Das Ka Dhamki Review

Everything I could tell you about Vishwak Sen's directorial style is conveyed in this one scene in Das Ka Dhamki. Sen (who also wrote it, co-produced it, and acted as the lead) plays Krishna Das, a waiter at a 5-star hotel who is frustrated by the disrespect he gets from guests. To vent, he pretends to be rich for a day, setting off a domino of misadventures, one of which finds him face-to-face with a gang of rowdies in a narrow alley. As Krishna contemplates his escape, a wedding procession blocks his exit route from behind. With there being no use of running, he grabs an elderly man's cane and gets to work. Dust rises from the thrashing and rose petals rain down from the baaraat in a visually arresting shot; Vishwak's love for stark contrasts is instantly obvious.

While odd pairings work in small doses - as in this particular rose-fight scene - Sen takes it to the extreme with the Dhamki's overall plot, giving us two completely different movies. The first is a pleasant rom-com that follows Krishna and his friends' shenanigans, and the second, a dark drama, features an evil doctor who fakes cancer cures for a 10,000-crore deal. The post-interval drop-off in the vibes is palpable - the story that has been cruising along effortlessly pulls a hard left and accelerates off a cliff.

The only pieces worth salvaging from this wreckage are its small moments of authenticity - the funny banter between Krishna and his best friends (Hyper Aadi and Mahesh Achanta); a karaoke scene where Krishna brays "monna kanipinchavu" to a tittering audience; a scene where Krishna and his drunken date, Keerthi (Nivetha Pethuraj), nearly kiss in an empty elevator. These scenes and Leon James's breezy, hummable songs almost make up for the first half's socially backward bits like when Keerthi says "are you ...'that'?" rather than "are you gay?" or when Krishna's friends encourage him to be rapey towards a passed-out Keerthi (it is as if #MeToo never happened!). Almost.

Apparent in the way that Vishwak brings every ounce of his natural charisma to bear, is how Dhamki is more than a pet project - it's his ride-or-die movie. (I hear he mortgaged his house to fund it. *tsk tsk*). His stamp is all over it. The title itself is an indulgent reference to Vishwak's directorial debut, Falaknuma Das (less so a reference to Krishna Das), and to Sen's moniker "Mass ka Das".

The first half plays up Vishwak's strengths as a spontaneous actor with a flair for comedy. But in the second, where he plays Krishna's evil lookalike Sanjay, he looks incongruent. It is painful to watch Sen froth at the mouth and act like a psycho. Nivetha Pethuraj gives a poorly-calibrated performance, at times too playful and at times too intense. But that might be more due to poor direction, as the same uneven performances are seen in the other cast members as well - even in that of the usually impeccable Rao Ramesh (who plays Sanjay's uncle). Hyper Aadi and Mahesh Achanta's comic timings, however, are immune to tampering, and they're responsible for - don't check my math - at least 87.6% of the movie's good bits.

Das Ka Dhamki feels more like a failure to show restraint than a failure of imagination. Like an attempt to capture every emotion and genre in a weakly-scaffolded script. What should have remained a jolly caper about mistaken identity turns into a dark story about cancer research. And what should have been an endearing movie, mutates into an overgrown mess of convoluted plotlines and forced drama that ultimately devours it.