Hum Tum Aur Ghost Review

Story: Fashion photographer Armaan has too many problems at hand. There's a high maintenance girlfriend, Gehna who is the editor of the fashion magazine he works for and a plethora of ghosts who want him to fulfil their wishes, since only he can see and communicate with them. Things get even more complicated when Gehna begins to hate the other worldy intrusions and actually doubts her boyfriend's mental health....

Movie Review: Arshad Warsi's debut film as writer and producer has a problem at the onset. It fails to define itself. Is it a comedy, a love story or a supernatural drama? Does it have a point to make, other than entertain?

The first question raises its head because the plot and the tenor of the film ramble too much. Rarely funny, mostly sentimental, the film seems to waste away its comic potential for some drama that doesn't quite engage. While the encounters with the ghosts, headed by Boman Irani, begin in a lighter vein, they suddenly seem to enter touch-feely territory, with Arshad Warsi, the guy who can see dead people, shedding copious tears while bringing together sons and fathers, sons and mothers, husbands and wives. Case in point: Suddenly, out of the blue, you have a little boy ghost running across crowded streets, urging Arshad to save his dying daddy. Hello! Where did he come from; what's his story? They do tell you, but it's too abrupt and makes you wonder why Arshad is weeping his way through a sequence that barely touches you. Again, the mother ghost hunting for her four-year-old son is too soppy and too predictable. The only ghost-ghost ka dost sequence that actually works is the Boman-Arshad track, wherein a dead Boman wants Arshad to set things right for his ill-treated wife (Asavari Joshi). But unfortunately, that's short-lived.

Which brings us to the second question about the relevance of the film. Now that's an important query, because director Kabeer Kaushik and Arshad Warsi have another film to their credit: Seher. A hard-hitting cop story, Seher still lingers in memory as amongst Arshad's best acts, apart from being a no-nonsense expose of the rail mafia in UP. We wouldn't ask this question if Hum Tum aur Ghost worked as a pure comedy or maybe as the other `I see dead people film' (read a supernatural thriller like The Sixth Sense). It doesn't, and all we are left with are a few sequences of fun, followed by long-drawn drama.

When it comes to performances, it's the Arshad-Boman chemistry that crackles and invests the film with sparkle and wit. Dia Mirza too has her moments as the feisty girlfriend while Sandhya Mridul ends up mostly wasted as a sidekick. What's even more disappointing is Shankar-Ehsan-Loy's audio track which fails to throw up a single hummable tune.