Major (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Gullu (Ishaan Khattar) are major horror buffs who’ve grown up on a daily dose of Ramsay Brothers films, as well as Hollywood fare. In a bid to unite their passion with entrepreneurship, they start several businesses with horror as the theme but unfortunately for them, everything bombs. They meet an actual ghost Ragini (Katrina Kaif) at a ghost-themed party hosted by them. She points out that since they can see ghosts, they should start an exorcism business. She joins up with them and they end up providing moksha to several trapped souls. Their success is noticed by sorcerer Atmaram (Jackie Shroff) who uses the trapped souls for his own evil purposes. How the two slackers and their friendly ghost defeat Atmaram forms the crux of the film.
Phone Bhoot is perhaps the silliest horror comedy you’ll ever see. There’s a dance off between ghosts in the film, a Bengali chudail who is tired of freelance work and needs a corporate job, a Punjabi daayan who loves to dance, another ghost who likes shayari and so on. It’s both self-referential and self-aware. A couple of cleverly placed product placements will surely make you smile. Perhaps the most tongue-in-cheek moment happens when Katrina Kaif’s character asks Sheeba Chadha, “Aapki Hindi kamjor hai kya,” (Do you not know Hindi well). It’s campy, irreverent and doesn’t take itself seriously. There’s even a scene which has Jackie Shroff sending himself up, proclaiming he’s the original hero since 1983 and playing the Hero signature tune on a flute.
The problem is that it’s not very well put together and the material is all over the place. There’s a lack of coherence in the film which mars its overall effect. We understand it was made during the pandemic and hence must have suffered because of it. Still, a better attention to detail, to screenplay and editing, would have turned it into a far superior product than it currently is.
The cast have taken to the silliness like ducks to water. Siddhant Chaturvedi and Ishaan Khattar have a bromance going and play off each other’s strengths. Their reaction shots to each other and to Katrina Kaif are spot on. They are goofy, playful, and bring out their inner Jim Carrey making faces. You can see they’re having a lot of fun essaying their roles. The same is the case with Katrina Kaif, who one can fathom is having a whale of a time playing a helpful ghost. She has always displayed good comic timing and is in her element here as well. Jackie Shroff as a megalomaniac tantrik too makes his presence felt.
As said earlier, all the elements of the film don’t hang together well. Watch the film if you like silly comedies.