Series: Bhoot Purva
Cast: Baba Sehgal, Omkar Kapoor, Rishabh Chadha, Zoya Morani
Creator: Zeishan Quadri
Rating: 2.5
One of last year’s biggest Bollywood blockbuster Stree starring Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor brought the genre of horror-comedy to the fore and shattered quite a few box office records. Embarking on the bandwagon video streaming platform Zee5 original launched Bhoot Purva on May 7. The ten-part web series is produced by Friday to Friday Entertainment and directed by Zeishan Quadri of Gangs of Wasseypur fame. Starring Pyaar Ka Punchnama fame Omkar Kapoor, Zoa Morani, Rishabh Chadha, Baba Sehgal, Jayati Bhatia, Manu Rishi Chadha and many more the series is a damp squib and in terrible taste. The writing and the screenplay are pretty shoddy and do not live up to the expectations of coming from one of Bollywood’s finest writers.
Bhoot Purva is a story about Aarav (Rishabh Chadha), an orphaned collegian. He is in love with his classmate, Angelina (Zoa Morani) and tries to woo her with a fake bottle of poison, threatening in true Bollywood style, to kill himself if she doesn’t say yes to his proposal. However, due to a twist-in-the-tale caused by the blunder of Yamraj (played by Baba Sehgal), he dies after drinking the ‘fake’ poison.
The very funky, full of swag, rapper and social media addict Yamraj is supposed to take the life of another guy but takes away our young hero’s instead. However, to make amends, Yamraj decides to give one lifeline to Rishabh in order to get his life and his girl back. Purva (Omkar Kapoor) is that lifeline. He is a good-for-nothing ambitionless lad. Aarav now turned Bhoot (ghost) is in a limbo state and waits for Purva in his village for two years so that he can get the love of his life, Angelina, back. The series takes its name from the combination of the two protagonists’ name, Bhoot, and Purva that also means past tense in Hindi and this is probably the only witty and intelligent thing about the web series.
Moving on to a long lost village where Purva resides with his parents Jayati Bhatia and Manu Rishi Chadha, Purva is a hopeless brat who is accused of everything bad that happens in the village. The protagonist Purva is miffed with his own life and is ambitionless. Angelina hates Purva for being an unsuccessful person and for copying in exams way back in college. Amidst all the mess, Aarav gets into the body of Purva to woo his girlfriend.
Talking about the cast Omkar Kapoor is the saving grace of the rather not so romantic horror comedy; he tries his best to be as natural as possible and gets his humor quotient on point. Zoa Morani as Angelina is vulnerable as well as annoying at times. She fails miserably to boost up Bhoot Purva that has a damp screenplay and poor script. Baba Sehgal’s rap lacks the wit that he is well-known for although he tries his best to portray an uber-cool Yamraj and made us sail through the half an hour long episode. Rishabh is cute as the romantic boy next door and charms us with his innocence.
The dwarf track gives us some punch but soon becomes annoying in the forthcoming episodes. The only good part about the show is that every actor has tried their best to make the viewers laugh. There are some parts in the show that make you crack up, the chemistry between Purva and Bhoot is quite endearing. The dialogues are average with chaos, confusion, romance minus horror at the core. Bhoot Purva is indeed a onetime watch if you have nothing better to do. Give it a try (AT YOUR OWN RISK).
PEEPINGMOON GIVES BHOOT PURVA 2.5 MOONS
Source: PeepingMoon