Review: The star of Bhool Bhulaiyya is Akshay

COMIC CAPER: It’s the comedy Akshay Kumar brings to the film that proves to be its real draw.

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It's a mad, mad world out there, and particularly so in that sprawling ancestral home of Shiney Ahuja, a descendant of some yesteryear Maharaja, in this week's new release Bhool Bhulaiyya.

Shiney and his wife Vidya Balan who've been living in the US for some years, make a trip back home, and ignoring the advice of his extended family, decide to live in that palatial home that his family insists is haunted.

When strange incidents take place around the house, and evidence suggests that at least one member of the family may be suffering from psychological problems, Shiney invites his friend Akshay Kumar, a trained psychiatrist to come over and help the family face these challenges.

Essentially a remake of the Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu starring Mohanlal and Shobana, Bhool Bhulaiyya makes one slight diversion from the original script. Unlike the Malayalam film which was a Shobana-vehicle in which Mohanlal played merely a supporting role, Bhool Bhulaiyya is a one-man-show for Akshay Kumar even though he enters the plot fairly late in the day.

Fortunately that works here, because it's really the comedy Akshay Kumar brings to the film that proves to be its real draw. You might argue that wearing a pair of glasses is hardly enough to look like a psychiatrist, and I'd agree with you. You might argue that Akshay Kumar performs less like a psychiatrist and more like a mentally challenged person himself, and again I'd agree with you. But really, if you're looking for logic and reason and continuity and authenticity in a Priyadarshan film, then the joke's on you, my friend!

With a more cohesive, tighter screenplay, Bhool Bhulaiyya might have been an extremely entertaining film - after all it's got a solid plot, and unlike most of Priyadarshan's recent comedies, it's not tasteless and entirely pointless either. But because the screenplay takes forever to find its feet, the film plods along laboriously through its first half, never quite making it clear whether to treat it as a comedy or a thriller.

Take away all that puerile humour in the film's first half involving Paresh Rawal, Asrani, Rajpal Yadav and that shreiky-voiced woman, and Bhool Bhulaiyya is not so bad after all. Vidya Balan is in good form for the first time since Parineeta, especially in the film's second half, and when Shiney Ahuja isn't over-acting, he's actually quite pleasant. Even Amisha Patel doesn't ham it up like she usually does. However, the star of the film, no questions asked, is Akshay Kumar who has evolved into a bankable comic actor, he's the reason to watch this film.

So then that's two out of five and an average rating for director Priyadarshan's Bhool Bhulaiyya, it's a film that could have easily been so much more. But simply because it's different from anything else you've seen recently, give it a chance.

Rating: 2 / 5 (Average)