Bhotbhoti

Bhotbhoti portrays the journey of the protagonist, Bhotbhoti (played by Rishav Basu), a resident of a slum near the Ganges. Brought up by his grandmother after losing his parents at a tender age, Bhotbhoti is influenced by his granny’s fairy tales about underwater life. He firmly believes in the existence of mermaids and spends hours underwater looking for one. He grabs every opportunity to escape into his imaginary world. One day, he rescues Rita Mahato from drowning in the river. His downfall starts from that day, as he tries to save the damsel in distress from her own demons and gets dragged into terrorist activities.
Director Tathagata Mukherjee tries to paint the image of a world on the brink of destruction and tries to capture the simplicity and beauty of mundane slum life. Swinging between a romantic fantasy-themed and violent storyline, the film fails to connect the dots in several places. Due to the lack of a proper theme, the narrative is difficult to connect to. Moreover, there is an excess of poor acting, cringe-worthy romantic moments and no scope of character development arcs.
The plot revolves around a combination of unrealistic and laughable fight sequences, pointless dialogues and weak representation of cut scenes. Many questions are left unanswered and the plot has holes galore. Neither does the history of the revolution make sense nor the reason why an elderly couple would take in a newly-wed couple on the run and confront the law with a shotgun.
Bhotbhoti's overly expressive nature seems illogical at several points in the film. Bibriti, however, managed to express a lot through her eyes. The characters of Dipankar De, Anirban and Mamata Shankar could have added more meaning to the main plot, but are mostly neglected.
The film, however, is a visual treat and has some memorable shots, including underwater swimming scenes, flashbacks and nice visual effects.
A one-time watch at the most.

— Tiyasha Naskar