Dhoomakethu has a fun time-loop premise, a game Sajin Gopu and some genuinely funny moments, but runs out of steam long before Kuttan can break free, proclaims Sreejy Sudhakaran.
IMAGE: Sajin Gopu and Nikhila Vimal in Dhoomakethu.
Key Points
- Dhoomakethu features a time-loop plot where the protagonist, Kuttan, relives his wedding day and is repeatedly murdered before his first night.
- Despite an intriguing premise and strong performances from Sajin Gopu and Nikhila Vimal, the repetitive narrative and average storytelling in the second half cause the film to lose momentum.
- The movie attempts social commentary on male chauvinism and harassment but struggles to integrate it effectively into the plot.
After turning a dog into a sports hero in Neymar, Sudhi Maddison returns with Dhoomakethu, a new comedy featuring a time-loop twist.
Movie buffs are already familiar with the concept thanks to Hollywood staples like Groundhog Day and Edge Of Tomorrow, or closer to home, films like Maanaadu, Bhool Chuk Maaf, and Malayalam cinema’s Sambhavam Adhyayam Onnu.
While Dhoomakethu reminds you of these films with its protagonist reliving the exact same day over and over, its ‘slasher’ twist actually owes a debt to the horror-comedy Happy Death Day (and its sequel, Happy Death Day 2U).
Time-Loop Hilarities
In fact, the movie winks directly at its inspiration when the villain wishes the protagonist, Kuttan (Sajin Gopu), a cheeky ‘Happy Death Day’ right before killing him.
It is not a spoiler, since Kuttan is firmly caught in an unfortunate loop where he relives the same day every time he dies. What is far more frustrating for him is that is his wedding day.
He is a desperate 36-year-old bachelor with a shady employment background who is marrying the beautiful Sharmila (Nikhila Vimal).
What makes his fate infinitely worse is that he is murdered right when his first night is about to begin by a mysterious intruder wearing a mask carved out of a plastic oil jar. Every time.
Dhoomakethu suggests that his troubles might be caused by a comet re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere after 3,000 years. Why it affects only him is never clearly explained.
In one scene, he tells his bestie Anti (Ganapathi S Poduval) that, for all they know, he might not be the only person stuck in a loop. That raises some intriguing possibilities.
If Kuttan’s loop resets every time he dies, how would it work for anyone else? And if their loops do not begin at the same moment, could that mean multiple timelines and parallel universes are being created?
Sadly for the science nerds, beyond that one dialogue, Dhoomakethu is not ambitious enough to go ballistic with what it pretends for a moment to set up. Instead, it smartly remains level-headed about its goals and uses its quirky plot to tell the fairly amusing, sorry tale of a guy who simply wants to get laid. With a woman who seemingly loves him unquestioningly, warts and all.
Live.Die.Repeat
Kuttan’s day always begins with him waking up alone in bed on the morning of his wedding. A housefly has drowned in his bedside tea, and a series of highly unfortunate incidents immediately kick off at both the house and the wedding venue.
His uncle quickly labels them inauspicious, especially since they involve injuries and even a sudden death. Kuttan still manages to get married, but just as he is about to finally get intimate with Sharmila, the killer strikes.
The day resets.
He experiences the same events, but with slight variations. The repetitive nature of the narrative occasionally brings a sense of expected tedium, considering most scenes are stuck in the exact same locations with the exact same people.
However, Kuttan’s evolving reactions and his desperate attempts to change things, or sometimes just letting them happen anyway, bring genuine hilarity to the proceedings.
It is not just the skewed time shenanigans bothering Kuttan. The movie also inserts a Vadakkunokkiyantram-style plot element, where he is forced to battle an inferiority complex regarding the woman he is about to marry.
Kuttan has to endure whispered jokes and taunts wondering how a dark-skinned man in his mid-30s bagged a fair girl like Sharmila.
We hear his family has hidden something crucial about his past from the bride. Meanwhile, gossiping aunts loudly wonder if the girl harbours some shameful history of her own that forced her to agree to this match.
While this is quite funny at first, mostly because we all know such folks exist in the real world, and because of Sajin Gopu’s perfect reactions, the time repetition means these colourist jokes completely run out of amusement value by the second loop.
What remains funnier is the unexpected ways Kuttan keeps meeting his maker (or not), thanks to a twist involving the killer, with the river sequence being the best of the lot.
The Mystery Deepens And Then Weakens
In the second half, there is a welcome change of scenery when Kuttan and Anti finally try to figure out who is killing him every night and how to stop it.
It necessitates a shift in locales, and I was genuinely glad about that, as it also meant Sharmila’s character gets properly fleshed out.
Unfortunately, Dhoomakethu jumps out of its repetitive rut straight into a place of average storytelling. The humour is inconsistent in this portion, even if it tries to include elements of social commentary and satirical digs regarding male chauvinism, cinema’s romanticisation of stalking and the constant shaming and harassment women face simply for existing.
The villain’s Azhakiya Ravanan-inspired backstory (even his name is a twist on Mammootty‘s character from the Kamal film) and a climax involving plenty of firecrackers and a ‘French Kiss’ do spruce up some of the lost momentum. But by then, you have already accepted the fact that Dhoomakethu ran out of fun and interesting material a few reels ago, and all that is working now are the fumes.
As for the performances, Sajin Gopu delivers an act we are already quite familiar with from his earlier light-hearted outings. Yet, even within that familiarity, it is a neat, enjoyable performance that holds the entire film together.
Nikhila Vimal is great fun to watch, and she thankfully gets far more to do in the second half. Though honestly, I wanted more of her direct involvement in the climax instead of just letting the boys have all the fun.
Ganapathi steals the show whenever his character gets dragged into Kuttan’s mess. Shine Tom Chacko is alright. The movie underutilises Siddharth Bharathan, who is basically just there to offer some light remarks in the second half.
‘Convincing Star’ Suresh Krishna keeps delivering funny voice cameos as Kuttan’s friend, calling him at the most inopportune moments.
Ultimately, Dhoomakethu has a fun premise and some good laughs laughs to keep the ride entertaining for a while, but the screenplay needed smarter writing and more humour to maintain its time-loop craziness in the second half.
Dhoomakethu Review Rediff Rating:
