The Bhootnii Review: Sanjay Dutt, Mouni Roy, Palak Tiwari-led horror-comedy is yet another formulaic film that falls flat on its face

Shantanu (Sunny Singh) is a heartbroken college student who is desperately seeking "Sacchhi Mohabbat" in his life. On Valentine's Day, when he cries and attempts su**ide in front of a "Virgin tree", a magical tree that is believed to bless people with true love, his life takes an eerie turn. 

Meanwhile, another college student tries to k**l himself and it's linked to a ghostly presence. The suspicion grows stronger because similar incidents have happened in the college in the past, too. This is when the college management seeks the help of a paranormal expert, Baba (Sanjay Dutt), who turns out to be one of the ex-students of the college.

Will Baba be able to solve the mystery?

What works in favor of The Bhootnii?

Horror-comedy is one of the most popular genres in Bollywood. Add some cleverly written meta references in the film; it's bound to entertain the audience. But is that enough? Let's move on to the next part of the review to discuss that.

What doesn't work for The Bhootnii?

The film tries hard to entertain the audience, but on the contrary, it just keeps on making them feel more disinterested with every passing scene. If the story isn't bad enough, the screenplay is all over the place. It seems the writers, Sidhaant Sachdev and Vankush Arora, wanted to focus on only meta references, so they rushed on to finish the screenplay writing process, and the result was nothing but a mesh of loosely connected half-baked scenes.

While the first half fails to offer a single entertaining enough scene, the second half gets slightly better. However, that doesn't make the overall impact of the film any better. BGM is funny, and it feels like it was picked straight from some random Instagram reel. Some of the dialogues with meta references are well written, but since the overall film is dull, they fail to make you laugh. Music only adds to the weaknesses of the film.

Watch The Bhootnii Trailer

Performances & Direction

Sanjay Dutt lends a routine performance and offers nothing exciting. Sunny Singh is okay, and so is the rest of the cast, including Palak Tiwari, Mouni Roy, and newcomer Nick (popularly known as Beyounick on social media). Aasif Khan is an actor with high potential, but it remains untapped.

As a director, Sidhaant Sachdev hasn't done justice to the horror-comedy genre. The sole focus is on gags and visual effects, and the film doesn't even excel in those departments. As you exit the cinema hall after finishing the film, you can't help but think about all the things that could've been better.

Final Verdict of The Bhootnii 

The Bhootnii is yet another example of filmmaking not being formulaic. Just because horror comedies have worked at the box office, it doesn't mean anything can be served to the audience.

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