How to ruin a potential cult film. Take a super hit regional film. Copy it word by word, scene by scene. Put dollops of Bollywood commercial elements in it. Completely misinterpret each and every point of the original script and just do a token service to some burning issues of the society. Pretend to make a satire but end up making a mockery of a brilliant film.
That summarizes actor-director Satish Kaushik's latest 'Gang Of Ghosts'. An official remake of Bengali hit 'Bhooter Bhabishyat' which was directed by Anik Dutta, the horror comedy features an ensemble cast, including Parambrata Chatterjee who was part of the original film as well and still falters at every step making the entire film an ordeal to watch.
The story is that of a group of ghosts battling the growing urbanization of Mumbai city and trying to save the mansion they inhabit (which the humans call a 'haunted house') from getting demolished to construct a giant mall. With a premise such wacky as this, the original film had infused humour from different eras and made a film which can be viewed repeatedly. But that's not the case with the Hindi remake. It takes the same characters, makes them stereotypically Bollywood, infuses some toilet humour which hardly makes you laugh and ends up making a caricature of all the characters.
What is more baffling is that if the makers copy from the original scene by scene, how does it end up becoming such a poor remake? Kaushik clearly misses out a lot of the humour which in the Bengali film, was region specific. When that's translated and transported to Mumbai, it is absolutely lost. It also sticks to a lot of stereotypes. The girls (Mahie Gill and new comer Meera Chopra) have to show skin, the Bengali (played by Saurabh Shukla) has to speak atrocious Hindi, there has to be a girl-boy dance routine and there has to be an item queen dancing to Punjabi rap. And all of these factors sink the film to the deepest level.
The only good scenes are between Parambrata Chattopadhyay (who reprises his role in the remake) and Sharman Joshi, who plays the narrator. But Joshi is not even close to Sabyasachi Chakraborty, who played the sublime Naxal leader and narrator in the original. Anupam Kher tries hard to salvage the situation with his acting but poor lines and lack of proper direction mars his performance on many levels.
'Gang Of Ghosts' is a typical example of how some films should remain untouched and not be remade because it loses its authentic flavour. Go watch the original film in Bengali instead- it comes with English sub titles and even those translated lines are better than the dialogues of this remake.
Ratings: 1/5
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