Dhoomam Movie Review; A brilliant story spoiled by the average direction and screenplay
- REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI R
•Language: MALAYALAM
•Duration: 02 Hours 24 Minutes.
•Genre: Suspense Thriller.
•POSITIVES:
1: STORY
2: PERFORMANCE OF FAHADH FAASIL
3: THE SOCIAL MESSAGE IN THE FILM
4: SONGS AND BACKGROUND SCORE
5: CINEMATOGRAPHY
6: CLIMAX
•NEGATIVES:
1: The direction could have been better
2: The screenplay didn’t create a proper impact
3: Dramatic dialogues
4: Duration of the film
5: Felt lag at both the first and second half
6: Editing
•ONE WORD: A brilliant story spoiled by the average direction and screenplay.
•STORY IDEA:
The plot is set in Karnataka with the tale of the couple Avinash (Fahadh Faasil) and Diya (Aparna Balamurali). Avinash decides to resign from his profitable job at a cigarette company which leads them into deep grief. Regardless of establishing as the marketing lead of the company, chaired by Sid (Roshan Mathew),and prosperously executing countless campaigns that remarkably elevated the firm’s trade, Avinash’s guilty conscience outlets. He recognizes that even children are struck down with tobacco addiction and the corporation cheerfully wraps these ‘new’ buyers. This compels him to leave his job.
Grievously, Avinash’s difficulties mount after quitting his job. Avinash and Diya are subjugated by a stranger who infuses a time bomb in one of them and demands the couple to collect Rs.1 Crore in a certain amount of time. The time of the bomb can be kept ticking down only by smoking cigarettes. Avinash seeks help from Sid and his uncle Praveen (Vineeth) but they discarded and neglected him. Nevertheless the couple frames a plan to achieve the goal of obtaining the required cash for the company itself. As their scandalous progress unfurls, bad fortune bumps when Praveen is shot down and Sid is injured by a bullet. Being wrongly accused of these crimes, Avinash and Diya happen to be the prime targets of the police. The leftover part of the movie pays regard to their strenuous efforts to save themselves from this life-threatening dilemma.
•DETAIL REVIEW:
The film Dhoomam is written and directed by the Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar who is famous for his works like Lifeu Ishtene, U Turn and Lucia. The movie is produced by Vijay Kiragandur under the hit production company of Hombale Films. Dhoomam is distributed by AA Films and with a running time of 144 minutes the film is currently running in theatres with a U/A censor certificate.
The last two previous movies of Pawan Kumar were Lucia and U Turn which came in the Kannada language and I was stunned by seeing his way of filmmaking. Those two flicks made me explore more good Kannada movies and the name Pawan Kumar had given me hope that this man will do more gripping films in future. When the Hombale production company announced the film Dhoomam directed by Pawan Kumar in the Malayalam language with Fahadh Faasil I was having a lot of expectations but sadly I am disappointed. The plot of Dhoomam is something that I haven’t heard of or seen before, here the story penned by Pawan Kumar is the only thing which worked successfully. Unfortunately, the direction and screenplay failed to create an impact and I am still shocked and doubting whether Pawan Kumar had written the script and direction for Dhoomam.
To be honest the direction was totally average, an untold and hard-hitting subject was crammed in Dhoomam but the sluggish screenplay and poor direction had killed a good potential story. The way Pawan Kumar directed the movie was giving me a feeling of an inexperienced director, the spark which I got in ‘Lucia’ and ‘U Turn’ was not able to be seen in Dhoomam. From the very beginning, I felt something was missing in his direction and I couldn’t feel a proper gripping thrilling mood till the climax. The film begins with a good promising start and the movie was having the pattern of showing flashback scenes mixed with the present scene. So the narration should be strong enough to engage the viewers but here the transition of a scene from the present scenario to the various flashbacks was not keeping my viewing experience interesting. And the main reason for that is the ineffective screenplay, the scenes kept on moving but nothing gave a satisfying feeling.
In the film, the central character played by Fahadh Faasil takes a long journey to establish his life, so the first half was focusing on how Avinash becomes a Marketing Head of a big cigarette company. Those portions were ok and it was exciting to watch because the untold and hidden business tricks used by the cigarette companies were shown in an interesting way. How the cigarette companies do their business, how they are targeting their customers, how they are increasing their sales and how they are making profits was shocking to watch. It was something like an eye-opener and I was completely surprised and also scared. We all know that cigarettes are dangerous and cause cancer, yet people love to smoke and use them.
The director has cleverly shown in the film how this trend arises among people, especially youth and teenagers and how cigarette companies capture their customers. The marketing and business tactics used by cigarette companies can kill our future generation, says the director clearly and boldly. But the method he used to convey these facts through characters and situations didn’t rise to the right level and a sort of the mismatched atmosphere was felt while watching the film. The predictability in the screenplay was also making my viewing experience dull, what is going to happen next is also understandable. So, the mood of suspense and the ultimate twist which the director hid didn’t cheer me up fully.
In the film characters played by Fahadh Faasil and Aparna Balamurali go through very difficult situations and those scenes were supposed to engage and dominate us but the lack of impact in direction makes their combination scenes weak. Their character passes through the emotions of struggle, desperation, the willingness- not to give up their life and the eagerness to find the truth was never engaging in the film. The attachment between the lead characters went flat and the Fahadh Faasil-Aparna Balamurali combo didn’t work out well so the emotional scenes didn’t create a valid impression.
Many scenes were stretched unnecessarily and I was getting lag in both the first half and the second half. I will strongly say that the director failed to capture the emotions in the characters and personally I didn’t feel a connection with his way of direction. Only the climax portions impressed me, it was clean and clear and he executed the ending perfectly. The impact which was missing throughout the movie was felt in the last five minutes of the film. Another saddest part of Dhoomam is the dialogue because in many areas the dialogue said by the characters was too dramatic and filmy. Even the dialogues said by Fahadh Faasil felt artificial in many areas. So, the dialogues written by Pawan Kumar were also moderate and didn’t match correctly with the occurrences.
The duration of the movie was too long, I wondered why the editor Suresh Arumugam didn’t trim unwanted parts. The music and The background score tuned by Poornachandra Tejaswi was good. The song “Theeye Dhaahamo” was fitting accurately with the situation and the background tunes helped to maintain the mood accounting to the situation. The cinematography of Preetha Jayaraman looked nice, and many closeup frames of Fahadh Faasil were constructively captured to showcase his natural acting talents. Fahadh Faasil is well known for his natural way of acting and in Dhoomam also he shines brilliantly. Actually, he carried the movie on his shoulders and his screen presence helped me to sit and watch till the end. In the beginning, some of his dialogue delivery didn’t work out well, but when the movie tracked to the main plot he was back to his form. Personally, I felt Aparna Balamurali was a wrong choice to do the character of Diya. Her acting in many scenes felt artificial and the emotional scenes didn’t make any sort of impact. The combination scenes with Fahadh Faasil also didn’t go well, but she managed to do well in the climax portion. Roshan Mathew, Vineeth, Anu Mohan, Achyuth Kumar and Joy Mathew did justice to their respective supporting roles.
- CONCLUSION:
So, overall the film Dhoomam had given an average cinematic experience, it was having a good social message but the film had failed to create an impact because of the weak direction and screenplay. The story was strong enough to dominate anyone but the direction and screenplay went completely wrong, and I’ll say that a good untold story was spoiled by the unproductive execution of Pawan Kumar. Therefore, to conclude, I am disappointed by Dhoomam, and I will advise you to watch this film at your own risk. If you are a fan of Fahadh Faasil and if you like to watch a socially relevant film then you can make a try but it’s better to watch with fewer expectations.
•VERDICT: AVERAGE
•RATING: 2.5/5
- A REVIEW BY ARUNJYOTHI R
