Gang Of Ghosts (2014)

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A remake of Bengali film Bhooter Bhabishyat, 'Gang of Ghosts' is an average fare, at best. A wonderful concept, that isn't utilized to the fullest!'Gang of Ghosts' tells the story about a group of ghosts who have lost their shelter due to urbanization. The story starts with a struggling wannabe director who somehow crosses paths with a stranger. The stranger starts to narrate a story to him about a group of ghosts that stay together. The story that the stranger narrates shows the communal, social, linguistic & historical differences among the ghosts, as they belong to different eras. But, very soon these ghosts face an issue protecting their haunt from the hands of demolition.'Gang of Ghosts' offers a terrific concept, but The Writing Material isn't power-packed. To give its due, the first-hour is fairly engaging & some moments are truly funny. But, the second-hour is weak. Also, The humor is clearly missing in this hour. Satish Kaushik's Direction is passable. Cinematography, Editing & Art Design, are standard.Performance-Wise: Sharman Joshi, as always, delivers a sincere performance. Mahie Gill is strictly okay. Anupam Kher & Saurabh Shukla are superb. Parambrata Chatterjee is effectual enough. Jackie Shroff entertains in a cameo. On the whole, 'Gang of Ghosts' holds limited appeal.

Hindi remakes of our regional cinema have always been there since decades and the idea has mostly worked whenever incorporated with some apt additions and much needed changes as per the Hindi speaking audience. Hence, before going into this particular direction, it is to be essentially understood that India is like a sum of many different regions, cultures and mindsets having their own lovable traditions and humour too. So a joke which might work in Bengal or Tamilnadu, may fall completely flat in MP, UP, Delhi or Punjab and the other parts of the country in all possibilities.Therefore an almost scene to scene remake with just the translations made is not the right procedure to be followed and the director has to re-write the original script with all the major changes required keeping in mind his exact target audience and its key region. Unfortunately in his latest comic venture, veteran director Satish Kaushiksimply ignores and skips this most important step of making a remake and thus fails hugely in his attempt to deliver an enjoyable entertainer to the viewers. Moreover even the changes made to convert it in a Mumbai kind of film also prove to be a big downer, resulting in a quite weak product as per director's own set standards in the past. An official remake of Bengali hit BHOOTER BHABISHYAT (2012) directed by Anik Dutta, the film is supposedly a horror comedy which is neither spooky nor comic with almost 'none' entertaining moments in its 2 hours of badly written stuff performed by many known names.It begins well but then takes too much time to come to the point (almost 20-25 minutes), before introducing the entire cast. Its basic plot talking about a joint home for a group of ghosts coming from various regions and time periods is surely interesting enough with a great potential to exploit. But the poor writing simply ruins everything and the silly adaptation even becomes unbearable in its second hour with too many forced in sequences and below average songs. Moreover the climax unimpressively tries to bring in the satire element too in vain, pointing towards the construction mafia operating in the major cities.In the performance section, the entire cast ensemble including names such as Anupam Kher, Saurabh Shukla, Jackie Shroff, Chunkey Pandey, Yashpal Sharma, Rajpal Yadav, Rajesh Khattar, J. Brandon Hill, Vijay Verma and Meera Chopra utterly fail to deliver any kind of enjoyable act and the only two actors who do manage to leave some kind of impact remain Parambrata Chatterjee (also there in the original too) and Sharman Joshi. Taking about its comedy, the single joke which actually works comes from the veteran Asrani saying, "Main To Gareeb Aadmi Hun" in a hilariously helpless mode repeatedly. Mahie Gill tries hard to generate some laughter with her old time dialogue delivery style but she strangely gets only a few scenes in the film, contrary to what was being promoted in its promotional campaign. The camera-work doesn't add anything special in the film's mediocre treatment and the same can be said about its background score or art direction too coming up with nothing above the routine.In all, this is a perfect example of how poor writing can make a complete mess of a fine, novel plot and also a film which clearly indicates that a remake should not be made just as a mere translation of the original taking the easy path (& avoiding all the re-working required essentially). On a concluding note, only a few weeks before we saw TOTAL SIYAPAA being rejected due to the same mistake made and now its GANG OF GHOSTS also strongly proving the point once again.

A haunted mansion in Mumbai is to be demolished making way for a glitzy shopping mall. The gang of harmless Ghosts of different eras and social spheres residing in this house are to be dislocated.A late zamindar is the boss of the house residing with a British Lord of the East India Company era, a yesteryear actress, a spoilt rich girl, an unhappy rock musician, a Bengalee and a cab driver. These ghosts decide to fight their own battle against rampant development and win it.A remake of the commercially successful Bengali film Bhooter Bhabishyat, Gang of Ghosts comes up as mish-mashed comedy with sub-plots and undesirable buffoonery.The grand old mansions and mills of South Mumbai are being razed to the ground to make way for swanky condominiums, malls and Multiplexes.Some of these dilapidated disputed buildings were haunted by Ghosts who had taken shelter there over centuries. They were evicted and are homeless today. There is no rehabilitation package on offer. Politicians, media, intellectuals, civic society- no one gives a dam to them. After all, Ghosts can't vote.Royal Mansion is one such heritage property which is rented out for film shoots to facilitate its maintenance. A heroine faints during a shooting allegedly sighting Ghost in a mirror. A filmmaker on a reconnaissance trip to the building gets to hear of a spooky story revolving around the house.It is a pity that even the experienced actors like the buck-toothed Anupam Kher and Rajpal Yadav appear to enact their parts with seemingly no involvement, just taking it easy as walking around in a garden or a mall.Saurabh Shukla, Parambrata Chaterjee (of Kahaani fame) and Yashpal Sharma appear as a bunch of loitering jokers without any sense of direction.To top this all, there is Jackie Shroff with his Bombaiya style taporigiri which doesn't amuse at all.

I'll have the honor of the first review. This is bad news. The good news is that is just over two hours--it could have been worse.Acting: Why give poor Anupam Kher those weird teeth? To embarrass him? And, as usual, the British actor cannot act (I see he has been in a number of Hindi movies; isn't it time to take acting lessons?). As always, I find this astounding: A nation (UK) filled with outstanding actors, and yet Indian directors can't find any of them. Hopeless. All of the actors shout their lines throughout the movie. Why? It's just annoying.There are three women in the cast, and I'm sure they might be appealing in another movie, but here they are just wasted. Despite what the song said, they are definitely not "hot". It's not necessarily their fault, they just don't get a chance with all the characters.The whole first half of the movie is taken up by introducing all the ghosts. There is no time to develop an interesting story for ANY of them because there are so many, and it just becomes disjointed, repetitious, and boring. Is this a comedy? Drama? What? And because there are so many, you don't care about any of them--which is key to any movie. You have to cheer for some character. This movie doesn't give you the chance.The second half introduces the plot, weak as it is. A developer wants to buy the mansion and build a high rise, dispossessing the ghosts. They have to scare him off to keep their mansion. But it's not by some ghostly activity, which might have had some interest. It's by the traditional bribes, threats, etc. We've seen all this before, except done much better.But the main problem is the story, or lack of a story. There's nothing to hold your attention. There are no surprises, there is no tension. Sorry, this is just bad.