Can it be called a story of ‘lovers-on-the-run’ if we don’t have an authority-defying couple at the heart of the drama, and if it only involves a minor lie on their part to secure a chicken curry dinner? Perhaps a question I’ll be mulling over for some time. However, the same cannot be my guarantee about the new Netflix film Dhoom Dhaam. Primarily, the microgenre of “lovers-on-the-run” deals with a couple who has left a trail of crime in their wake and is now on the run. They are conspicuously anti-establishment, raging outlaws, and eternally doomed. Dhoom Dhaam does not live up to the glory of this cinematic wonder. The couple is on the run but desperately waits for the police to turn up, only to discover their larger ploy. In Dhoom Dhaam, the drama that unfolds largely spans over a single night and a little part of the day. With such a constricted timeline, naturally, all eyes remain on the unraveling and the resolution of the central conflict.
The film follows a couple as they become targets of unidentified goons on the night of their wedding. Veer (Pratik Gandhi) and Koyal (Yami Gautam) are royally mismatched—almost to perfection—but have to stick together to survive. While Koyal is established as a benign maiden in the beginning, her mischievous, poison-spewing nature surfaces soon enough. For Veer, a sweet-talking animal doctor, becoming a witness to his wife’s unhinged nature is a greater trauma than that of getting thrown into a game of cat-and-mouse.
The men after them have only one motivation—finding out where the newlyweds have hidden ‘Charlie.’ The goons on the couple’s trail further have goons chasing after them. Turns out, what the mystery men call ‘Charlie’ is just a fancy Charlie Chaplin-shaped pen drive. As Koyal and Veer, all handcuffed, scan the entire city of Mumbai looking for ‘Charlie,’ romance starts brewing. As the couple ponders the possibility of turning to the police for help, they realize that the entire police force is in lockstep with the goons. The men make it clear soon enough that the longer the couple takes to bring them ‘Charlie,’ the closer their families will be pushed to the maws of death. The rest of the energy is devoted towards finding the missing bag that contains the missing pen drive. Handcuffed, they go door to door in search of the goody bag. This feels pretty pointless, as none of the encounters seem to add anything much to the narrative except for aimlessly wasting time to get to the point.
My main issue, however, remains with the words spoken by the characters. There is a point in the film where Veer tags along with Koyal, literally, and ends up at a club in search of the latter’s friend. Before they enter, Veer questions Koyal on the facade the entire family put up of being a traditional one to hook the groom. Koyal then lambasts him and bursts out with an angry tirade against the unfair treatment of women. It almost feels like the film was waiting for this moment to arrive to insert this preachy mumbo jumbo. Words this ill-timed have rarely been spoken. Clearly, it is an attempt at redemption for all the crass marriage jokes from earlier. Call me what you want, but I still fail to understand what is so pathbreaking and refreshing about a high-society woman lying about her secret hobbies and seemingly masculine traits to land a prospective husband. The trope of women cussing, riding a bike, and drag racing as a symbol of emancipation should officially be decried and declared done and dusted. The rule of thumb is if all these are the only traits of a powerful woman character, there’s bound to be a misogynistic jibe right around the corner. Such is the travesty of women written by men! Then again, ‘not all men.’The final act is nothing short of a mystery plucked straight from a CID episode.
Directed by Rishab Seth and produced by Aditya Dhar, Dhoom Dhaam feels like it belongs to the tradition of films that heavily borrow from Jab We Met but would never own up and cunningly try to evade getting questioned. Even if the decision is not conscious, any ‘oddball’ romance that has come after it is measured against the success of the enduring cult status of the Imtiaz Ali classic romance. For a couple-on-the-run film to work, it has to rely on a sketch of an interesting, even if brief, motley of characters. The timelessness of Jab We Met is partially a result of its memorable characters. This also points to the reason why Dhoom Dhaam will not stand the test of time. When the protagonists seem unconvincing and unoriginal, there is no way the supporting characters would add much to the otherwise stale platter. The film lures one in with a promising cast; the job is done by the two Prat(e)iks mainly. Once you enter, you realize you are as helpless as them. None of them are allowed to explore their instinctual sense of humor, the glimpse of which we find in their body of works. The way their forced jokes will leave you squirming is unreal. They become what they target with a satire, so it all comes full circle.
Dhoom Dhaam is a clear swing and a miss. I expected the romance to at least survive the chase, but the chemistry between the leads is a bore too. It takes too long to arrive at the unknotting of the mystery. The time it takes to get to the final act is the duration through which it remains under the false impression of letting the characters have a go at self-discovery. In the end, I was rooting for Pratik Gandhi to spill some goodness into the film. I waited and waited and waited for the moment to arrive.
