Bhoot Police review: Saif Ali Khan, Yami Gautam Dhar wasted in this ho-hum ghostbusting adventure

If one's 'To-Do List' for the weekend features watching Pawan Kripalani's 'Bhoot Police', then we are going to be flat-out straight with you: take a detour! It's not the actors so much who fumble and falter here but the fiasco's committed by Kripalani himself: the director's clearly inspired by 'Stree', perhaps a bit too much for his viewers' liking.

Living the BoHo life in an RV, brothers Chiraunji (Arjun Kapoor) and Vibhooti (Saif Ali Khan) are often at loggerheads over their extreme approaches towards their profession--Chiru wants to tread on his father's footsteps of being a tantric (ghostbuster), while Vibhu is a charming little b**tard (his words, not ours). Nonetheless, these ghostbusting brothers are tight. Yes, Vibhu's shrewd money-making tactics do not align with Chiru's but he caves, mostly. So when the tea estate owner from Dharamshala--an old client of their father's, Ullat Baba--Maya (Yami Gautam Dhar) seeks them out, their inclination was to 'help'. The adventure that ensues sets the tone and foundation of 'Bhoot Police'.

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The first question that pops up right off the bat is what's with this script, really? Is it good versus evil? Clashing ideologies and the subsequent change of heart? Is it the age-old debate over the celestial universe and evil energies co-existing? Kripalani, and a few others behind the scribbling department, have cooked up a narrative that is a mish-mash of 'Stree', 'Roohi', with glimpses of Kripalani's own finer works from the past: like 'Darr @ The Mall' and 'Ragini MMS'.

Artists Babu Tyagi, Sandeep Kamal, Ketan Kale and Gaurav Bhira have--by Indian horror movie standards--erected massive CGI and visual-effectwork on display. After all, despite the feeble screenplay, the jumpscares and other horror-thriller elements don't drag the film further down. That's a win for the team!

Saif Ali Khan takes to boyish charm and flamboyance like fish takes to water ('Hum Tum', 'Go Goa Gone')--effortless and his strongest artistic suit discovered till date. As morally corrupt yet personable Vibhooti, Saif is, quite frankly, the USP of 'Bhoot Police'. He is the anchor that pulls Arjun Kapoor's twogoody shoes Chiru to the shore.

Yami Gautam Dhar's choice to venture into horror is a bold move, especially with the notoriety that follows Indian horror movies, and she lands just fine. With her restrained performance as a debt-ridden trust-fund kid, Yami is impressive. Jacqueline Fernandez, on the other hand, bags the role of a bimbette drowning in her shopping and Instagram woes. Why would she say 'yes' to a character that neither contributes to the progression of the plot nor does it give her anything solid to work with? Well, that's a mystery for you all to solve.

Sure, it is no crime to extract chunks from your repertoire out and refurbish them or even seek inspiration from the works of your contemporaries--some of the one-liners were actually chuck-able--but it is criminal when originality is compromised for the sake of relevance.

'Bhoot Police' could have given Indians their own Ed and Lorraine to obsess over. But, alas, that was not meant to be!

'Bhoot Police' is now streaming on Disney + Hotstar.