Dhool

Movie Name: Dhool
Cast: Vikram , Jyothika , Reema Sen , Shayaji Shinde , Vivek
Music: Vidyasagar
Direction: Dharani
Rating: 2.5 / 5.0

With Dhool, director Dharani stakes his claim to be the director of the masses, a crown that has for a long time been worn by K.S.Ravikumar. As in his previous hit Dhill, he takes the story of a common mangoing up against someone with power and authority and serves it up with music, fights, comedy and glamour in well-balancedproportions. The result is a hugely entertaining movie that never slows down to let you think and instead, forces you to go with theflow and enjoy the ride.

Arumugam(Vikram), an illiterate villager, travels to the city to meet with minister Kaalaipandi(Shayaji Shinde), who is fromhis constituency. The lake in his village is being polluted by effluents from a factory and he hopes to convince the minister toclose down the factory. Accompanying Arumugam are Eeswari(Jyothika) and her grandmother. Arumugam succeeds in submitting his petition but soon learns that the minister is a wolf in sheep's clothing who is in cahoots with a local rowdy Sornakka and her gang of hoodlums. So, Arumugam becomes determined to unmask him.

Dharani has well understood the importance of presenting a protagonist whom the viewer is able to identify with and that the easiestway to achieve is to have the hero square off with someone in power. Here the issue of the polluted lake water is just the means to set this kind of a conflict up. The issue is then pushed to the backburner while Vikram clashes with Shayaji Shinde, Sornakka and her gang. This is done with a nice mix of both brain and brawn and while the end result is predictable, the way Vikram achieves it is not always so. His acts to bring disrepute to the minister and turn the villains against one another contain some nice, interesting touches that manage to be surprising. The end, which has Vikram achieve his objective without ending up in trouble with the police, shows that Dharani has putsome thought into the movie inspite of it being a 'masala' film.

The movie is successful in setting a blistering pace right from the word 'go' and never letting it lag. Showdowns with villains, comedy,romance with two heroines and rousing stunts are all thrown at us in quick succession and we are never given a chance to come up for air. There are no sentiments to slow down the pace and the songs are suitably fast-paced too. This is not to say that all the sequences are uniformly successful. There are times when the comedy falls flat and the proceedings are in danger of being a little too vulgar. But the movie's success lies in keeping things moving at a fast clip and never getting bogged down.

The movie offers everything required for a 'masala' flick and does them successfully too. The showdowns between Vikram and the goondasare picturised in a rousing manner and the subsequent stunt sequences live up to the build up. And the fight sequences have enoughvariety to never seem overdone. The fight with the song sung by the old woman in the background is an especially nice touch. The comedyis successful in making us laugh with the entire 'zodiac sign' sequence being the pick of the lot. The lines during this sequence areextremely clever and funny with everyone, including the grandmother, getting their fair share of chucklers. Romance takes a backseatbut the playful encounters between Vikram and Jyothika are quite cute.

Vikram fits the role well, romancing, dancing and fighting with gusto. Jyothika, appearing in a noticeable movie after quite a while, proves shehas not lost touch with her acting. The role provides enough scope for her expressive face. Reema Sen appears in a role more suited forMumtaj with seducing Vikram in skimpy clothes being her only agenda. Shayaji Shinde plays the role well, bringing forth the requiredfalse sincerity. The Telugu actress playing Sornakka does well. Vidyasagar seems to have mastered the art of composing fast-paced,duppanguthu songs that don't sound low-class. The title song is the best of the lot while Aasai Aasai... is the only numberto go anywhere close to melody. Gundu Penne... sounds good after a few listenings while Madura Veeran... has some nicelyrics fitting well with the fight sequence.