Directed by : Gurmmeet Singh

Hum ek chudail hai, hum toh work from home bhi nahi kar sakte hai na.

Ishaan Khattar, Siddhant Chaturvedi and Katrina Kaif in 'Phone Bhoot'

Spoilers ahead... 


Two losers who are also horror fanatics, Galileo Parthasarthy/Gullu (Ishaan Khattar) and Sherdil Shergill/Major (Siddhant Chaturvedi) are given ultimatum of 3 months by their parents to prove that they really are Ghostbusters. Soon they meet a real ghost Ragini (Katrina Kaif), who is willing to help them in their business and in return she asks favour of dealing with Aatmaram Shastrashakti (Jackie Shroff) having a history with him. 

This plot would make any horror lover like me really interested, despite being a comedy genre. The art direction easily catches the eyes right at the first introductory sequence of Gullu and Major, so much detailing done with the b-grade horror movie posters, a statue named Raaka who is like God for Gullu and Major, along with  'The Shining' outlook hotel hallway set in there.

There's a limit to how many film references you do even when the entire movie is a spoof. Phone Bhoot doesn't care about that, some jokes do land but most of them miss the mark. The romantic track that comes in form of Ragini's flashback is boring too. 

Out of so many weird situations, there's 4 what the hell moments - first is when Ragini drops into a Slice ad (spoof on Katrina Kaif 's ad) to seduce Gullu, then there's a Bengali chudail (strangely played by Sheeba Chaddha) who tries to run away from Gullu and Major, only to be told by Ragini that she has reached Lahore, and the song starts playing 'lahore aaya, main uthe'. There's the exorcism (or attempt at that) scene where Gullu removes the aatma from a Madrasi girl's body by mimicking Rajnikanth. And in the climax, suddenly Aatmaram plays flute to the famous track 'Tu mera hero hai'. These are just few examples of how cringy and stupid the movie is even when the actors try to make fun of their own past work. 

Two guilty pleasure laugh moments for me were when going to a person's home living near Aamir Khan's bungalow is referred to as 'intelligent honge phir toh'. And the Punjabi Daayan who easily gets her mind diverted and starts dancing when a Punjabi song is played. Raaka used as narrator for most of the film, is fun to hear both at the start of film and at the interval. Also, have to applaud the bromance of Ishaan Khattar and Siddhant Chaturvedi, so full of energy, they did try their level best in a bad movie. Very much how I felt about Vicky Kaushal in Govinda Naam Mera.

Overall, Phone Bhoot is a forgettable movie. Its so bad that there's a chance you would enjoy laughing at the movie along with your friends, maybe that's the target audience. 


My Rating : 3/10