Hum Tum Aur Bore!

Grade: C

Hum Tum Aur Ghost

Indian Release Date: 26/03/10
CBFC Classification:  U
Running Length: 2 Hours 05 Minutes

Cast: Arshad Warsi, Dia Mirza, Boman Irani, Sandhya Mridul, Zehra Naqvi, Javed Sheikh, Shernaz Patel
Director: Kabeer Kaushik
Screenplay: Arshad Warsi, Arshad Ali Syed & Soumik Sen
Cinematography: Ashok Mehta
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy


Bollywood seems to love delusional protagonists. You can milk comedy out of them, make them sad & pitiful & best of all in the filmy world a deranged guy actually turns out on top in the end (unless he’s the villain). ‘Hum Tum Aur Ghost’ follows a path kind of similar to last month’s ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’ & gives us a protagonist who apparently has everything jolly in his life expect having a teeny-weeny problem that somehow gives him a “dirty, little secret” which people around him can’t believe; leading to extremities in his life.

Armaan (Arshad Warsi) works as a fashion photographer in London; he has a beautiful girlfriend, Gehna (Dia Mirza), drives a Porsche & lives in a huge house, in short his life was never better. He does however drink a lot & while everyone including Gehna’s disapproving father (Javed Sheikh) thinks he’s a compulsive alcoholic, the reason for his drinking lies elsewhere. While alone at home Armaan hears weird voices addressing him which results in him being unable to sleep at home & thus a night of drinking usually culminates in sleeping anywhere but in his own bed. He’s even been seeing a psychiatrist (Shernaz Patel) for assistance with this problem but she is convinced that Armaan is schizophrenic & needs serious medical care.

After only hearing indistinct voices he also starts meeting & talking to people whom only he can hear or see. When one of the people he meets, a certain Virendra Kapoor (Boman Irani) tells him that Armaan’s been actually interacting with ghosts & they have been asking him for help so they can achieve freedom (mukti) from this place once their last wishes have been fulfilled. Reluctantly Armaan agrees to help two ghosts (Irani & Zehra Naqvi) who seem to have genuine problems just in the hope that they would leave him alone. Mr. Kapoor wants to help his wife financially & save her from their “evil” son (Ashwin Mushran) while Carol (Zehra Naqvi) wants to find her young son, Daniel, whom she hasn’t seen since the day she died. However no one around him, expect for his assistant Mini (Sandhya Mridul) believe him, leading to some pretty strained relationships & misunderstandings.

Some time back I had mentioned in one of the articles that after watching the trailer for ‘Hum Tum Aur Ghost’ I found the plot to be pretty similar to the Greg Kinnear starrer ‘Ghost Town’ (2008) which it turns out has “inspired” the basic plot & a few scenes of the movie. Even though the rest of the movie is more or less original, it’s so lackluster they might well have picked up the entire plot from ‘Ghost Town’ & at least made it heartfelt.

The first half focuses on Armaan & Gehna’s love story. Things like Armaan’s alcoholism, the weird voices & perceived infidelity with Mini are played lightly to create a slow, understated buildup for something. That something which I was expecting never comes instead it moves into rather bizarre & unbelievable territory once Armaan starts helping out the two ghosts. For example what is Carol’s ghost doing in London when she died in Goa & stands a better chance of finding clues or locating her lost kid there than anywhere else. Plus tying up of the loose ends & the climax is pretty poorly done & the twist in the plot can be seen coming a mile away by anyone who isn’t sleeping in the audience (little difficult considering the pace).

The meandering narrative just doesn’t know what to focus on, nor does it understand how to utilize various plot threads to influence & complement each other convincingly. The overwhelming need to turn every other scene into a means to drain the tear ducts of the audience reeks of lazy writing. The scenes aiming to create an emotional crescendo with the overbearing sad background score had me simply yearning for an aspirin. The pacing suffers due to the lack of direction & results in an extremely sluggish movie looking to work primarily as a love story peppered with elements of mostly out-of-place humor (the humor only clicks in a few parts due to the acting) & half-hearted supernatural element with a tinge of mystery. Even though the movie is only about two hours long it feels much longer & had me looking at my watch more than a few times.

The movie has all the requisite shots of any foreign location & as usual everyone surrounding the main players is an Indian, from the assistant to the psychiatrist. I may be giving away a bit of a spoiler here but why do movies when trying to show heaven always have to show fields of flowers & people running through them towards the bright light? Is that the only wall paper they use in the tunnel leading up to heaven? Come on! Be creative for once. The less said about the songs the better, not one song interested me while watching the movie forget remembering any of them.

The acting is one of the few decent things about the movie. Arshad Warsi looks exceedingly natural early on when he’s playing it light but looks uncomfortable in the over-the-top emotional scenes (anybody would with such terrible writing). I was kind of enjoying the chemistry displayed between Arshad Warsi & Dia Mirza but Mirza disappears for a good 20 - 25 minutes or so of the movie only to be brought back in a ham-fisted part of the movie which asks her to be the concerned girlfriend role much like Deepika Padukone’s in ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’. Boman Irani has more like an extended cameo & does a competent job. Sandhya Mridul injects some much needed spark with her lively performance as Armaan’s tomboyish assistant. Ashwin Mushran shows up as yet another arrogant character & in an ode perhaps to ‘Munnabhai’ offers to throw his mother in an old age home.

The plot had a lot of potential on it’s own to evolve into something worthwhile which it throws away in need to be the perfect commercial, masala venture & fails at that too. I’d advice you to rather spend your hard earned money & enjoy a good ‘Gosht Pulav’ at Café Britannia than spend a dime on this Ghost.

Final Verdict: Nor Hum nor Tum will be happy with this Ghost.

Grade: C

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