Dhoom Dhaam

An extroverted heroine with an inclination to cuss with abandon and the ability to talk nineteen (hundred) to the dozen. A docile hero, the exact opposite of her. And the pair caught up in chaos during the course of one night. This could well be the first hour of Jab We Met. But the dark and quiet galiyaan of Ratlam have given way to the cacophonic roads of Mumbai. The pair here — unlike Geet and Aditya in Imtiaz Ali’s romantic comedy for the ages — are married. This is Dhoom Dhaam. The title is a smart play on the festivities associated with a wedding. After all, ‘dhoom dhoom se shaadi karenge’ is as old as Bollywood itself. But in Dhoom Dhoom, now playing on Netflix, ‘dhoom dhaam’ alludes to the fireworks that follow. What can be more deadly than marriage? Well, a bride and groom on the run on their wedding night, pursued by a gang of goons who are convinced that the newly-married couple are in possession of a key piece of incriminating evidence. Except that they aren’t.

The shaadi goes off without a hitch. But the suhaag raat in a luxury hotel suite is rudely scuttled by armed goons. As the new bride hopes to get the marital union to a warm start, the uninvited guests knock on the door. What happens next is nothing like anything that the lady would have anticipated. Ahead of her is a night to remember and, just as much, a night to forget. The intruders demand to know where “Charlie” is. The groom, scared out of his wits, has no clue what the gun-waving men are talking about. They will not take “I don’t know” for an answer. The woman isn’t one to take anything lying down, least of all the shenanigans of the thugs or the many avowed frailties of her husband. All hell breaks loose. That is how Dhoom Dhaam, a rom-com caper out on Netflix, kicks off (of course, not before a quick prelude designed to set the tone for the rest of the film).

The new Valentine’s Day comedy, Dhoom Dhaam, covers a lot of ground. It’s an awkward romance about a couple set up via arranged marriage, a thriller about crooked law enforcement officials, and comedy set mostly over one night in Mumbai. Directed by Rishab Seth, the Hindi film has several twists and turns, most of which we can guess. The narrative follows a pretty standard formula of complete opposites thrown together in a relationship; in this case, it’s a quick wedding. Yami Gautam and Pratik Gandhi, playing roles we’ve seen them take on before, still manage to create a substantial chemistry in an entertaining manner.

A series of events and misadventures transpiring over the course of a night is a trope that Bollywood has used in many films. Some have been mystery thrillers and some situational comedies. Netflix’s new film Dhoom Dhaam falls in the latter category where a newly married couple - Prateek Gandhi and Yami Gautam- are on the run from alleged goons across Mumbai - both looking for a certain Charlie. Filmmaker Rishabh Seth merges chaos and comedy- again a tried and tested combination- and delivers a light breezy situation comedy that brings in the laughs and makes you enjoy the 108-minute-long film. Arranged marriages are scary and especially when you barely get to spend time with your partner before tying the knot. Yet scores of people willingly jump in only to be left surprised or disappointed by their partners. Koyal(Yami Gautam Dhar) and Veer (Pratik Gandhi) are one such couple. She pretends to be shy, he is actually shy and while the parents think they are a match made in heaven, they have a lot of revelations in store on their wedding night.

Hindi cinema can be middling in two ways. The first way is common — a movie settles for mediocrity despite a decent idea. The second way is not as common — a movie strives for mediocrity when the idea gets greedy. Dhoom Dhaam somehow manages to uphold both ways at once. It’s disappointing because it could’ve been better, but it’s also fine because it could’ve been worse. The one thing that’s undeniable, however, is the conveyor-belt nature of the modern streaming picture. Every time it threatens to be enjoyable, a peculiar factory-produced tone emerges. The story here is a romantic comedy: Mr. Chalk and Ms. Cheese have an arranged marriage only to belatedly discover their differences. They’re nothing like the eligible partners their families “advertised” them as. The more they learn about each other, the more complicated it becomes. Hidden faults jump out; either they’ll fall for each other or fall apart. The USP of Dhoom Dhaam is that this entire marital journey — which might take years or decades in the real world — is condensed into 24 chaotic hours featuring shady cops, possible gangsters, a masked robbery gone wrong, a mysterious package called Charlie, a horny dog, a kidnapped uncle, and a bunch of chases and escapes across Mumbai. In short, the cross-cultural romcom is accelerated by the black comedy.

It’s a far-from-humorous arranged match between Koyal (Yami Gautam) and Veer Poddar (Pratik Gandhi), both looking way past the inexperienced young, eligible bachelor girl or boy stage. It’s even more like an unfunny caricature when parents talk glowingly on their behalf, the ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ nodding like bovine. Veer is a ‘veterinarian’, the families can’t pronounce it as they grapple with ‘vegetarian’ and ‘veteran’. Laugh, guys. It’s followed by over-enthu families crowding ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ who get no chance to get to know each other until their wedding night. Director Rishab Seth’s scenes calibrated for chuckles, don’t work so far. Worse follows as writers Aarsh Vora, Aditya Dhar and Rishab Seth give awkwardness to the groom who fumbles with initiating first-night proceedings, like it’s the height of humour. He even apologises to Koyal for a packet of condoms in his pocket.

If you married ‘Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin’ with a zillion iterations of the odd-couple and lovers-on-the-run and heist movies, you would get Dhoom Dhaam, a film which borrows from all these elements, while straining every nerve to be novel. The trouble with skimming tropes is that your film, even with a fresh pairing, and despite a few flourishes, ends up more or less trope-y.