Bhoot The Haunted Ship movie review: Bhoot is focused on only the small ship to fry.
Bhoot The Haunted Ship movie cast: Vicky Kaushal, Bhumi Pednekar, Ashutosh Rana
Bhoot The Haunted Ship movie director: Bhanu Pratap Singh
Bhoot The Haunted Ship movie rating: 1.5 stars
Vicky Kaushal’s Prithvi is clearly a haunted man. A shipping officer who lost his wife and daughter to a mishap while doing the rapids, an adventure they took at his initiative — that kind of tragedy is hard on the soul, mind etc etc.
However, Bhoot: The Haunted Ship, is far from done with him. Under Prithvi’s watch rolls in, against the perpetually grey and clearly fake skyline of Mumbai, a giant ship with no one aboard.
But for the Director General, Shipping, though, no one is intrigued. Even when people who venture into it, start disappearing. That leaves the field wide open for Prithvi to wade in, with loyal-to-death friend Riyaz by his side. There is a nudge, nudge wink, wink between the two friends over “the hand of the neighbouring country” in it.
However, Bhoot, starting with that name which Karan Johar has dutifully thanked Ram Gopal Varma for, is focused on only the small ship to fry. So, don’t go imagining devil on the deep blue sea. This ship is firmly on terra firma, and given that it is little more than a rotting hull, must have cost Dharma Productions little to recreate on set.
Within its murky labyrinth, with no sense of any direction from writer-director Bhanu Pratap Singh, the film doesn’t seem to end. There is a ghost, a love story, a hate story, a smuggling ring, a church, a red dress, a doll, and a lot of clicking of fingers. Pednekar and Rana are there to add brief acting heft, and to do some mantra-reciting ghost-fighting. A large part, however, is left to the able and much-taxed shoulders of Kaushal.
The ghost takes its while dying, leaving a glaring and bloody opening for a sequel. (Dharma, dipping its toes into horror, has promised a horror franchise, which is fertile territory given the dearth in Bollywood.)
Prithvi, who has rescued some girls from being smuggled in a container even as we are still settling into our seats, is asked by Riyaz if he is a Superman, Spider-man or Batman. Singh’s inspirations clearly lie elsewhere (think Shining, multiple times over, for one). Plus, were any of those superheroes equipped with a machine that started beeping crazily in the presence of ghosts?