywood movies (seriously i am not kidding on this...), particularly the introduction scene where Amitabh tries to frighten the kid. Also the part with the dry leaves have also been handled very deftly both from the technology point of view and from the story narration point of view. On the whole without realizing i enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I am taking out the 1 point, if only the ending could have been more crispier... Check out for its sequel ..!!!. Go for it .. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

I found this to be a very interesting - and entertaining - movie. First, it takes place in Goa. We have some friends from Goa, and were very surprised to learn from them of its Christian heritage. Legend says that St. Thomas traveled to India and converted some people to Christianity; historically, it was the Portuguese who ruled Goa for 450 or so years who brought Christianity (often by repressive means). So, it is not surprising that the bumbling 'burglar wears a crucifix, nor that little Banku goes to St. Francis school. [In Malaysia we once met a family where the mother was Confucian, the father was Hindu, and the children went to a Christian school.] It seems that the family is actually Hindu, but that Banku goes to a Catholic school.

In spite of the differences in religion, there are many universal good lessons that are brought out, and should be good for children to see. One, when Banku wants the 'angel' to help him win a race, he is taught that there are no shortcuts - it takes hard work if you want to be a winner. The over-riding lesson is one of the need for forgiveness. The 'reason' the 'ghost' has not been able to go on to the next world is because neither he nor his son would forgive each other for past rifts. This lesson is brought about in a very entertaining way. There are many scenes where both my wife and I laughed out loud; there is a bit of slap-stick, but mostly it is more akin to British dry humor.

Bollywood movies are getting closer in quality to Hollywood movies, but it still has a way to go. In some areas I felt as if I was watching a musical from the late 1950's. There is nothing that would be objectionable to traditional values families; especially if one can understand that Hindus believe in a different way to salvation from Christian beliefs.

This is quite a long movie - 2 hours, 16 minutes - but it doesn't drag. We took longer than that to watch it, however, because many of the subtitles were on the screen so short that we could not finish reading them. Also interesting is that the characters switch back and forth between their language and English without seeming to be away of it. A sentence may start out in their language and finish in English!

I think I'll show this to my preschool grandsons and see if they can follow it even though they don't understand the language. Over all, it is a very enjoyable family movie, ones North Americans immigrated from India should seek out to show their children.

BHOOTHNATH is a kid's movie which kids will enjoy, but only up to a certain point. It's more or less in the mold of better films like Blackbeard's Ghost and THE CANTERVILLE GHOST (the 1944 version, with Charles Laughton). BHOOTHNATH tells of a family who leases the spacious Nath Villa in Goa for a year, not realizing that the mansion is haunted. There's a plucky little boy named Banku in this family, who ends up befriending the initially hostile and mangy ghost (or "bhooth") of Nath Villa.

There are some likable moments, mostly centering on the friendship between Banku and the bhooth. The special effects are decent and help to produce some smiles as the bhooth pulls his shenanigans on the unwary (two of his victims are a pathetic vagrant and the lunchbox-pilfering school principal). A playful (but somehow still dignified) Amitabh Bachchan plays the ghost and his presence is what makes this flick even a bit tolerable.

Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chawla team up yet again, but this time their onscreen romance is very much on the backburner. They play the parents, and Juhi Chawla does fine as the caring mother who dislikes cooking (she tends to stick to sandwiches). However, Shahrukh isn't enough on screen to have an impact. That's too bad.

BHOOTHNATH falls prey to what ails the more inferior horror films (and, in its early scenes, BHOOTHNATH plays like a weak horror film). Too many false alarms. Overdoes the jangling score. Not enough payoffs. But what really bogs down the movie are the latter stages, as the story turns into a maudlin and so unnecessary melodrama. I guess we had to get the lowdown on the ghost's past and how he died. But, really, that was one of the more brutally dull extended flashbacks I've ever had to sit thru. The ghost's restlessness, it turns out, is closely linked to the unattentiveness of his callous son, when the ghost was still alive. Having nodded off twice during this whole sequence, I can't believe I actually picked up on even that much.

Fittingly, this ghost story earns a boo.