Bhoothnath Returns Review

One Line Review: Dead man befriends slum kid, helps him and finally makes up his mind to contest elections to fix up all the mess around.

Positive Points: Fresh story; good performance by new entrant child protagonist.

Negative Points: Turns a bit absurd sometimes; not much impressive and entertaining.

Plot: Bhoothnath (Amitabh Bachchan), who is now in the heaven, is embarrassed by the office of spirits in heaven as he has failed to scare the kid earlier. Humiliated, now he requests them to be sent back to the mortal world so that he can make up for his loss. However, he fails again this time when he attempts to scare people.

Now, Akhrot (Parth Bhalerao) is an aggressively tough slum kid who doesn't bog down to situation. He is the only one, who can see Bhoothnath. Soon Bhoothnath is helped by Parth to help him scare kids and in return he too is helped by him to make friends with the kids with upper class kids who play cricket in their area. He also introduces him to his mother (Usha Jadhav), who is scared and reluctant in the beginning.

When Parth tells Bhoothnath that he cannot steal to make a living and wants to earn money with honesty and hard work, Bhoothnath presents an idea that helps him earn money in a fun way. However, when he is called by Bhau (Boman Irani) a local gangster turned politician to remove ghosts from a building under construction, he faces a moral dilemma.

Now, Bhoothnath and Parth team up to fight against Bhau in the elections so that they can fix the mess in Dharavi and change things for good. In their quest they are helped by a lawyer (Sanjay Mishra), who guides them through the registration process.

So now, we have a dead man contesting elections to challenge an arrogant gangster.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: As usual, the film is just an ordinary entertainment flick from Bollywood. Direction does well with an aim to keep the audiences engaged, especially kids.

Performances: Amitabh Bachchan throws in a little more charm in his new 'bhoot' personality in the second part. As compared to the last time, Big B tries to get into the role of ghost who is more aware and friendly with his 'friend'.

Parth Bhalerao who makes a debut, impressively portrays an arrogant, brash and fearless slum kid, who is not bothered by the conditions around him. The kid certainly deserves to be applauded.

Boman Irani gets the aggression and frustration of a gangster and his signature comic streak packed in a way that you really do enjoy watching him on screen.

Music: 'Party Toh Banti Hai' and 'Har Har Gange' are fun and funky, while on the other side 'Sahib' is an emotional song about poverty, riots and issues. Sung by Rituraj and composed by Ram Sampath, this song can easily touch anyone emotionally.

Final verdict: 'Bhoothnath Returns' is certainly a good comeback since it doesn't really bother with the old story. The story is fresh, the faces are new all build up on a previous concept. The performances are also good. However, the film does fall short on certain entertainment parameters and one feels that could have been better. One thing is for sure that the kids will surely love it!