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Even though it is purely coincidental, the chances of MhCU’s new film Thamma getting compared to the Malayalam blockbuster Lokah are extremely high, as the core theme here has this idea of transporting folklore concepts to the modern world. While Lokah is a movie that has a relatively intense backdrop, Maddock’s universe is built around the comedic aspect, and hence, the treatment is more aligned towards achieving that sort of result. With only sporadic moments of comedic high and a generic Story arc, Thamma is not really harming this universe, but it isn’t adding anything or creatively pushing the franchise forward.
Alok is a struggling journalist whose efforts to get some traction by creating fake horror stories got him trolled online. To get away from all the insults, he decided to go for a trek with his friends, and there he was attacked by a bear. A girl named Tadaka helps him in that situation, and what we see here is the changes that happen in Alok’s life after this meeting.
As I said, getting Lokah out of your mind is quite difficult when watching Thamma. Be it the need for blood or the scene where Alok discovers who Tadaka is, you would find a certain similarity in how scenes are structured. But writer Niren Bhatt, who is almost like a show-runner for the movies of this franchise, is trying to make sure that the soul of the Stree universe is maintained in bits and pieces. The woman-empowering political subtext of the first Stree movie is something that the films in this franchise have been reducing with each new one. In Thamma, there is an effort to look at the whole of humanity as the only species that kills each other, and the backstory that Tadaka gives about the day Betaals decided not to take the blood of humans was almost in that social commentary space of the franchise.
The USP of the movies of this universe was the lighter side of things, and the only enjoyable bits in Thamma are the incorporation of dialogue humor. There was this really small yet funny moment in the film where Jana looks at Alok and calls him Bittu, the character played by Ayushmann’s brother Aparshakti Khurana in Stree. I don’t know whether the Dracula, Wolverine dialogues were made on the spot, looking at the fake feel of Varun Dhawan’s beard, but the self-awareness works there. But in many places, they seem to be including humor in that forceful way. The idea of Yakshasan knowing English because of his past is funny. But they push that idea far too much. The Paresh Rawal track is also built only for the sake of comedy. While some of it lands, as the Story progresses, you can realize that it is a segment that isn’t necessarily adding anything to the core plot.
Directed by Munjya fame Aditya Sarpotdar, the foreshadowing in Thamma is done in a very obvious way, and hence, there is no real surprise here. When I saw the trailer, I was hoping that the Yakshasan character would have a solid history that would shape the movie’s plot. Sadly, that didn’t happen. The first Stree movie actually demanded an item song, as what happens at the end of that song and the film’s overall theme shared an interesting equation. When it comes to Thamma, there are three such dance numbers, and they never looked integral to the plot. It’s like you started a franchise by creating a movie named Stree that was ultimately empathetic towards the title character, and now you are adding objectifying dance numbers to attract the audience. Raj and DK might be laughing in the corner. The visual effects are fairly okay, and in places where they have to show characters moving at high speed or making a parabolic jump, the dynamics feel odd.
Ayushmann Khurrana as Alok gets to do a role that we very much associate with him. The typical Ayushmann style was enough to carry the kind of humor the movie wanted to show. Rashmika Mandanna’s Tadaka is supposed to be the anchor character of this movie. While her amused expressions in most parts of the film worked in its favor, whenever she spoke Hindi, the accent really stood out. Initially, it was okay as her lines were really small. But towards the last quarter, when that character says longer sentences, it is very difficult to ignore that accent issue. The costume choices for her character are questionably sleazy. Paresh Rawal plays the part of the suspicious dad in his typical style. In my opinion, Nawazuddin Siddiqui was wasted as the main villain, as everything about that character felt unremarkable. And it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Yakshasan was more of a joker. Varun Dhawan makes a brief appearance with a fake beard as Bhaskar the Bhediya. Sathyaraj from Munjya and Abhishek Bannerjee from Stree are also there.
Looking at the upcoming slate of films in this universe, with two “Mahayudh” movies planned as the final films, one can already see that Dinesh Vijan is trying to do what Marvel is doing right now. I just hope he also takes time to understand why people are less concerned about what is happening in the MCU nowadays. While one can say that some of the movies in the MHCU weren’t that remarkable, Thamma clearly felt like they were setting up some sort of algorithm-driven script that would have this much humor, foreshadowing through dialogues, three-item songs, two action blocks, etc. The reason why Stree worked was not because of scale. It was the clever integration of a dramatic idea with a satirical spoofy treatment. If the script doesn’t have the juice to create that collective laughter, there is no point in scaling up.
Review By: Digitpatrox