Dagaalty Review
Star Cast : Santhanam, Rittika Sen, Yogi Babu
Director : Vijay Anand
Santhanam's Dagaalty is a template romantic comedy in which two strangers with contrast motive fall in love on an adventurous trip. We have seen a lot of films in this particular genre so there is nothing new and being a Santhanam film, we expect nothing but fun.
Guru (Santhanam) is a small time smart smuggler in Mumbai city, he loses the goods of a local gangster (Radha Ravi) and the gang is all set to murder him. A sudden spark hits and Guru who starts thinking about a way to escape. He finds a girl's photo and asks them why they have her pic here? They start showing interest and asks whether he knows about her! Guru sketches a plan and tells the gangsters that she is a girl from South India and he can bring her to Mumbai. As a rich businessman (Tarun Arora) wants this girl badly and has announced a 10 crore cash price to those who bring her to him, the gangsters allow Guru to leave to South India to find her.
Guru later finds that the girl's name is Malli (Rittika Sen) and she is an aspiring filmmaker from Tiruchendur. As Malli's parents are against her filmmaking dreams, she leaves home and coincidentally meets Guru who offers her a help saying that he can set a meet with Shah Rukh Khan's manager! In their trip to Mumbai, they fall in love but how do they handle the influential gangster and the lecherous rich man?
Santhanam is in fine form in comedy scenes but when it comes to romance and action, he has a long way to go. The combination scenes between Santhanam and Yogi Babu bring the roof down, they have brought back the Goundamani-Senthil charm, wish someone make a full-fledged comedy entertainer with them. Newbie Rittika Sen is partly cute and largely irritating, she has played the typical 'loosu ponnu' in the film. The problem with Dagaalty is the absence of high moments and non-stop laughter-inducing scenes like Santhanam's recent two films.
While the film moves at a leisure pace, the last twenty minutes stretch is fun although the concept of masking sounds downright silly. Technically, Vijay Narain's music is a big plus, the songs are catchy and the background score is adequate. Deepak Kumar Pathy has tried to give a glossy look and feel to the film while Suresh's editing tells that many unwanted scenes have been chopped off. The crisp runtime is another positive aspect of the film.
To conclude 'Dagaalty' is a below-average comedy.
